As we discovered after reviewing video of a March 2006 Senate hearing on the Big Lagoon compacts, Moorehead could build a modest class II casino (previously associated with Bingo) on his Big Lagoon Rancheria without any approvals from the Governor; but to use his own words, a "greedy" Moorehead wants more.
Today’s class II casinos are not “bingo” parlors but they include card games and “slots” that to the average player appear to be just like class III “slots.” The difference is in class II establishments you play against the other players and in class III casinos you play against the house so the stakes are higher. An example of highly successful class II p
roperties are two Hard Rock Casino & Hotel properties near Tampa and Hollywood, Florida operated by the Seminoles – most people can’t tell the difference between class II and class III.However, by agreeing to transplant his casino to Barstow, Moorehead is guaranteed to be the proprietor (albeit absentee) of a larger Las Vegas-style class III casino attached to a hotel, spa and conference center that will be part of planned mega destination resort.
Today, the Big Lagoon Rancheria consists of 20 acres that have been taken into trust. Moorehead began construction of a casino in 1996 on an 11 acre sub section of the Rancheria lands. The cement foundation was poured and the foundation can be seen on various satellite mapping sites available on the internet.
Despite representations over the last decade that he’d acquired anywhere from five acres to 130 acres of adjacent lands for casino development, he hasn’t put anything new into Trust for the purposes of a casino. Neighboring landowners who know his intentions are either not motivated to sell land to him at all or likely to hold out for an outrageous price believing Moorehead’s desire to become a multi-millionaire will be motivation to buy at inflated prices.
The Barstow agreements give Moorehead a 25-acre casino site; that’s 20% larger than his entire Ranche
ria and more than twice the size of the casino project he began constructing in 1996.By relocating the casino to Barstow, Moorehead preserves his family’s estate, the 20-acre Rancheria, as a primarily residential compound located within the pristine Big Lagoon Park without the encroachment of commercial facilities in his backyard.
Moorehead’s own “Hyannis Port West” -- the equivalent of the Kennedy’s Compound at "Hyannis Port" on the shores of Cape Cod.
In the same way the 74 families who own the so-called “cabins” on Big Lagoon want to preserve their exclusive residential enclave and don’t want night light or a bunch of tourists invading their little hideaway, the Moorehead family will enjoy the same benefit by pushing their larger Las Vegas style casino and resort down to the Mohave Desert, 700 miles away. Let Barstow experience all of the headaches and negative impacts a casino might create but for the Moorehead Family it’ll be in somebody else’s back yard.
With the scheme to transplant their casino in Barstow, the Moorehead Family (the Big Lagoon Rancheria Tribe), proves that it is actually possible to “have one’s cake and eat it too.”
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