Yuba supers back
$90 million casino
Sac Bee Excloo
MARYSVILLE 7/09/02 (YSN) - Despite heated calls for a delay, the Yuba County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to support a Native American tribe's bid to build a $90 million casino-hotel near the existing Sacramento Valley Amphitheater.
The board's endorsement opens the way for the Butte County-based Enterprise Rancheria to request the US Bureau of Indian Affairs take in trust 40 acres the tribe wants to buy for the project.
The decision also starts a required federal environmental review process, said James E Cohen, an attorney with California Indian Legal Services, which represents the rancheria.
Board Chairman Al Amaro ordered members of a special subcommittee to meet with tribe officials to work out what business issues must be negotiated and to return with a proposed memorandum of understanding by July 23.
The casino-hotel would join the existing Bill Graham Productions concert facility and a planned motorplex in what supervisors have described as a long-range effort to develop the economically depressed south county area.
In a contentious three-hour meeting, supporters praised the project for its financial potential, claiming the it would create at least 1,000 new jobs and help alleviate chronic poverty by attracting other industry.
"Anything that brings money into Yuba County, I go for it," Olivehurst resident Hector Gomez summed up.
Opponents argued that any short-term financial gains would be lost to the social ills that seem to follow gambling.
Wherever gambling goes, "it always has negative effects" that seem to hurt the poor most, said John Lockhart, pastor of Olivehurst's First Assembly Church.
Money that once went for groceries inevitably goes to gambling, which means "the drain on the county will far outweigh what gambling brings in," Lockhart said.
Strongly opposed to the casino was Gene Crook, of Yuba City, who claimed to have worked in a card room for nine years. He told the board of seeing young mothers addicted to gambling sending heir hungry children away from the card table.
"I can't fight the moral issues. I'm here (to make) economic decisions," Supervisor Mary Jane Griego countered.
Yuba County voters allegedly made their support for gambling clear when they passed Measure R, the so-called "raceway and entertainment zone" ballot measure, by a n 86 percent margin in 1998, Supervisor Bill Simmons said.
Local support for gaming was confirmed again when they passed the statewide "Gambling on Tribal Lands" ballot measure - Proposition 1A - by 64 percent in 2000, Amaro said.
But this interpretation of what voters meant to say on Measure R, and the manner in which the board has so far handled the announcement of the casino-hotel project particularly rankled opponents.
Calling the casino-hotel "perhaps the defining issue for Yuba County in the last 20 years," attorney Sheldon Hadley castigated the board for allegedly hatching it in virtual secrecy and them trying to hustle it through.
There was no general public announcement of the $90 million project until the subcommittee on Native American affairs inserted it as an addendum to its regular agenda July 2.
Tuesday's issue whether the county would support the rancheria's BIA application also came up as a last minute addendum, with several irate speakers complaining about the late notice.
Yuba County voters thought they were voting for "a raceway, not a casino" when they passed Measure R -- and to say otherwise was "a complete twisting of what we voted for," attorney Sheldon Hadley, bitterly complained.
The supervisors balked at the allegations of secrecy and fast-tracking, and brushed aside a suggestion by Supervisor Hal Stocker that they "slow down" and study the proposal more closely.
Irked at the claims of secrecy, the late additions to the agenda were done only because of "perceived urgency" by the tribe, said Supervisor Bill Simmons, one of the two members of the Native America affairs committee.
As for the need for haste, Supervisor Don Scrader said, "The longer you wait, the more you lose."
Cohen said rancheria officials expect to file their BIA application within two weeks and have an answer, perhaps in six months. He said he felt the community's general mood toward the casino-hotel will be positive.
$90 million casino
Sac Bee Excloo
MARYSVILLE 7/09/02 (YSN) - Despite heated calls for a delay, the Yuba County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to support a Native American tribe's bid to build a $90 million casino-hotel near the existing Sacramento Valley Amphitheater.
The board's endorsement opens the way for the Butte County-based Enterprise Rancheria to request the US Bureau of Indian Affairs take in trust 40 acres the tribe wants to buy for the project.
The decision also starts a required federal environmental review process, said James E Cohen, an attorney with California Indian Legal Services, which represents the rancheria.
Board Chairman Al Amaro ordered members of a special subcommittee to meet with tribe officials to work out what business issues must be negotiated and to return with a proposed memorandum of understanding by July 23.
The casino-hotel would join the existing Bill Graham Productions concert facility and a planned motorplex in what supervisors have described as a long-range effort to develop the economically depressed south county area.
In a contentious three-hour meeting, supporters praised the project for its financial potential, claiming the it would create at least 1,000 new jobs and help alleviate chronic poverty by attracting other industry.
"Anything that brings money into Yuba County, I go for it," Olivehurst resident Hector Gomez summed up.
Opponents argued that any short-term financial gains would be lost to the social ills that seem to follow gambling.
Wherever gambling goes, "it always has negative effects" that seem to hurt the poor most, said John Lockhart, pastor of Olivehurst's First Assembly Church.
Money that once went for groceries inevitably goes to gambling, which means "the drain on the county will far outweigh what gambling brings in," Lockhart said.
Strongly opposed to the casino was Gene Crook, of Yuba City, who claimed to have worked in a card room for nine years. He told the board of seeing young mothers addicted to gambling sending heir hungry children away from the card table.
"I can't fight the moral issues. I'm here (to make) economic decisions," Supervisor Mary Jane Griego countered.
Yuba County voters allegedly made their support for gambling clear when they passed Measure R, the so-called "raceway and entertainment zone" ballot measure, by a n 86 percent margin in 1998, Supervisor Bill Simmons said.
Local support for gaming was confirmed again when they passed the statewide "Gambling on Tribal Lands" ballot measure - Proposition 1A - by 64 percent in 2000, Amaro said.
But this interpretation of what voters meant to say on Measure R, and the manner in which the board has so far handled the announcement of the casino-hotel project particularly rankled opponents.
Calling the casino-hotel "perhaps the defining issue for Yuba County in the last 20 years," attorney Sheldon Hadley castigated the board for allegedly hatching it in virtual secrecy and them trying to hustle it through.
There was no general public announcement of the $90 million project until the subcommittee on Native American affairs inserted it as an addendum to its regular agenda July 2.
Tuesday's issue whether the county would support the rancheria's BIA application also came up as a last minute addendum, with several irate speakers complaining about the late notice.
Yuba County voters thought they were voting for "a raceway, not a casino" when they passed Measure R -- and to say otherwise was "a complete twisting of what we voted for," attorney Sheldon Hadley, bitterly complained.
The supervisors balked at the allegations of secrecy and fast-tracking, and brushed aside a suggestion by Supervisor Hal Stocker that they "slow down" and study the proposal more closely.
Irked at the claims of secrecy, the late additions to the agenda were done only because of "perceived urgency" by the tribe, said Supervisor Bill Simmons, one of the two members of the Native America affairs committee.
As for the need for haste, Supervisor Don Scrader said, "The longer you wait, the more you lose."
Cohen said rancheria officials expect to file their BIA application within two weeks and have an answer, perhaps in six months. He said he felt the community's general mood toward the casino-hotel will be positive.
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