California Valley Miwok Project Manager Gary Ramos said while
the tribe was
”
blind-sided
”
by the Board of Supervisors’ opposition to a proposed casino
Tuesday, he didn’t think it would hurt the Miwoks’ chances of
setting up shop in San Benito County.
Hollister – California Valley Miwok Project Manager Gary Ramos said while the tribe was “blind-sided” by the Board of Supervisors’ opposition to a proposed casino Tuesday, he didn’t think it would hurt the Miwoks’ chances of setting up shop in San Benito County.
“As far as we’re concerned, we feel that we have enough other support (aside from the board). We also believe that we’ll be able to answer the questions and address the concerns of locals. When we can get people to listen and use good judgment and get people to use some good common sense, that’s when this will happen,” Ramos said, adding the casino would bring jobs to San Benito County and help pump dollars back into its ailing budget.
The California Valley Miwok tribe has teamed up with investors from Game Won in hopes of building a casino on 200 acres off San Felipe road across from the Hollister Airport. The casino could be similar in size to Yolo County’s Cache Creek casino, which is 66,000 square feet with 1,762 slot machines. Eventually, the project manager has said, the casino would include a hotel, restaurants, and entertainment venues.
Ramos said the Miwok tribe still plans to prove it has ancestral ties to San Benito County. If the tribe is able to prove its local roots, it could have 200-plus acres off San Felipe Road put into trust making it eligible for gaming. Then Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would be legally required to negotiate a gaming compact, according to Vince Sollitto, a deputy press secretary with the governor’s office. But if the land isn’t put in trust, it’s up to the governor what he’s going to do, and he says that’s up to the locals.
California Valley Miwok Spokeswoman Nicole Ratcliff said yesterday the tribe’s chairwoman would be submitting an op-ed letter to local newspapers later this week addressing the issue of the Miwoks’ history in the area and the belief among many locals that the tribe is “reservation shopping.”
Supervisor Pat Loe, who had spearheaded a regional casino planning forum on behalf of the board, said her stance against the casino is based on financial consideration for the tribe. Loe said she didn’t want to lead investors on.
“I think it’s important that we go on record saying how we feel,” Loe said Wednesday. “They can certainly go forward with the project and what they’re doing, but I just don’t feel it’s fair to the developers and investors for them to spend all this money without knowing how we feel, especially if it’s a negative view.”
Schwarzenegger has said he will only negotiate gaming compacts with tribes in their indigenous area. If a tribe isn’t indigenous, he says, the only way to get a compact is with overwhelming local support. Because the five-member California Valley Miwok tribe has yet to prove its ancestral roots in San Benito County, a resolution opposing the casino signed by the board of supervisors would be an indication the support is not there, according to Sollitto.
Board Chairman Reb Monaco said yesterday the supervisors’ decision should not have come as a shock to the tribe and its investors.
“I don’t think it was really out of the blue. I think all of us (supervisors) individually had enough time to talk to the developers and listen to the constituents, and the majority of people who have talked to me are opposed to this, I would say at about 70 percent, and we’re servants to the public,” Monaco said.
Dist. 1 Supervisor Don Marcus, who also owns a private building company, said, like Loe, he believes a definitive lack of support from the board would save the tribe and its developers money.
“I felt it important that we come to a firm resolution from the board level not to lead the developers down the wrong path,” Marcus said. “I felt there was enough time for them (the tribe and its investors) to be very specific in what their plans were, and the details were not there. I feel it would be unfair to their planning process that we would let them carry on any further.”
Ramos said yesterday the board should have addressed that concern to the tribe and its investors before voting to draft a resolution.
“I appreciate that they have the concern, but I probably would have liked to have the opportunity to have a meeting with them where we could have sat down and listened to their concerns and we could have had an opportunity to present our side,” Ramos said. “We’re talking about a casino that’s two and a half or three years from now, so we’ve got time, we’re early in the process.”
Today, the tribe is running an advertisement in the local media urging the public not to be swayed by the board’s opposition to the casino, saying the supervisors failed to follow an extensive research process they had agreed upon with the tribe.
When contacted Wednesday, none of the five supervisors recalled ever making such an agreement with the tribe. Still, Ramos insisted, an agreement was made that the board would hold off any decisions until the tribe had issued all of the pertinent information, like an economic impact report currently in the works.
“I certainly don’t recall that,” Monaco said. “The only thing that we agreed as supervisors is that we sent Pat Loe to look at some regional solutions and she’s done an outstanding job with that.”
The agenda for Tuesday’s board meeting had called for Loe and Marcus to report back their findings from the regional planning forum and lead the board in a discussion.
“Pat Loe went to the regional meeting and she was going to provide a report back to the board,” explained Dist. 5 Supervisor Jaime De La Cruz. “It was just meant for her to tell the board what she’d learned, but it took on a life of its own and somehow the consensus ended up being that we wanted to put together a resolution.”
The vote for Loe to put together a resolution came after four of the five supervisors sounded off on their opposition to the casino during the discussion. De La Cruz was the sole supervisor who said he had yet to take a stance on the casino, but he still voted to draft the resolution.
The board will vote on the resolution at its next regular meeting on Feb. 22. A final public meeting will be held Feb. 15 at 7pm in the Veterans Building to gather last-minute input from locals.
Jessica Quandt covers politics for the Free Lance. Reach her at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or at jq*****@fr***********.com.
