San Pablo Casino News Source: http://www.insidebayarea.com
Senator questions San Pablo tribal gaming
By Josh Richman, STAFF WRITER
An East Bay city staunchly defended its tribal card room in a letter sent Tuesday to a U.S. senator whos trying to shut it down, predicting fiscal doom should that happen and offering the tribes written vow not to expand.
San Pablo City Manager Brock Arners letter was in response to a May 31 letter 13 state lawmakers sent to U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., whose pending bill would revoke the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians right to conduct gaming at Casino San Pablo.
San Pablo now gets about $12 million per year from the card room to be used for police protection, recreational programs for our youth, and for tax relief, Arner wrote, adding the card room provides 500 jobs. Closure will eliminate these well-paying jobs, cause a funding crisis for the city, and return tribal members to a life of grinding poverty.
The city objects to local lawmakers claim that the tribe engaged in reservation shopping by having Casino San Pablo placed in trust, Arner wrote. A settlement with the federal government had barred the then-landless Lyttons from gaming on ancestral territory in Sonoma County, forcing them to look elsewhere.
The state lawmakers, led by Assemblywoman Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, also know full well that the negative impacts she describes in her letter have not occurred, Arner wrote — no traffic problems and no increase in crime, but instead, a tight city-tribe partnership ensuring the card room remains a positive force in the community.
It is the citys understanding that no massive casino is being planned by the tribe and that the tribe is willing to make that commitment to you in writing, he wrote.
The Lytton Band and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in August 2004 agreed on a 2,500-slot-machine casino from which the state, county and city would share 25 percent of the revenue. Concerns of traffic, gambling addiction and other possible problems kindled community opposition and — conceding the Legislature probably wouldnt ratify the compact — the tribe backed off in 2005 and instead put in electronic bingo terminals that look and play much like slot machines but are allowed without a compact.
Feinsteins bill — awaiting a Senate floor vote since September — would bar the tribe from operating even those. It would repeal part of a 2000 amendment by Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, that backdated the lands placement in trust so it was deemed to have happened before Oct. 17, 1988.
— the Indian Gaming Regulatory Acts effective date, after which gaming on newly acquired land requires rigorous bureaucratic review. Subjecting Casino San Pablo to such review could delay gaming by years, though the tribe would keep the nine-acre tract.
Contact Josh Richman at jrichman@angnewspapers.com.
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