October 4, 2007
By Steve Magagnini, Sacramento Bee
Last spring, two police helicopters landed in a field outside the Thunder Valley Indian casino: the Placer County sheriff's Vietnam-era model and the CHP's state-of-the-art Eurocopter.
The choppers were met by Chief Jessica Tavares, chairwoman of the United Auburn Indian Community, and four tribal council members.
Sheriff Ed Bonner led Tavares over to the sleek, $3.8 million blue-and-gold Eurocopter. Turning on the charm, he made his pitch: "What would it take to put you behind the wheel of this baby?" he asked. "I'm going to ask you to buy us one just like it."
A crazy request? Not for Tavares, whose tribe runs one of the three most profitable casinos on earth, and annually gives away millions from casino profits estimated at $350 million to $400 million.
Tavares, who reads people like a poker champ, is among the new breed of Indian chiefs managing multimillion-dollar gambling empires transforming California's landscape. More than 3.5 million people a year -- about 10,000 daily -- drive through the fields near Lincoln to play Thunder Valley's 2,700 slots and other casino games.
The tribe's metamorphosis from poverty to philanthropy, from outcasts to angels, is due in large part to Tavares, 58, a high school dropout who became a world-class diplomat. "She's very eleganté," enthused Bonner, whose department already gets $1.2 million a year from the tribe.
Through her leadership, the 340-member nation has a spiffy new private school overlooking the American River in Auburn, 20 miles from the casino. They're building roads, homes and a sewage system.
They're planning a major expansion that includes a 650-room resort, a 3,000-seat performing arts center, more restaurants, slots and a poker room. This in a county that voted against casino gambling when state voters legalized it in 1998.
Tavares and her nation have won over county officials -- and residents -- by sharing the wealth and agreeing to abide by state and local land-use laws that other tribes ignore in the name of sovereignty. They have a local advisory board that includes the sheriff and the nation's toughest Indian gaming watchdog, Cheryl Schmit of Stand Up For California.
Schmit, who lives in Penryn, said, "No tribe feels they have to comply with CEQA (the California Environmental Quality Act) but this tribe included it in the local agreement, and they abide by it. If there's a dispute we go to arbitration or local district court -- something few tribes submit to."
Schmit is monitoring the proposed expansion. But, she said, "This tribe has integrity. Not all tribes are like this tribe -- if they were, Indian gaming would not be an issue in California."
Dennis Whittlesey, a national Indian law expert representing Placer County, said "In terms of cordiality, professionalism, good will and cooperativeness, the working relationship we've had with the tribe exceeds any negotiation I've ever been involved in."
The once-impoverished tribe now gives away more than $1 million a year to local organizations, including the Placer County Food Bank. "They used to give us food at Christmas," Tavares said.
The county projects its deal with the tribe will yield $121.4 million over the next 20 years.
To Tavares, the generosity makes sense.
"I may not be educated, but darn it, we have a business -- we needed to work with county officials if we needed to be successful," Tavares said. "I know some tribes have turned on us, but in the long run, who's getting screwed? It ain't me. A lot of them thank me for what we've done."
Howard Dickstein, the attorney who helped the United Auburn Indian Community in its casino efforts, described Tavares as a powerful guiding force.
"It took a lot of patience, perseverance and wisdom, compromising with local governments, reaching agreements with potential allies," Dickstein said. "Jessica Tavares is symbolic of all those qualities. Despite the fact that they were slapped in the face both locally and federally, they are incredibly generous."
The tribe's journey is a classic California Indian story. Fifteen years ago, it didn't even exist in the eyes of the federal government, which in the '50s and '60s decided to get out of the Indian business and "terminated" 41 California rancherias, or mini- reservations, including the Miwok and Maidu Auburn band.
Termination nearly killed the destitute tribe. Tavares and her family followed the crops, picking pears and grapes.
"From Day One I always remember being embarrassed in school when we were reading what the Indians had done," she said. "When I watched movies I used to be on the cowboys' side. My grandmother spoke Miwok but we weren't allowed to, because my grandfather said we were going to be raised in a white world."
She lived in a shack with her parents and six siblings, read by kerosene lamps and drank from a ditch until they got running water when she was 16. That's when she dropped out of school because of her clothes.
Tavares winces as she recalls the day she came to school in a green flower-print summer dress bought at a rummage sale, and one of her classmates shrieked, "My God, that's my dress!"
"I felt half an inch tall and swore it was mine for 10 minutes, then took the dress home and threw it away.
"I was so hungry and poor, the best thing to do was get married and pregnant so I could get a welfare check and buy some food," said Tavares. She bought milk and hamburger to go with beans, squirrel or jack rabbit.
The tribe was "terminated" in 1967. Each family was given a parcel of land. Most were forced to sell because they couldn't pay the property taxes. "My mom's went for $3,000," she said.
Alcohol sank several relationships. "The reservation was like a prison with no bars around it," she said. "For many years I'd sit on a hillside, stare at the road and say, 'One day I'm going to meet somebody and get the hell out of here.' "
At 30 she did, moving to Rocklin with Jack Tavares, an auto mechanic she met playing pool at Churchill's Pub in Newcastle. Af- ter Congress restored the tribe's federal status in 1994, authorizing it to acquire land for a reservation, Tavares got involved.
Some members wanted a coffee shop. She dreamed bigger. "We ain't got no money, we ain't got a pot to piss in, the only thing that's going to get us the money we need was a casino."
Tavares, her mother, brother and aunt piled into her Nissan Sentra and drove to Jackson Rancheria's casino. Chairwoman Margaret Dalton told them to see Dickstein. Then at Cache Creek Casino, Chairwoman Paula Lorenzo said the same thing.
Dickstein, called "The Godfather of California Indian Law," suggested other lawyers. Tavares said, "What the hell are you talking about? We want you to represent us." Dickstein signed on, Tavares said, "for many years without a dime, along with (PR man) Doug Elmets."
Tribal members kept asking Dickstein when the casino would open. "It took 10 years of 'soon,' " said Tavares, elected chairwoman of the reconstituted United Auburn Indian Community in 1996.
Then, the battle against the casino got ugly.
"This community hated us in the beginning, slandered us," Tavares said. At a hearing over a proposed casino, one opponent remarked, "I want to congratulate this tribe for increasing your numbers through intermarriage," Elmets said.
"The tribe's dignity and restraint was astonishing," Whittlesey said. "If the non-Indian population learned anything from that hearing, it was how to behave in public."
County Supervisor Robert Weygandt said some people hated the idea of gaming, especially if the tribe didn't have to follow local laws. "There were a couple of rough moments," he said. "But the tribe responded by saying, 'We've heard your concerns and we want to do the right thing for the community.' "
The tribe and county settled on 49 acres outside Lincoln. Other tribes accused Tavares of signing away her sovereignty, but Robert Smith, chairman of the Pala Band in northern San Diego County, praised the deal: "She took a shot on economic development and working with local government, and it paid off."
Thunder Valley Casino opened June 9, 2003. "The first day they got health care, dental care and vision care for the whole tribe," Elmets said. "There were many who hadn't seen a dentist in 50 years -- if you had six teeth you were rich."
Every adult took a mandatory 18-hour workshop on money management -- a critical skill for Indians coming into hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
Last Christmas, Tavares took 95 members to Disney World. That was to help her scattered tribe bond. At home, the tribe has built its $30 million school tohelp its children bond with a promising future.
Tavares glows as she and two of her many grandchildren tour the tribal school. Here, principal Carol Sharp came from Susan B. Anthony Elementary in Sacramento. Superintendent Roger Bordeaux is Sicangu Lakota.
Tavares stops at the desk of her 11-year-old granddaughter Little Dove "Dovey" Rey, and helps her with a culturally sensitive math problem: If Native American Olympian Jim Thorpe's long jump was 7.07 meters and a meter is 39.7 inches, how many feet and inches did he jump?
Dovey and classmates Deersting Suehead and Autumn Caesarwalker say they love the school "because we get a lot more attention here."
They start each day with tribal music, and there's an Indian dance class -- something Tavares wished she'd had. "And we think we've found someone to teach our language -- that's what we've wanted from Day One."
Granddaughter Letisha Prout, 16, loves the music and multimedia room run by Jack Kohler, a Yurok-Karuk Stanford grad.
"She's more than just a grandmother -- she was a foster parent for me," Prout said. "She takes in her grandchildren whenever she needs to. She helps me with life, what's out there for me and what I can do."
"I tell her: 'Be young, enjoy your life, don't have babies right away,' " Tavares says.
