D. A. Joins the Outcry Against Oxnard Casino Proposal

Calling gambling “fool’s gold” and a threat to Oxnard’s moral fiber, Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael Bradbury on Wednesday recommended that the city reject a Nevada corporation’s proposal to operate a hotel-casino for a landless Indian tribe along the Ventura Freeway.

The county’s top two law enforcement officials have now condemned the casino proposal. Sheriff Bob Brooks said Tuesday that the casino would foster crime, break up families and change Oxnard’s character.

Meanwhile, an Oxnard city staff report released late Wednesday said it was impossible to say whether a local casino would increase crime or cause social problems in the surrounding community. Staffers did find that a gambling hall would create hundreds of jobs for local residents and provide the city up to $14 million a year in fees.

In his scathing 29-page report, Bradbury urged the Oxnard City Council to reject at a May 8 hearing a plan by Las Vegas-based Paragon Gaming Corp. for a casino and 250-room hotel on 25 acres spanning the struggling Oxnard Factory Outlets and an adjacent field.

The report, titled “Gambling: The Cost to Our Community,” concludes that “bringing large-scale gambling to Oxnard would have an extremely detrimental impact on our entire county and ultimately do irreversible damage to the very fabric and security of our community.”

“This damage to people, families, economy and political institutions far outweighs the revenue it would produce,” the prosecutor added. “Revenue flowing from casino gambling is simply ‘fool’s gold.’ It is illusory over the long run.”

Specifically, Bradbury maintained that a casino would increase crime, foster government corruption and taint Oxnard’s image, while siphoning money out of city and county treasuries to pay for societal damage resulting from gambling.

After Bradbury voiced similar objections to a card-club casino in 1993, the Oxnard council voted 5 to 0 against the gambling hall. The district attorney’s office delivered Bradbury’s report to all five council members Wednesday, as well as to City Manager Ed Sotelo and Police Chief Art Lopez.

Council members were also digesting a lengthy city report completed Wednesday that laid out potential pluses and minuses of a casino project but backed away from a recommendation on it.

“The Paragon project,” the report said, “is an endeavor whose magnitude provides opportunities never before experienced by our city. However, the opportunities are also affected by impacts upon the fabric of the community.

“Current studies have concluded that this nation needs to know more about the impacts of gambling upon communities,” the report added. “Though they may not be necessarily good for a community, they are not necessarily bad either. Virtually no reliable evidence exists directly linking the casinos themselves to negative impacts upon public safety.”

Mary Rose, spokeswoman for Paragon and the 163-member Greenville Rancheria of Maidu Indians in Northern California, said there are plenty of good reasons for the City Council to approve the casino project.

“The proposed casino will be an overall benefit,” she said. “It will bring good-paying jobs, and it will be well-managed. I don’t think you’re going to find any of these kinds of problems.”

California has a history of regulated Indian gaming, she said. “And we just don’t see an increase in crime near the casinos.”

She cited two studies paid for by Indian tribes that found substantial benefits from tribal gaming. A study of tribal casinos in six states, including the glitzy Cabazon tribe casino in Riverside County, found that police agencies have concluded that casino jobs help reduce crime.

The Oxnard casino would create 688 full-time jobs paying at least $8 an hour plus benefits, even before the hotel is constructed, she said. In addition, the casino would bring $8 million a year in casino fees to the city after it is fully operational in about three years.

Two of five Oxnard council members--Mayor Manuel Lopez and Councilman John Zaragosa--strongly objected to the city even considering the casino proposal. But Councilmen Bedford Pinkard, Dean Maulhardt and Tom Holden asked for the city analysis.

Holden and Pinkard have said they won’t make a decision until they hear a full report May 8. Maulhardt could not be reached for comment.

“I have personally spoken to Mr. Bradbury about this,” Holden said. “I respect him and I respect his opinion. But I’ll take a position on May 8 when we have a proposal before us and when the city staff has presented to me its analysis.”

Lopez said he has done his own analysis of the casino issue, and doesn’t need a staff report to know Indian gambling is wrong for his city.

“I agree with the district attorney 100%,” Lopez said. “This is kind of a replay of eight years ago. The issues are the same except here we’re establishing a little country within our city, which makes it even worse.”