Barstow Mayor's behavior's inappropriate toward Chairman of City's tribal partner

Letters to the editor, September 4, 2007

Chemehuevi leader mistreated by mayor

I agree with Mrs. Julie Clemmer’s letter (”Larry Halstead admits to payment by San Manuel Indian Tribe,” Aug. 24) urging anyone that has a computer, or can view the city council meeting of August 6, should do so. Not for the vindictive reasons Mrs. Clemmer would like you to, but to view how our Mayor Lawrence Dale treated another elected representative with lack of respect and with outright disdain, because they have an opposite view to his.

Chairman Wood, as a representative of the Chemehuevi Nation Indian Tribe, tried to give to our city council some information concerning the progress of the two casino compacts now in front of our state legislators, along with information concerning the Chemehuevi and their right to build in Barstow. Some of this information was sent to the mayor in writing. As you can see in the meeting, it was apparent that he did not share this with other members of the council. He then rudely and abruptly cut off Chairman Wood with the excuse that he had gone over his three minute time limit.

This is the man who heads the Chemehuevi Indian Nation. The head of a Tribe that has a contract/MSA with the city of Barstow to build a casino here. Apparently not one of the two the mayor supports, but still, one that has an agreement to build here. What harm would it have been to give the Chairman one more minute to finish his statements?

The only other point that I would touch on is when Mrs. Clemmer claims those of us who want to see Barstow end up with a casino needed to resort to “trickery” in the form of Measure H.

The truth is Ms. Clemmer and her friends from Detroit are professionals at trickery. Yes, they spent more than $200,000 on their campaign to bury Measure H. That was $200,000 mostly from people who don’t live or vote in Barstow. In fact, they have yet to reveal where 75 percent of that money is coming from.

Anonymous sources outside of Barstow were the ones who funded the bulk of the $200,000 campaign to stop Measure H and preserve the Barwest monopoly — a plan that was dead on arrival at least two years ago.

Well Ms. Clemmer, the proponents of Measure H, which I was one, wanted to give priority to the Chemehuevi casino project and to further their chances of succeeding in Barstow. What’s wrong with that? You are continuing to back the failed Bar West casino plans and their tribes.

Only time will tell who was right. It certainly does not look good for BarWest, but again it never did.

Unfortunately, the citizens of Barstow will be the ones to lose out for believing in the lies and the twisted tactics that your organization and Bar West used about Measure H and Barstow’s odds for a casino. You made a big deal about where we got the funds to defend our campaign against the BarWest tidal wave and all the while you were taking hundreds of thousands through the back door and worse yet, failing to disclose where it’s coming from.

Measure H may not have been a perfect venue, but it would have opened the doors to competition rather than stand with the Las Vegas-backed developer Bar West that you, the mayor and your cronies have continued to support even when all signs indicate BarWest is Bad for Barstow.

If Barstow fails in its attempt to land an Indian casino, we can thank people like Mayor Dale, Julie Clemmer, Tim Silva, Paul Luellig and the others who allowed BarWest to hold a monopoly over Barstow and refused to consider proposals that could get approved — people who believed they were personally going to be enriched by BarWest.

Manuel Gurule
Barstow