Strictly of local interest

by Tom Nadeau

From teen abortion to transportation bonds, voters in seven states are facing issues of varying stripes in off-year elections Tuesday, Nov. 8.

Voters in counties and cities from Maine to California are eyeing their own special elections that day, none more contentious than the yea-or-nay on a proposed casino advisory measure accosting those Yuba County, Calif.

Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! Casino backers scream in an endless stream of expensive, full-color mailers and newspaper advertisements.

Drugs! Thugs! Sub-minimum wage! Casino born-again opponents retort in a far fewer, cheaper direct mail and door-hangers.

Measure G – so named by coincidence, not to represent "Gambling," the county clerk assures us – is supported on the record by the county board of supervisors and the city council in Marysville, which is the county seat of a county that is often ranked the poorest county in America’s most populated state.

It is true that a number of jobs are likely to be created in the construction industry. But those relatively high-paying jobs will be strictly temporary and with companies not guaranteed to be based in Yuba County.

It is also true that the bulk of the remaining jobs are likely to be low paid servant jobs, such as dealer, door-opener, change-maker, security guard, janitor and food server – several of which depend on tips to break even for the work day.

What these two arguments boil down to, really, is not Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!

It is really, Bribe! Bribe! Bribe! (Although some might prefer Reward! Reward! Reward!)Vote our way, casino-backers are saying, and we’ll so to it some jingle is put in your pocket.

What the other side is saying is less blatant, yet a little thought divines it. Sure, it may be less obvious and less easy for some people to speak about, but it is powerful.

As we’ve said, residents in Yuba County are among the absolutely poorest in the state. Poverty breeds crime.

Yuba County is already home to many drug offenders, a high rate of property crimes and the thuggery that goes along with them.

What opponents most feared, really, is the ineluctable shift in power and influence that would likely follow a thriving casino in Yuba County.

Power in politics is a quantum entity. The more the one side has, that much less the other side has. While the zeroes behind the dollar signs may lengthen, but the relationship remains generally the same. More for me, less for you, or vice versa.

For instance, the entrenched political interests of churches (Sorry, Reverend, I gave at the craps table.) Which have enormous power in the campaign environment (I can deliver 125 church member votes in the next election. What does that buy me in the next zoning matter?)

Moreover, no one is mentioning the location of the proposed casino. It would be placed smack in the middle of a flood plain which has in fact been flooded twice in the last two decades, repeatedly costing millions in damages and some lives.

If would be placed also on prime farm and range land, that, once taken out of production will never produce food.

If you think the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of dollars the casino-backers are shelling out for mailers and public relations shills, is worth the chump-change jobs it will produce her and the millions in profits it will produce for the non-tax-paying Indian tribe and its shadowy downstate backers, vote to support the notion.

If you like having the local cabal of church-goers retain their favored status in the county, vote against it.

Either way, just remember: this is strictly an advisory measure. It does no more than cheer on or dump on an idea – despite the backers’ and opponets’ efforts to portray it as an up-or-down vote to be followed the next morning by Caterpillar tractors turning earth for the casino car park and lavish tips from big spenders too drunk to know a fiver from a fullhouse.

The real decision-making powers ultimately lie well outside Yuba County.