By William M. Hatch - Lincoln News Messenger
Opposition to the Athens Road site of the United Auburn Indian Community’s (UAIC) proposed casino focuses on its nearness to homes, schools and churches – in addition to opponents’ animosity toward, and fear of, gambling.
However, conventional political opinion is saying it’s a “done deal.” The tribe is setting a uniquely high standard of voluntary compliance with local land-use policies. Without any apparent legal legs to stand on, - although opponents remain undeterred – they have not been successful at stopping the project’s course.
Unless opponents can come up with more than they have now the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs, the lead agency in the consortium of federal agencies which will approve the project, will issue a finding of no significant impact late this year – clearing the way for construction.
Harry Crabb, mayor of Roseville, said Monday the Roseville City Council unanimously opposed the location of the casino in the Sunset Industrial Area between Roseville, Rocklin and Lincoln. In so voting, he said, he was supporting the opinion of the community.
“Roseville and Placer County voted against Proposition 1A,” he said. The 1998 state initiative, which passed by a large margin, established state-tribal compacts for casinos.
“It (the casino) is so close to housed, schools and churches and it is in an industrial zone,” Crabb said, citing his reasons for opposing the project.
He said that although he like many Californians goes to Nevada occasionally to see the shows presented by the casinos, he is opposed to gambling.
The Roseville City Council, he added, would vote tonight on a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between itself, Rocklin and a Roseville law firm to continue pursuing what avenues of legal resistance to the casino might exist.
Placer County Supervisor Bill Santucci, who represents much of Roseville, said last week, “I am adamantly opposed to it (the casino). It sits right smack-dab in the middle of three cities – the most populated are in Placer County. It is within a mile of proposed schools at Twelve Bridges and within a mile and a half of current schools.”
Santucci was the lone vote on the board of supervisors opposing an MOU between Placer County and the UAIC.
“This county is 120 miles long,” he continues. “There ought to be a better location than that. But even in a proper location, I’m not nuts about it. I don’t want Nevada-style gaming in the county or the state.”
However, he said, “I joined this bandwagon because of the location. It (a casino) is a big draw – probably including a lot of school kids.”
Strangest and perhaps most difficult of all is the political position of Rep. John Doolittle, who sponsored the Act of Congress which restored federally recognized tribal status to the Auburn rancheria Miwok and Maidu band of Native Americans.
Two week ago he told the Press-Tribune he was opposed to the Sunset Industrial Area site of the casino but wasn’t opposed to it being somewhere in Placer County.
“It’s a dilemma. The way the law works, they (UAIC) have the right to build it. But it should be where it is least impactful,” he said.
“Nyack would be heaven,” the congressman, politically impacted by the controversy, added.
He also said when he sponsored the act to restore the tribe in 1994, “they pledged there would be no gaming. This is a total reversal.”
Jessica Tavares, UAIC tribal chairwoman today, “The promise (of no gaming) was made by another tribal council.”
She and her friends raised the issue of a casino before the act was passed, she said. Later, they won control of the tribal council and announced their intent to build a casino.
“Penryn was our first attempt,” she explained. “There were some artifacts – grinding rocks – on the site. It got turned into a monster by some of those Penryn people. We wouldn’t have put a casino beside a school.”
Howard Dickstein, UAIC attorney, addressed the issue of schools proposed near the site, saying that when the site proposal was done in 1997, there were no schools proposed under two miles from the casino.
“We did aerial maps. We knew every structure – school, house, church – everything. We intentionally sited it at least two miles from any school. We spent a whole lot of money on this. They could have stopped it by siting a school (at that time).”
Tavares’ position – despite an MOU with Placer County which is a recognized and entirely voluntary national model of responsible casino development – baffles and infuriates opponents because it involves tribal sovereignty. In law, Indian tribes in the United States have a sovereign status more like a state or a foreign nation than Placer County or Roseville. Among other rights this status gives tribes is the right – like U.S. Congress – for new leadership to change policy.
Yet, Celia Nunez, of Citizens for Safer Communities, asked, “Even if they have the right to decide how to use their reservation, do they have the right to impose their sovereignty on Roseville, Rocklin and Lincoln?”
Janine Lendl, president of the Tri-Cities Relocation Project, a nonprofit organization started 14 month ago to oppose the casino site, denies both tribal sovereignty and the charge she just doesn’t want it in her backyard.
“We don’t want it in anyone’s backyard unless they want it in their backyard,” she said. “Nyack wants it.”
The “heaven” of locating the casino in Nyack, mentioned by all the opponents of the Sunset Industrial Area site, is not under UAIC consideration.
“We’re not going to Nyack,” Tavares said. “We worked a long time with the county for this piece of property.”
Doug Elmets, UAIC’s public relations representative, said, “The first time we heard about Nyack was the night Stuart Wells (of Nyack) made a proposal to the Roseville city council the night they voted to oppose the casino. The irony was Wells handed out his proposal to opponent of the casino and the city council before the tribe was even aware of it.”
“The tribe has worked with local community groups plus the board of supervisors to identify the best sire for a project of this kind,” he continued. “The tribe has no intention of moving anywhere else but the Sunset Industrial Area. The tribe feels confident its efforts to mitigate the impacts of this casino will address concerns and the casino will be a boon to the local economy.”
“The opponents are elitists,” Elmets charged. “They don’t think there ought to be service jobs in South Placer County. They want real estate values to sky-rocket like in Silicon Valley. The reality is this project is located in an industrial zone next to the county landfill.”
Lendl’s choice of the word “relocation” adds weight to Elmets’ charge. Although many non-Native Americans may be unaware of the prejudicial nature of the word, tribal elders nationwide remember federal efforts –under presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson – to “relocate” Indians off tribal land throughout the country in the 1950s and 1960s in preparation for abolishing reservations and Indian sovereignty. Following a period of more or less open warfare in the early 1970s between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the American Indian, the government, exercising its sovereignty, slowly abandoned the relocation policy.
But Lendl and Nina Lempke, a member of Citizens for Safer Communities (CSC), object to gambling in their neighborhoods.
Lempke pointed out that 18-year olds will be permitted to gamble there.
“Gambling is addictive. It uses up discretionary funds,” she said, “and a 200,000 square-foot casino is easier to find than Lenny the Bookie. Besides, it’s not good land-use. It would deter further high0tech development in favor of minimum-wage service jobs.”
Lendl, who said the casino plan to serve alcohol, said, “A lot of people are going to ruin their lives because they will go to have fun and stay to lose their life saving – it’s a fact.”
To support her arguments she quoted a federal study on the impacts of gambling, citing rates of bankruptcy, embezzlement, suicide and teen and adult gambling addiction resulting from the availability of gaming establishments.
However Lt. Bill Hughes, Roseville Police Department spokesman, said, “Trying to establish the socially related crime from a casino is very difficult and hard to support. In my heart I know there will be some social impact from gaming. Could I empirically show it? It would be very difficult.”
Stephen Des Jardines, a local developer and the largest financial contributor to CSC, the largest group in oppositions to the casino, remained intransigent despite all obstacles.
“Choose your weapons – guns, money or lawyers,” the New Mexico native challenged casino backers.
Des Jardines has put his money into lawyers, mainly J. Scott Smith of the Roseville firm of Angelo, Kilday and Kilduff and Sacramento-based environmental law specialists, Remy and Moose.
Smith was vague about what “administrative challenges” are available to opponents of the casino, although a public comment period on the notice of preparation in the environmental assessment for the site done by UAIC remains open until September 21.
The challenge facing Smith and the Sacramento attorneys retained by CSC is to find a way – any way – to get the United Auburn Indian Community (UAIC) into court.
They refer to provision in the tribe/county MOU which commits the tribe to comply with county land-use policies as a “pseudo-environmental impact report.”
Tribal attorney Dickstein pointed out the tribe is under no legal duty to comply with any county land-use policies and, in fact, UAIC efforts to work with Placer County represent an example of unique neighborliness in the state.
No other tribe in the state has agreed to an environmental review process equal to that required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), Dickstein said. The UAIC has agreed to it but, under the terms of the tribal/county MOU, their environmental study will be reviewed by one official, the Placer County planning director, not – as is required under CEQA – the board of supervisors meeting in open session.
“We are doing it this way instead of submitting it to a political decision,” Dickstein said.
This provision in the MOU has frustrated opponents’ attorneys attempts to get the tribe’s environmental impact studies into court under CEQA. Forgotten is the fact the MOU was voluntary.
Supervisor Bob Weygandt, whose district includes the proposed casino site, said he didn’t think there were any schools with two miles of the site. He added he has been impressed by the UAIC’s good-faith efforts to work with the county.
“The tribe went so far as to suggest Doolittle introduce legislation to make this tribe comply with land-use planning in Placer County,” he said. “The bill was called HR 1805. It passed in the House but not in the Senate. Rocklin and Roseville supported HR 1805.”
Those interested in providing the BIA with their views of the casino should do so before September 21. The address is: 7800 Cottage Way, Sacramento, CA 95825.
Copyright © 2000 Lincoln News Messenger
