Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

January 30, 2012

Gila River against Loop 202: Pangea corporation exposed!

Pangea Exposed!

The Pecos Landowners Association (PLA) has had longstanding ties to Pangea, but under a recent cloud of suspicion about business practices Pangea has used to get D6 landowners to sign away their lands for a 202 right of way, the PLA announced that they have broken ties with Pangea. A complaint was brought to D6 officals that Pangea went to the home of an elder with dementia, and acquired her signature on a contract authorizing Pangea to develop her lands for a 202 right of way.
The PLA and Pangea’s relationship has been under suspicion since its very beginning, not just from just GRAL202 but also from Community members who have received letters from Pangea they only have 30 days to sign a Pangea contract signing away their lands. When landowners need help understanding what that letter means to their land rights, the PLA is where they are directed. However, Community member Nathan Percharo was the PLA Chairman in 2011, when the 202 planning was almost all that the PLA worked on, and Percharo still provides consulting services to Pangea, as is stated on their website. Is that legal, for Percharo to be on Pangea’s payroll for consulting services, as he advises D6 landowners on zoning and land use issues?
Why is Pangea operating in the dark, and how did they become such a player in the issue, when we don’t know anything about them? Joey Perez is a Community member who says he owns Pangea, but he is not listed as the owner on the Pangea website. He is, however, listed as the owner of Initial Impressions, a casino marketing agency that has the same business address as Pangea. Initial Impressions boasts that they can “organize a covert invasion of a small or large country”. http://www.linkedin.com/pub/joseph-perez/19/3b2/42
Off Pangea's own website
Are those Pangea’s plans, to literally pave and bulldoze the way for yet another casino takeover in Gila River? When will our leadership move beyond casinos, and casino hotels to give us sustainable development and meaningful skills to pass down to our families? Joey Perez is from Blackwater, where he may not have learned much about the balance between Muhadag Do’ag and the Estrella mountain range in our west end. Do we want his money and power influencing the 202 issue? Do we Community members really believe we are just one casino away from solving all our economic problems?
We are a grassroots campaign against the freeway, and all of our flyers, pamphlets, zines etc are printed out of our own pockets, in black and white on plain paper, donated by Community members at times, other times paid for by us. We don’t have the money to do more than that. Where did the Pecos Landowners Association, a non-profit organization, get the money to print out full color handouts on thick cardstock? Those cost a lot of money. Where does the non-profit PLA get the money to offer rides to the polls on February 7th? Pangea has money.

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