Casino Expansion Raises Stakes for Tribes, Towns

The marchers paced ever so slowly across Victoria Avenue, as traffic backed up for blocks. For hours, anxious gamblers leaned on their horns, cursed loudly and waved their fists in front of the San Manuel Indian Casino five miles east of San Bernardino.

Still, the 100 demonstrators shuffled across the street. Their signs read: “San Manuel: Isn’t profit of $100 million a year enough?” and referring to the voter-approved measure that allows Indian gambling: “Don’t make us sorry.”

“The Indians don’t [care] about us,” said Greg Gridley, who lives a block from the casino. “So from now on, they have to go through our sovereign land to get to their sovereign land.”

Tribal elder Pauline Murillo, who watched the noisy procession from a few yards away, shook her head. “This is disgusting,” she said. “We were here first.”

One hundred and twelve years after the San Manuel were herded from the Coachella Valley onto a desolate, mountainous reservation, tribal leaders say they can finally determine their own destiny -- and that destiny includes expanding their casino by 310,000 square feet and adding an events center and six-story parking structure. It’s the least they should be allowed, they say, given their history, the loss of their lands and untold loss of life.

Not so fast, say surrounding communities. If the San Manuels truly want to be integrated into American society, they must also pay the price: Pay taxes, follow local zoning and building codes and discuss their expansion plans with local leaders and school districts before unveiling them.

But Native American tribes operate on sovereign land. They don’t pay taxes. They don’t have to follow state, county or city laws. Environmental laws are theirs to bypass. Yet they are entitled to full service from police and fire departments, hospitals, roads and flood-control systems.

The recent San Bernardino demonstration is typical of conflicts playing out across California between Indian tribes that view gambling palaces as compensation for the past and neighbors who want a say in how those casinos affect their communities in the present.

Pressure from Boom

For tribes that had been forced to live for generations in poverty on desolate lands, the booming casino industry means enhanced wealth and investment and improvements to tribal infrastructure, education and health care.

For local authorities and reservation neighbors, the casinos can mean more traffic, rowdy visitors and more pressure on overburdened police, firefighters and medical facilities.

In Sonoma County, the Federated Indians of the Graton Rancheria are proposing a 1,700-acre casino and hotel complex in the flight path of migrating birds, which has run into opposition from neighbors and environmentalists. In Plymouth, a town of 900 people south of Sacramento, residents fear the effect of a 120,000-square-foot casino proposed by the Band of Miwok Indians.

In Riverside County, officials are worried that growing numbers of uninsured gambling hall workers and patrons in need of medical help will sap the resources of the county health system.

Then there is the Morongo Band of Mission Indians. They plan to build a 23-story resort hotel in the desert 15 miles west of Palm Springs, 20 minutes from the nearest Riverside County Fire Department ladder truck. County officials say the tribe’s fire department is inadequate to handle incidents involving large crowds at a high-rise hotel on the reservation.

The proposals come at a time when 61 tribes statewide are renegotiating their gambling deals with Gov. Gray Davis, who wants $1.5 billion from them to help ease the state’s projected $35-billion budget shortfall. Also at stake is whether cities and counties should be compensated so they can better cope with the developments.

Tribal-state agreements already require tribes to contribute a percentage of their proceeds to an Indian Gaming Special Distribution Fund. Among other things, the money can go to fix roads, to treat compulsive gamblers and to ease financial hardship on ambulance services.

But the Legislature has yet to agree on how to divide that money to reach areas that need it.

In the meantime, plans for new casinos are stacking up on drawing boards in such regions as San Bernardino and Riverside counties, which already are home to many of the state’s most prosperous tribal casinos. The projects would be sprawling, opulent complexes designed to attract millions of patrons from Southern California who might otherwise gamble in Las Vegas.

Facing the wave of new casinos, Riverside County recently developed a policy for coping with the expected drain on local services. But because the tribes can make decisions on their land without interference from government agencies, all the county could do was strongly encourage the reservations to be good neighbors.

“Of course we’re concerned,” said Riverside County Supervisor John Tavaglione. “But they don’t have to conform to many things we want.”

In the meantime, communities are being reshaped, often against their will, by casino developments.

In Riverside County, the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians is building a $90-million casino on reservation land in downtown Palm Springs, even as city officials are preparing to lay off police and firefighters to help close a $4.1-million budget deficit.

And the Agua Calientes are reconsidering their decade-long agreement to forward $700,000 annually from their Spa Resort Casino to Palm Springs.

“On one hand, we’re jumping up and down with joy that the tribe is investing nearly $100 million in town,” said Palm Springs City Manager David Ready. “On the other, a new downtown casino may generate some security concerns.”

During a tour of the 120,000-square-foot facility, which is expected to open in November, Agua Caliente Chairman Richard Milanovich was upbeat. Striding across the cavernous gambling room, he said, “A prime example of our willingness to work with Palm Springs is that we submitted our building plans to the city. We didn’t have to.”

About 15 miles to the east, the Morongo Band of Mission Indians is grading the desert land where they aim to build a 309-foot-tall resort hotel between scenic mountain peaks in the San Gorgonio Pass. The building would be about twice as tall as the Riverside County Administrative Center.

In an effort to appease county fire officials, the tribe has agreed to spend about $1 million on a ladder truck and fire engine, which would be made available to neighboring communities if needed.

However, potential traffic problems remain. As it stands, the hotel site would be reachable by freeway exits and two-lane roads already overburdened by traffic.

“The tribe is working closely with the county to address these issues,” said tribal spokesman Waltona Manion. “We are evaluating possible solutions including new traffic signals, realignment of existing roads, and possible roundabouts.”

Carole Goldberg, director of the joint degree program in law and American Indian studies at the UCLA School of Law, applauds such cooperative efforts. “What should be happening is negotiation,” she said, “mutually respectful negotiation.”

Rocky Start

On the San Manuel reservation just north of Highland, neighbors say they want just the same: respect.

The San Manuels expect to break ground in June on their $125-million project -- which would generate about 18,000 daily car trips -- close to an elementary and a middle school. However, the city of San Bernardino recently concluded that the project would severely affect the adjacent community without a long list of costly improvements including sound walls, street lights and, possibly, a cul-de-sac.

The reservation is bordered by tidy middle-class homes owned mostly by people who moved in after the tribe opened its first gambling operation in 1986.

Things got off to a rocky start when the tribe chose a small room and a difficult hour -- 9 a.m. on a Monday -- for the first public hearing on the development.

Less than six months ago, San Bernardino City Councilman Neil Derry said, he asked tribal leaders repeatedly if they were going to expand the casino.

“I was told over and over, ‘No. No. No,’ ” he said.

“I didn’t want this fight. I have nothing against the tribe or its members. But you shove something like this in peoples’ backyard and there are going to be problems.”

Three homeowner associations and Derry have vowed to stop the project. In addition to the march April 26, they say they might build a cul-de-sac -- right on a key road leading to a casino parking lot.

The tribe wishes homeowners were more appreciative of the long and troubled history they are trying to overcome. After living for decades on federal subsidies on 820 hilly acres considered useless for development, the tribe built a bingo parlor on one of the reservation’s few flat spots in 1986.

In 1994, the tribe added the casino. Now it wants to expand it. Tribal authorities do not deny that the effort may more than double daily traffic and obliterate views of the foothills. But they also point out that they have donated millions of dollars over the years to charities, civic agencies and political campaigns.

But the reluctance of local elected officials to take a stand bothers people such as Belvedere Homeowners Assn. President Nick Gonzales and minister Moses Tey, who have been devoting their free time to campaigning against the project.

“The balance is tipped unfairly in favor of the tribe,” Tey said. “They already reap an estimated $100 million a year for 87 tribal members. Yet, they expect protection from local police and fire services. They are a sovereign nation that donates money to local politicians.... Their restaurants and entertainment centers don’t pay taxes, yet they compete with off-reservation businesses that do.

“All we want is control of our own community,” he said. “That means zero expansion on the reservation.”

Tribal leaders would not discuss their finances, but in an interview in his office on a hill overlooking the troubled neighborhoods below, Chairman Deron Marquez, 33, said he is deeply concerned about the San Manuels’ reputation.

Weighing his words carefully, Marquez acknowledged that “it’s very possible that we will scale back a few things.

“But we will build something. And we can work together on that. Or not.”