Federal government rejects Scotts Valley Indian casino in North Richmond

By Lisa Vorderbrueggen
Contra Costa Times
Posted:   05/25/2012 12:50:38 PM PDT
Updated:   05/25/2012 08:57:10 PM PDT

The Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians lack significant historical connections to the land in North Richmond where the tribe seeks to build a Las Vegas-style casino, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced Friday.
The decision means that both Indian casinos proposed for the Richmond area are now dead.
Interior officials ruled in August against the Guidiville Band of Pomo Indians, who hoped to build a casino and resort at the former Point Molate Naval Fuel Depot just north of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. Richmond voters subsequently doubled down on the decision and nixed the project in an advisory vote.
The two tribes had applied for federal lands designations for their Contra Costa properties, which would have allowed them to pursue lucrative gaming operations.
Neither site was sufficiently tied to the tribe's historical territory, regulators concluded. Under federal law, tribes must demonstrate modern, continuous and historical connections to prospective reservation lands.
The Scotts Valley Band is "extremely disappointed in today's decision," said tribal Chairman Don Arnold, of Hayward. The tribe is "currently reviewing the decision and considering its options."
The Scotts Valley Band wanted to build a 2,000-slot casino -- the size of typical large Nevada casino -- on 30 acres of unincorporated, industrial and privately owned property at Parr Boulevard on the Richmond Parkway.
Contra Costa County, which has spent in excess of $1 million fighting the casinos, is pleased.
"The decision confirms what we have been arguing since 2005," said Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia.
Shopping for off-reservation land for the purposes of opening casinos in urban areas is not what voters statewide envisioned when they approved Indian gaming in 1998, Gioia said.
In addition, the casinos would bring social problems such as smoking, gambling and alcohol addictions that would cost the community more than what the casino would bring in new tax dollars or jobs, he said.
The 230-member tribe has vehemently rejected the county's characterizations for years.
A casino would help the struggling landless tribe and provide jobs and tax revenue to the community, tribal officials have said.
The tribe also has argued that it has deep ties to the Bay Area, noting that the federal government in 1911 relocated some of their predecessors 80 miles north into Lake County. Today, the tribe has offices in Lakeport, Concord and Richmond.
In the federal report released Friday, however, officials concluded the Richmond site is outside the tribe's former reservation and beyond the limits of territory ceded in unratified treaties by its ancestors.
The tribe's historical documentation also failed to demonstrate that its members and its predecessors made continuous use of or occupied lands near the site, according to the report.
The Scotts Valley Band is one of four landless California tribes restored to federal recognition after a successful 1991 court battle.
But in all these years, only one tribe has successfully secured the federal lands designation required to open a casino.
The 750-member Ione Bank of Miwok Indians in Amador County won approval for 228 acres near Ione where it plans to build a casino. The announcement was made Friday.
The fourth tribe, the Cloverdale Rancheria in Sonoma County, awaits a decision on roughly 60 acres south of its hometown where it wants to build a 2,000-slot casino and hotel-convention center.
Contact Lisa Vorderbrueggen at 925-945-4773, www.ibabuzz.com/politics or Twitter.com/lvorderbrueggen.

Interior Department nixes East Bay casino

Bob Egelko
Saturday, May 26, 2012
(05-25) 18:42 PDT WASHINGTON -- The Interior Department vetoed an Indian tribe's plans Friday to build a casino on 30 acres north of Richmond, saying the tribe lacked any "significant historical connection" to the site.
The Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians, which is headquartered 80 miles north in Lake County, wanted to install the gambling facility on land near the waterfront in an unincorporated area. It would have included 2,000 slot machines and 50 gambling tables.
The tribe agreed in 2006 to pay the city of Richmond nearly $330 million over 20 years in exchange for municipal services and support in winning federal approval. State courts rejected challenges to the project by several East Bay environmental groups and residents of Parchester Village, a poor, largely African American subdivision near the proposed site.
But the Interior Department said its regulations allow casinos on newly acquired Indian lands only if the tribe can show a historic connection to the site. The department's approval was required because it would have held the land in trust for the tribe.
Although the Scotts Valley Band claimed historic ties to the land, the site is not within its former reservation or any territory its ancestors had held, the department's office of Indian Affairs said. It said the tribe's documentation "falls far short of demonstrating that it, and its predecessors, made continuous use ... or occupancy of lands in the vicinity."
In September, the department issued a similar decision against the Guidiville Band of Pomo Indians' proposed casino and convention center on Richmond's Point Molate shoreline. The City Council had effectively killed that proposal five months earlier by withdrawing its support.
Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: begelko@sfchronicle.com

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