At 9:30 this morning, the San Benito County Board of Supervisors
plans to oppose a plan to bring an Indian casino to San Benito
County once and for all.
Hollister – At 9:30 this morning, the San Benito County Board of Supervisors plans to oppose a plan to bring an Indian casino to San Benito County once and for all.
The five-member board has prepared a resolution opposing the potential moral, traffic and criminal impacts they believe a casino could have on the community. The board will allow time for public comment before voting on the resolution this morning, but likely will approve it unanimously. Four of the five supervisors publicly announced their own opposition to the project after a public meeting on Feb. 15, and have said they intend to approve the resolution at today’s board meeting.
Only Dist. 5 Supervisor Jaime De La Cruz said he was still “right in the middle” with the whole issue last week, but said Monday he had made up his mind and would be voting in favor of the resolution Tuesday.
“I had thought about it a lot and had talked to a lot of people about it, but the thing that really swayed me was a conversation I had with (Gavilan College trustee and former judge) Tom Breen. He told me that he went to a meeting with the casino people and asked them, ‘You guys don’t have any experience in casino development and thus don’t have any idea how it could affect a small community.’ They told him ‘No, but we have a different business plan.’ But that’s just too much of an investment in our community,” De La Cruz said. “So I’ll be supporting the resolution, I’ll be opposing the casino.”
The five-member California Valley Miwok Tribe has hooked up with investment group Game Won in hopes of building a casino off Highway 156 across from the Hollister airport. The casino would eventually include a hotel and entertainment venues, and could be similar in size to Yolo County’s Cache Creek casino, which is more than 74,000 square feet with 2,200 slot machines.
Gov. Schwarzenegger has said he will not negotiate gaming compacts with tribes outside of their indigenous area without overwhelming local support, and since the Miwoks have yet to prove their ancestral ties to San Benito County, the board is hoping its resolution will send a strong message to Schwarzenegger that the support is not here.
On Friday, California Valley Miwok Project Manager Gary Ramos said the investors had given up on trying to win the supervisors’ blessing but would continue attempts to drum up support in the community with petitions and polls.
Among the casino’s proponents are residents who believe the casino would bring better jobs to an area riddled with unemployment. Ramos has promised 2,000 jobs for locals that would include union wages and benefits.
The supervisors have all admitted they are concerned with the local employment rate and would like to see more jobs come into Hollister, but each said a casino was not the best way to accomplish this.
“I hope that there’s one good thing that has come out of this, and that is that there’s a mandate. The mandate is that we need to provide better jobs for the people in our community,” De La Cruz said. “I hope it’s a wake-up call to the people in this community who are against it (the casino). I hope that now they know the supervisors are against it, they won’t go home and do nothing. They’ll look for ways to bring better jobs into Hollister.”
The board of supervisors’ meeting is today at 9:30am in the supervisors’ chambers at 481 Fourth Street in Hollister.
Jessica Quandt covers politics for the Free Lance. Reach her at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or at [email protected].
