Hollister – The Hollister Downtown Association announced its
opposition to a proposed Miwok casino near Hollister, citing its
board members’ belief that the casino would detract from businesses
in the historical downtown and cause the area’s economy to
suffer.
Hollister – The Hollister Downtown Association announced its opposition to a proposed Miwok casino near Hollister, citing its board members’ belief that the casino would detract from businesses in the historical downtown and cause the area’s economy to suffer.
“Our mission is to revitalize the downtown to become the social and economic hub of the community,” said HDA President Jeff Welch. “A casino out near the airport, in the opinion of the board members, is not congruent with that.”
Kelly Owczarzak, owner of Kelly’s Gift Place on the corner of Sixth and San Benito Streets, said she tends to support the HDA’s decision, though she’ll keep an open mind.
“I guess I probably don’t know enough about it (the casino) yet, but I don’t really see the benefit it would have for local businesses,” she said. “I mean, when I go to Vegas, I go to gamble, I don’t necessarily go to shop.”
The five-member California Valley Miwok tribe has teamed up with investors from Game Won to set up a resort and casino off Highway 156 on about 200 acres near the Hollister airport. The casino would eventually include a hotel, restaurants, and entertainment venues, and could be similar in size to Yolo County’s Cache Creek casino, which is over 74,000 square feet with 2,300 slot machines.
California Valley Miwok Project Manager Gary Ramos said Friday he and the project’s investors were disappointed the HDA did not wait until the casino camp had released its economic impact report before taking its stance against the project that he says would bring 2,000 jobs and throngs of tourists to the area. Both the San Benito County Board of Supervisors and the San Juan Bautista City Council recently took an anti-casino stance, prompting Ramos to say the those two groups’ decisions were also too hastily made.
“It’s just a half-hour presentation that the Downtown Association has made their decision on,” said Ramos, who spoke with the HDA in February. “Maybe once they get the economic impact report they’ll change their view.”
But Welch said Friday the half-hour presentation was all the HDA’s board needed to make an informed decision.
“We didn’t need to wait for an economic impact report, that wasn’t necessary. We had all the information we needed,” said Welch. “When they gave their presentation, they said to us, ‘We only wish the county supervisors had given us what you guys have given us, which is a half an hour, that’s all we ask.’ They told us the presentation they gave us in our February board meeting was their full presentation. Besides, any economic report put together by their people, in my opinion, would be questionable.”
On Friday, Ramos said he told the HDA about a plan that the investors were putting together to bus non-gaming casino patrons to downtown Hollister, where they would leave them for two hours to have lunch and shop.
“Our estimates were about 750-1,000 people a day that we would bring into the city by bus,” Ramos said. “Based on what we are looking at and the number of daily visitors, and especially those who come in on our busses during the day, we feel that around 30 percent of those are coming for a complete experience, in other words not just gaming. A lot of seniors enjoy coming in and doing other activities, so there would be a part of our program where we’d drop them off in downtown Hollister for at least two hours per day.”
Welch said he was not convinced, adding Ramos had mentioned the bus rides at the HDA’s February meeting but the board members thought it was a hollow promise.
“Their entire speech was full of ‘we’re looking at,’ ‘we’re considering,’ ‘we’ve thought about.’ There was nothing concrete whatsoever,” said Welch. “Those promises they made about the buses were not promises, they were innuendoes. Even if they did bring buses down here, we think the primary purpose of those buses would be picking people up downtown and bringing them back to the casino. So we did not buy into what they were saying on that issue at all.”
Several other elements of the group’s February presentation to the HDA also raised red flags with the board members, Welch said.
“When the casino people were giving their presentation, they were asked a direct question, and that was ‘Do you have a business plan put together?’ They said ‘Oh yeah, it’s iron-clad, we have it put together.’ But then they refused to let us see it,” said Welch. “One of the board members also asked who the investors were. One of them was at the meeting and came forward, but we wanted to know who all of them are. It’s kind of like when you’re voting for a politician. You want to know if these are upstanding citizens. But they wouldn’t tell us who the rest of the investors were.”
Ramos couldn’t be reached for further comment on the tribe’s business plan or Welch’s statements Friday.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has said he will not negotiate gaming compacts with tribes outside of their indigenous areas without overwhelming support from the locals. Because the Miwoks have not yet proven their ties to San Benito County, various groups like the HDA and the county board of supervisors are attempting to show the governor a lack of support for the casino by officially opposing it. Ramos and the investors are still in talks with the Hollister City Council, which has not yet taken an official stance one way or the other. Mayor Pauline Valdivia has appointed herself and Councilman Brad Pike to a subcommittee that will be meeting with the casino investors and local anti-casino group Casinos Represent A Poor Solution to investigate the pros and cons of a casino in Hollister.
While the tribe’s Washington D.C.-based lawyer has said he intends to prove the tribe has ancestral ties to San Benito County, the Miwoks and their investors have also begun to draw a growing crowd of local supporters who say they want the 2,000 union-wage job with benefits Ramos has promised.
Doug Emerson, the only member of the Hollister City Council who has taken a stance against the casino, said he was glad to hear that the HDA was opposing the project and supported its reasons.
“The more I read and look at other areas where casinos have been, the more I see there has been a drop in local business,” Emerson said. “I just can’t see people going to that casino and then coming into Hollister. But I can see people here, instead of doing something like going out to dinner in Hollister, going to the casino.”
Councilman Robert Scattini, who has not taken a stance, said he had been told of the HDA’s opposition Friday and would be taking it into consideration. Still, he said, he isn’t making any decisions any time soon.
“I think we have to put a lot of faith in our subcommittee, that they will come back and report to us,” he said. “I know there are a lot of people here who don’t want this casino, but then there are also a lot of people who do want it. So we have to give the casino people a chance to talk. That’s the democratic way to do it.”
Councilwoman Monica Johnson, who is on the council’s ad hoc economic committee along with Emerson, said the economic committee needed to look at ventures besides the casino that might hurt downtown businesses before slamming the casino.
“I think there’s a lot of things that are going to affect our downtown, and I think the casino’s one of them. But I think there are other things, like the Rancho San Benito development. We need to look at the long-term and not just the casino,” said Johnson.
Jessica Quandt covers politics for the Free Lance. Reach her at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or at jq*****@fr***********.com.
