Casino Boosters Seek 'Voice' in Sacramento: Big Lagoon, Los Coyotes Representatives Push for Hearing on Compacts
From: The Desert Dispatch (Barstow, Calif.) Date: 4/11/2007
Representatives for the Big Lagoon Rancheria and Los Coyotes Band lobbied the state Senate in Sacramento on Tuesday and today will continue to push for the Senate to schedule hearings concerning the proposed joint casino project in Barstow. They will likely return next week.
On Tuesday the governmental organization committee held informational hearings concerning state gaming compacts with the Yurok tribe, the Agua Caliente band and the Morongo band.
Hearings about compacts with the Pechanga band, the San Manuel band and the Sycuan band will take place today.
Big Lagoon spokesman Jason Barnett said this is the "last shot" as Aug. 31 approaches. The compacts for the Los Coyotes and Big Lagoon, which the governor has approved, would be void if not approved by that deadline.
Los Coyotes spokesman Tom Shields said he wants to get the process going because it will be a long process with no quick solutions.
Barnett said the tribes pursuing the Barstow project will take every opportunity to let the Legislature know that people in Barstow support the project.
"The leadership in the Senate only seems to want to give a voice to the big tribes," Barnett said. "What we want is the same opportunity to be heard that they're having." However, he said, at one-on-one meetings with individual senators, the reception "continues to be very positive."
He said people are moved by the stories of the Big Lagoon, which cannot build on its reservation because of environmental issues, and the Los Coyotes, which he described as one of the state's poorest tribes. "We're optimistic," he said. "We hope the senators will give us that voice."
The Big Lagoon would prefer to build on their own land, Barnett said, but "out of respect" for the state are willing to look elsewhere because the reservation is an "environmentally sensitive habitat area." Environmental agencies oppose a casino there, he said.
The Big Lagoon have taken the issue to court with the claim the state negotiated in bad faith. The lawsuit is on hold until August, Barnett said.
Shields said that in addition to meeting with senators, supporters of the project are testifying at the informational hearings for the other compacts.
Labor union representatives were among those testifying in favor of the project, he said, and wealthy gaming tribes are leading opposition. He named the Agua Caliente, the Morongo and the San Manuel specifically as opposition leaders.
Jacob Coin, the director of public affairs for the San Manuel band, said that the group is a Serrano Indian Nation clan. The proposed Big Lagoon/Los Coyotes project, he said, would be an encroachment of the Serranos' ancestral homeland.
Morongo spokeswoman Waltona Manion said that the band's opposition to the Barstow project is because voters supported the principle that gaming should remain only on reservations in approving Proposition 5 in 1998 and Proposition 1A in 2000. "Their stance is based on a promise that they made to California voters," she said.
Shields, however, said that Propositions 5 and 1A included provisions for off-reservation gaming. He said members of the Los Coyotes feel that other tribes used them in the ad campaign for those measures by depicting their poverty to convince people of the need for gaming income. "They were the face of the Native Americans," he said.
Mayor Lawrence Dale said he's "upbeat" about prospects for the casino project. "I think we'll get through the Legislature this year," he said.
3 comments:
What I always find funny is the fact that Big Lagoon CAN build a casino on their reservation. In fact they can build as big a casino as they want to build. It would just have to be a Class II establishment. In their greed for more money they probably figure that a class III would be more profitable. Guess they should look to the Seminoles, they only have Class II machines and they make enough money to not only support their tribe but to also buy the Hard Rock empire.
As for the Los Coyotes being poor, who cares they are not the only poor tribes around. What sets them apart from the poor tribes is the fact that Los Coyotes have 10's of thousands of acres of land. It is also funny that tribes close to them are building casino's.
Also San Manuel needs to stop spreading lies and propaganda as well. Barstow is not Serrano land. They are spreading the same kind of lies that Barstow and Barwest are.
It has finally come to Indian against Indian. You have 5 tribes that already have thousands of machines each, getting even more greedy and wanting thousands more. Yet they are against small tribes who are trying to get into gaming. I am not against small tribes who want to game, I am against all tribes that want to encroach on Shoshone Ancestral Homelands.
Splixx,
What is significant are Barwest's relentless attacks on the ancestral ties of other tribes absent an ability to establish ties to Barstow for those it chose to adopt. If no other tribe's had histories in Barstow, Barwest would have no need to attack.
There is no question that Big Lagoon Indians have no Mojave Desert ties.
The burden for Barwest is to demonstrate that the Los Coyotes Band of Indians have some reasonable and legitimate history in the area.
And right now, on the one hand Los Coyotes leaders are saying they hunted and socialized with Indians of the area dating back to the early 1890s as if that signals ancestral ties. And on the other hand Barwest is saying the people they supposedly socialized with were extinct or on the verge of extinction by then and also that anything short of a permanent year round sustainable village in Barstow doesn't count anyway.
Further, the Los Coyotes spokespersons are Cahuilla; and their Cahuilla brothers at Morongo, Aqua Caliente and elsewhere are saying Cahuilla have no true history in the larger High Desert; that would seem to be a pretty compelling argument.
Fellow Cahuilla are acknowledging the San Manuel Band and Chemehuevi Tribe have some histories in the area.
Why haven't the Shoshone actively engaged in protecting any ancestral claims?
They don't appear to have any record of activity in Barstow in recent years nor have they had any active presence in Sacramento or D.C. on this matter.
Tribes should conserve resources proving their presence and a connection to the land rather than attacking others -- attack and divide is a Barwest strategy. Barwest needs tribes to be adversaries.
Glad to see we've stimulated some dialogue!
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