The Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians has filed a lawsuit against Riverside County, alleging fraud and racial discrimination in what the tribe describes as a "government-engineered bait-and-switch" concerning access to the Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport in Thermal, California.
The tribe claims that after purchasing 612 acres of land adjacent to the airport for $12 million, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution in August 2025 that prohibits them from entering into a Through-the-Fence (TTF) agreement. A TTF agreement allows private property owners to taxi aircraft from their land onto an airport's runways.
According to the lawsuit, the tribe attempted to negotiate a TTF agreement with the county for over a year after acquiring the property. They proposed a three-party agreement involving the county, the tribe, and 29 Aviation LLC, a tribal charter company, for commercial access.
The lawsuit, filed Monday, states that the county's resolution, identified as Resolution No. 2025-230, was passed with "rushed notice" and does not comply with Federal Aviation Administration policies. The tribe asserts that the county has allowed other entities, such as the H.N. and Frances C. Berger Foundation, to establish TTF agreements at the airport, while denying the tribe the same opportunity.
"The result is a government-engineered bait-and-switch that strips the tribe of the access opportunity that justified the purchase, not to serve any FAA mandate, but to needlessly advantage incumbent airport tenants," the lawsuit reads.
The suit includes six counts: fraudulent inducement, regulatory taking, racial discrimination in contract, equal protection, substantive due process, and fraud violations. The tribe argues that the county discriminated against them in contracting, denied equal protection by treating them differently from a similarly situated private TTF user without a rational basis, and deprived them of substantive due process through arbitrary and irrational actions.
The tribe noted that the Berger Foundation's opposition to the proposed resolution prompted county staff to acknowledge its overbreadth. The lawsuit stated that the existing Berger TTF demonstrated that adjacent property access could be managed through negotiated restrictions, fee structures, and county control, and that the Berger Foundation's concerns put the county on notice that the proposed resolution was sweeping and threatened existing access rights, as well as the tribe's proposed FAA-compliant path.
The Twenty-Nine Palms Band is seeking the court to terminate the TTF resolution, return the $12 million purchase price, compensate for lost development value and regulatory taking, and cover attorney fees.