I submitted an article to Letters to the Editor, and it was
published on March 17. One of my main reasons for writing that
letter
”
yearning for a bygone era
”
was that it referred to a Letter to the Editor article written
by James E. Marino of Morgan Hill. I requested that his letter be
printed again, following my letter. It was not.
Editor,
I submitted an article to Letters to the Editor, and it was published on March 17. One of my main reasons for writing that letter “yearning for a bygone era” was that it referred to a Letter to the Editor article written by James E. Marino of Morgan Hill. I requested that his letter be printed again, following my letter. It was not.
This is my short summary of Mr. Marino’s letter: Tiny tribes of one, four, five, etc. members use a loophole in the Indian Gambling Regulatory Act to acquire land as a reservation on which to build a casino. These tribes can be made up of part Indian and even non-Indian investors, because under federal law it is up to the tribes to determine who is or isn’t a member. Under the court created doctrine of “tribal sovereign immunity” they are exempt from complying with zoning laws. They can use all public services, but cannot be taxed to pay for them. These would include fire and police protection, schools, hospitals, libraries, roads, sewer and water services and other infrastructure. They are above all laws that every other non-Indian business must abide by. Therefore, they often drive out local business, which cannot compete with such a privileged status. To get community support, they always promise jobs, but are not obligated to hire local workers. Recently tribes who promised local employment are “outsourcing” the jobs to foreign countries, bringing in students to work. The ironic twist is that these tribes make hundreds of millions of dollars from non-Indian gambling public and still receive millions in federal welfare and grant monies that are desperately needed by native Indians on vast reservations, living in conditions of deplorable poverty.
For your information, Mr. Marino’s letter was printed in the Free Lance on November 13-15, 2004 titled “Some info on Sovereign Immunity.” It ends with this sentence “If you want to inform your readers just what can result from
an Indian casino and other Indian businesses, give them the whole story”
Betty Jeanne Holt, Hollister
