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Members say project to help build self-reliance
By Onell R. Soto April 7, 2007
SANTA YSABEL – Hope for one of the area's largest, yet poorest, Indian tribes is perched on a ridge overlooking Lake Henshaw.
A casino, the county's 10th, has taken shape there and is filled with 349 slot machines intended to bring in locals from Ramona and Warner Springs and tourists from Julian. “It's all about the future,” said Bonnie Salgado, a Santa Ysabel tribal council member. “It's going to give our people more opportunities.” The future begins with a private party for tribal leaders and their guests at 5 p.m. Wednesday. The doors to Santa Ysabel Resort & Casino open to the public the next day. “It's not going to make us millionaires,” said Johnny Hernandez, chairman of the 781-member tribe. “It's going to help us with our infrastructure, our self-reliance, our sovereignty.” A few years ago, it seemed the Santa Ysabel reservation, a 75-minute drive northeast of downtown San Diego, was too remote for a profitable gambling hall. But, for now anyway, this $27 million, 35,000-square-foot casino on state Route 79 about 4½ miles north of Dudley's Bakery is aimed at backcountry gamblers and tourists. “We're trying to be Ramona's casino, Poway's casino,” said Douglas Lentz, the casino's general manager. “If I've got 500 people here on a Friday night, I've got more than I need.” Arizona's Yavapai-Apache Nation guaranteed the construction bank loan. In addition to the slots, the casino will have blackjack and poker, a card-based roulette game, billiards and a video game arcade. It will also feature a bar and a separate 24-hour dining area with floor-to-ceiling windows with views of the lake and Palomar Mountain. That area, named The Orchard, will function as a restaurant or a buffet, depending on the time of day. There are plans for a steakhouse, a hotel and horseback-riding trails through the mountainous 15,000-acre reservation, Hernandez said. About half of the reservation is on the western flank of Volcan Mountain. Most of the 350 workers – who get health insurance and other benefits – are from nearby communities. Many are tribal members – not just from Santa Ysabel, but from neighboring reservations, too. The number of slot machines is capped at 349 because tribes with 350 or more machines can't participate in a state revenue-sharing fund that gives nongaming tribes $1.1 million a year. Nineteen of the 71 California tribes that received payments from the fund last year operate small casinos. One of the recipient tribes, the La Posta Band of Mission Indians, opened a 349-slot casino in East County earlier this year. That gambling hall, less than two miles from the Golden Acorn casino on Interstate 8, has lived up to expectations, said general manager Jim Muse. Two-thirds of its customers come from the Imperial Valley and Mexico, he said. Santa Ysabel, La Posta and a third tribe, the Torres-Martinez in Riverside County, signed compacts with then-Gov. Gray Davis in 2003. Those were unlike the first compacts that tribes signed years earlier, in that the tribes agreed then to pay 5 percent of their net profits directly into the state's general fund. They also agreed to work with local governments. Santa Ysabel is paying the county $300,000 a year for problem-gambling programs, $190,000 for a sheriff's deputy and $100,000 for prosecuting cases related to crimes at the casino, said James Snyder, the county's public works director. Some of those payments are due before the casino opens, he said. “Their track record is that they do what they say they're going to do,” he said. The decision to build a casino wasn't unanimous among tribal members, said June Christman, who voted against it. “It's a paving paradise and putting up a parking lot kind of deal,” she said, adding that she hopes for the best now that the casino is a reality. Christman worried about the effect of money on future generations. “The kids have no idea about the camaraderie we used to have,” she said. “It's no longer there.” Some neighbors aren't happy, either. A family that owns a ranch across Route 79 from the casino has sued Caltrans over the permit it issued to the casino, saying it acted improperly and didn't conduct proper environmental reviews. The Moretti family said in the suit that it isn't opposed to the casino itself, but rather the way in which a mile-long, $5 million road on the reservation will eventually connect with the state highway. The latest traffic estimate indicates the casino will almost double the number of trips on Route 79 to more than 6,000 a day, casino spokeswoman Tina Lentz said. A San Diego Superior Court judge rejected the family's request for an emergency order rescinding the permit. Negotiations are ongoing. Hernandez, the tribal chairman, said that before the casino was built, the tribal leadership asked neighbors and tribal members for their thoughts, and that has helped avoid some of the tension that other projects have generated. “We're going to work with the community here,” Hernandez said. The main focus, though, is to make a better life for the tribal members, whose ancestors lived in nine villages between what is now Ramona, Warner Springs and Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. They called themselves Ipai (EE-pay), which means “the people.” The Spanish missionaries renamed them Diegueño. Driving on a potholed-road to the reservation's highest point in a small sport utility vehicle, Hernandez, 54, recalled stories his grandfather told him about Indians hiding in the woods from the U.S. Cavalry. Growing up on the reservation, he remembered hauling water from the Catholic church and bathing with a bucket. “We had kerosene lamps, a wood stove and great home cooking,” Hernandez said with a smile. It's a life some of the 350 reservation residents still live. The tribal government is working to improve the roads and string electric lines to homes still without power. The efforts to improve life on the reservation have led many who left years ago to return. Hernandez himself left to go to San Diego State University. He abandoned plans for a degree when he started working for Pacific Bell in what became a 30-year career as a lineman. Now the leader of his tribe, Hernandez drives through a canyon where he used to hunt rabbits as a child and talks about protecting parts of the reservation as well as providing for children and elders. “I want to see us have total self-reliance,” Hernandez said. “And we'll take care of our elders and our youth.”
 Onell Soto: (619) 293-1280; onell.soto@uniontrib.com
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