Tonight Hollister residents will get their last chance to speak
up on the proposed Miwok casino before the San Benito County Board
of Supervisors lays its cards on the table.
Hollister – Tonight Hollister residents will get their last chance to speak up on the proposed Miwok casino before the San Benito County Board of Supervisors lays its cards on the table.
At 7pm, the board is holding what supervisors expect to be a very large public meeting in the Veterans building to hear locals’ opposition and support for the project. This will be the last public forum on the casino before the board votes on a resolution opposing the development on Feb. 22.
“Quite a few people have told me that they are going to be there (tonight),” said Supervisor Pat Loe, who was charged with drafting the resolution and who headed up a regional casino planning forum to gather information for the board.
There will be no set agenda or procedure for tonight’s meeting, she added.
“I assume that we’re just going to open it up to the public and listen to what they have to say,” she said.
The California Valley Miwok tribe has teamed up with investors from Game Won to build a casino on about 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. Project Manager Gary Ramos has said the tribe would eventually like to add on restaurants, a hotel and entertainment venues.
Gov. Schwarzenegger has said he will not support Indian gaming by tribes outside of their indigenous areas without overwhelming support from the locals. The California Valley Miwoks have not yet proven their ancestral ties to San Benito County, although they say they intend to.
“Obviously we don’t have final say. The investors could obviously go through with the project anyway,” Loe said of the possibility the supervisors decide to oppose the casino with a resolution.
But if the tribe can’t prove its roots in San Benito County, opposition from the board of supervisors would be a good indication to Schwarzenegger that the local support is not there, according to Vince Sollitto, a deputy press secretary for the governor.
The board won’t be drafting its resolution until after tonight’s meeting, according to Loe, so the high-rollers on either side will have one last chance to win over the supervisors – four out of five of whom publicly spoke out against the casino during a board meeting on Feb. 1. Supervisor Jamie De La Cruz was the only one stating he was still “right in the middle” on the issue.
Still, the supervisors’ personal opposition doesn’t necessarily mean all bets are off, according to Supervisor Anthony Botelho, who said the resolution could be drafted to reflect public sentiment if the support at tonight’s meeting is heavy.
“It would be wrong to say that there’s no chance of that. I think there’s always a chance that with the true public opinion, we may come up with a different conclusion,” he said.
The public meeting will be tonight at 7pm in the Hollister Veterans Building.
