EUREKA -- The Board of Supervisors Tuesday voted to support the inclusion of the Hoopa Valley Tribe into a joint powers authority responsible for helping to allocate transportation dollars, a move that directly contradicts the vote of its own representative to that authority.

The Humboldt County Association of Governments includes the cities of Arcata, Blue Lake, Eureka, Ferndale, Fortuna, Rio Dell, Trinidad and the county of Humboldt. The agency is largely responsible for state highway, local street and road improvements, public transportation resources and the roadside call box program.

The board at its meeting in December had a series of deadlocked votes on whether to include the Hoopa Tribe in its agency. Normally, tribes are not considered public agencies and are therefore not eligible to participate, but Hoopa was declared a public agency in the 1980s under a bill written by then Assemblyman Dan Hauser for the expressed purpose of allowing Hoopa to take part in HCAOG.

The tribe has been trying for 18 years to get onto the board, but the board deadlocked four to four with the county, Fortuna, Ferndale and Rio Dell voting against the tribe's inclusion. Eureka, Arcata, Trinidad and Blue Lake supported Hoopa's bid.

At the meeting Tuesday, the board took action to support Hoopa's request and to ask the board to consider the issue again at a future meeting, even though its HCAOG representative -- 2nd District Supervisor Roger Rodoni -- voted to oppose it. Their action was requested by Assemblywoman Patty Berg and State Sen. Wes Chesbro.

Rodoni was on jury duty Tuesday morning and did not attend the meeting. It's unclear if the board's request will lead to a change in his vote.

Tribal Chairman Clifford Lyle Marshall said the tribe is in all respects a government, and that it deserves to be on the authority's board, he said.

”The (deadlocked) vote is of concern because the Legislature has found us as a matter of law to have met all the requirements of membership,” he said.

Spencer Clifton, HCAOG's executive director, said his board doesn't doubt that Hoopa is eligible to serve on joint powers authorities by virtue of the law that was passed.

But the law does not give direction to the board to include the tribe, he said, nor would it have the authority to do so.

”If it was intended to create a seat on HCAOG, then it would have said that,” he said. “It doesn't clearly state that.”

The actual seat would have to come about as a result of amendments to the authority, he said.

Berg's field representative, Connie Stewart, said that Berg will not carry legislation making the Yurok Tribe a public authority this year, so concerns that including Hoopa would lead to all the tribes coming on board are premature.

”We'd like the Hoopa issue to be considered first,” she said.

The board will have to ratify its vote next week -- and take more public comment -- because its action Tuesday was more than was noticed to the public.

The law making Hoopa a public agency reads as follows:

”The Hoopa Valley Business Council, as the governing body of the Hoopa Valley Indian Tribe, may participate as a legislative body, pursuant to subdivision (b) of Section 65101 on the Humboldt County Association of Governments and for that purpose may enter into a joint powers agreement with the parties thereto and shall be deemed to be a public agency for purposes of Article 1 (commencing with Section 6500) of Chapter 5 of Division 7 of Title 1. The legislature finds and declares that the unique circumstances of Humboldt County necessitate this special law.”

In other business, the board also heard an updated budget report from County Administrative Officer Loretta Nickolaus and Phil Crandall, director of the Department of Health and Human Services.

She reiterated that the budget is better fiscal news than the county's had in a long time, but said that there is need for concern over cuts to the CalWorks program both in the current fiscal year and next year.

She said the county is already working to make sure the state understands the impacts of such cuts.

The board also voted to extend for another 14 days the state of emergency that followed a series of powerful New Year's storms that had caused millions of dollars in damage.