Riverton may become a defendant in a tribal lawsuit regarding land jurisdiction.

The Riverton City Council voted Tuesday for Mayor John Vincent to intervene in the lawsuit brought against Fremont County and the state of Wyoming by the Northern Arapaho Tribe. Vincent said inclusion of the city as a defendant would allow city officials to have a say in the tribe’s challenge of taxation of tribal members living in Riverton.

In September, the tribe filed suit in a Cheyenne federal court to challenge taxation of tribal members on lands north of the Wind River. In the suit, the tribe contends that tribal members are being illegally taxed because the tribe has jurisdiction over the lands opened for non-Indian settlement in 1905.