In announcing Gaming Compact deadline extensions, Governor Schwarzenegger again suggests Los Coyotes has been given consideration because the tribe sacrificed something in agreeing to “share” its previously approved, but not yet transferred into trust, Barstow site with the Big Lagoon Rancheria Indians.
Press releases issued by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on 9/9/05 and 5/31/07 as well as preambles to the Tribal-State Compacts the Governor signed in 2005 for both the Big Lagoon Rancheria and Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Cupeno Indians consistently explain that:
“The Los Coyotes Band already entered into a municipal services agreement with the City of Barstow in October 2004 in order to construct a casino on parcels identified and agreed by the City. The Tribe has also agreed to share its site with the Big Lagoon Rancheria as part of a unified casino project.”
The Governor’s negotiators have consistently acknowledged that the Los Coyotes Band fails to meet the Governor’s own standards requiring an Independent Public Policy to benefit the state, but suggest that the Los Coyotes are sacrificing half the project they originally proposed and the City Council approved for Barstow; but that’s not so.
According to a 9/3/03 story published in the Desert Dispatch, Barstow's hometown daily newspaper,
“Tom Shields, a spokesman for Michigan-based Barwest LLC, said at Tuesday's Redevelopment Agency meeting that the company is buying a 47-acre site there for the casino and hotel. The Los Coyotes Band of Indians from San Diego County and Barwest will try to get the federal government to take a portion of the land ‘into trust’ so it can be used for gaming.”
Ten months later, the Los Coyotes Band’s Municipal Services Agreement (MSA) approved by the Barstow City Council on July 1, 2004 and executed by Barstow Mayor Lawrence Dale on 10/11/04 states,
“The Tribe will request that the United States take into trust for its benefit land not to exceed twenty contiguous acres, absent written agreement of the City, from the parcel(s) identified in Exhibit A appended hereto (‘Trust Lands’).”
However, the Compacts signed by the Governor September 9, 2005 for the Los Coyotes Band of Indians and the Big Lagoon Rancheria identify a 23-acre parcel and a 25-acre parcel respectively.
Los Coyotes did not share or sacrifice anything. And the Detroit developer Barwest which owns the 48 acres in Barstow and holds the exclusive rights to develop and manage any Barstow casino(s) resort(s) has now more than doubled the size of its original proposal for a Los Coyotes project – from 20-acres to 48 acres; almost 2.5 times the original project Los Coyotes sought independently and which had been approved by the City Council in 2004.
Further, the original Los Coyotes proposal sought approvals for 1,500 slots and 25 table games. Under terms of the two Compacts the tribes will be granted approvals for up to 4,500 slots (2,250 each) and plan to operate a total of 48 table games and 20 poker tables.
Los Coyotes will end up with not only a larger casino site but 1.5 times the number of gaming devices it originally sought.
And Barwest, the entity that holds agreements as the exclusive casino resort Developer and Manager will be paid to develop a project 2.5 times that originally sought by Los Coyotes; with nearly three times the number of slots and gaming tables; and has secret contractual side agreements to sell up to another 100 acres or more it has already acquired in Barstow to the two tribes after the original 23 and 25 acre parcels are taken into trust but before the casinos open. By the time the casinos open, the tribes will likely control a 125-150 acre mega resort. The Big Lagoon Rancheria in Humboldt County is only 20 acres total.
As manager of the dual casinos and resorts, Barwest under terms monitored by the National Indian Gaming Commission will receive up to 30% of teach tribe's casino resort earnings (currently anticipated at 2.5 - 3 times the original Los Coyotes proposal); certainly a jbig ackpot for Barwest.
Neither the Los Coyotes Band of Indians nor the Detroit casino developer/manager have sacrificed anything here; instead, both organizations will realize significant unanticipated windfalls as will the Big Lagoon Rancheria.
As a reminder … public disclosures by Los Coyotes' leaders, Barstow officials and detailed in memoranda written by Barwest's Michigan attorneys indicate the Los Coyotes Indians terminated their arrangement with Barwest late in the summer of 2004, after Governor Schwarzenegger turned down the Tribe’s original proposal. The relentless Detroit casino developer/manager Barwest then pursued a partnership with Big Lagoon whereby the tribe would relocate its planed casino to land owned by Barwest in Barstow; and subsequently later demanded the Los Coyotes Band of Indians abandon its new development partner and return to a Barwest partnership early in 2005 or face lawsuits.
These compacts were nothing short of a reward to Detroit-based Barwest for agreeing to take on the Big Lagoon Rancheria circumstances when no one else had been willing or able. Barwest neverr truly considered casinos on either tribe's reservation but from the beginning had its mind made up on Barstow.
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