There’s a latter-day cowboys-and-Indians dispute going on in Los Angeles. Some neighbors of the Autry National Center want to slow its expansion until they get assurances that it won’t gut the collection of the Southwest Museum of the American Indian, which it owns.

The Autry, named for singing cowboy Gene Autry, runs the Southwest in the Mount Washington neighborhood and the Museum of the American West in nearby Griffith Park. It took control of the Southwest in 2003, but that museum has been closed for repairs since 2006, with the exception of the museum store, which is open on weekends.

The Autry is planning a $96 million expansion and has raised $136 million in a $185 million campaign to cover the growth and to bolster its endowment. But a City Council panel voted to delay approval for four weeks and urged the Autry to provide binding assurance that the Southwest won’t be left as an afterthought to a more comprehensive Western museum at Griffith Park, to which many of the former’s artifacts might be moved.

Although Councilman Tony Cardenas said he supported a legal obligation by the Autry to maintain the Southwest on equal footing, he noted that the U.S. government broke many 19th-century treaties with Native Americans. But at least some Native Americans side with the Autry: “Take this into consideration from the Indian people themselves: that we are very supportive of this,” said Paula Starr, executive director of the Southern California Indian Center, a cultural and social service organization.

Read more at the Los Angeles Times.