The ink is barely dry on the rejection that California voters dealt in this month’s election to an off-reservation tribal casino plan in the Central Valley, but already two similar proposals have popped up — right in the heart of the Bay Area.
Two Pomo Indian bands are competing to build a casino on the long-closed Navy base of Mare Island in Vallejo, and they promise that if they get the go-ahead they will construct a gaming palace the likes of which the state has never seen.
Between $10 million and $20 million will gush into the economically battered city’s coffers every year, the tribes promise, thousands of jobs will be created, and what is now a wasteland on the closed base will blossom into a tourist magnet.
Early plans show that the casino would rise on the northeastern tip of Mare Island, turning what is now a 157-acre stretch of weed-flecked asphalt and abandoned Navy buildings into a colorful playland of more than 3,000 slot machines and hotel rooms, shops, concert venues and high-end restaurants.
Situated about 30 miles north of San Francisco, near Interstate 80 and alongside Highway 37, such a casino complex would be the biggest ever built in Northern California.
Bureaucratic hurdles
Perhaps the biggest catch is the requirement that whichever tribe wins Vallejo’s blessing must first have that tip of Mare Island federally designated as its land — meaning it would suddenly constitute a tiny sovereign Indian nation right on the waterfront of Vallejo. And that’s a long leap, both physically and politically.
One tribe, the 130-member Elem Indian Colony, now calls home a reservation about 85 miles north on the shores of Clear Lake. The other, the 50-member Koi Nation of Northern California, has no land, having been forced from the last of its Clear Lake-area territory in 1956 when the federal government sold it to build an airport.
The Elem would need an act of Congress to have the Mare Island property turned over to them, and the Koi would need federal Bureau of Indian Affairs authorization — and both would need approval from the state Legislature and the governor to go ahead with a casino.
Intense debate
The plans got their first rollouts to the public at a nearly five-hour-long Vallejo City Council meeting Thursday, but in the weeks before that, statewide gambling opponents were already raising objections in letters to the city. As more than 200 people overflowed the council chamber, it was clear the debate will not be quick.
“This is the most exciting night I’ve seen in years, to see companies wanting to come to this city,” said Sam Kurshan, one of a long line of Vallejo residents who came to a lectern to voice opinions about the plans. “People aren’t going to come here for an industrial park. They are going to come to a world-class casino and resort.”
Resident Charlie Malarkey took the opposite tack on his podium turn.
“I think it’s too big for Vallejo,” he said. “Some of the pictures they showed were scary. It reminded me of Cache Creek,” a large Indian casino in Yolo County.
Council members said they were keeping open minds.
‘I’m excited’
“My first take on this is that I’m excited,” said Mayor Osby Davis. “We’ve asked for proposals before and gotten nothing, especially during the recession. But now with the economy and the city doing a bit better, we have a lot of options. We have to choose carefully.
“I don’t think there’s any way this matter can be decided yet,” he said.
Leaders of Vallejo, which has been economically battered by the summer earthquake and a bankruptcy that ended in 2011, are eager to bring in the kind of money being dangled by the tribes. But they are leery of the state and federal hurdles that could take three to 10 years to surmount.
Six other economic development proposals for Mare Island were also presented Thursday. The council is set to hear more details about all eight proposals in December and hopes to pick one party with whom to begin serious negotiations by early 2015.
Election message
Councilwoman Pippin Dew-Costa said she was concerned that a tribe coming in from out of the area would encounter the same type of political buzz saw that the North Fork Tribe of Mono Indians ran into when it planned a casino alongside Highway 99 in Madera, 38 miles from the closest thing the tribe had to its own property.
Gambling opponents put Proposition 48 on the Nov. 4 ballot, saying the tribe was “reservation shopping” when it had the Madera land federally designated for its use. State voters shot down the tribe’s casino with ease, 61 to 39 percent.
Many viewed the rejection as a message that Californians don’t want tribes to operate casinos away from their core lands.
“These two new proposals have the same problem as the North Fork casino, and to me if they go through, it’s like a snowball starting to roll downhill,” said Cheryl Schmit, director of gambling watchdog group Stand Up for California and leader of the Prop. 48 campaign. “The fact that so many voted ‘no’ on the North Fork plan means that most people understand off-reservation gaming is a detriment to the community.”
A casino would draw customers away from existing restaurants and other entertainment businesses, Schmit said, as well as fuel gambling addiction because it would be within easy reach of densely populated areas.
“I’m hoping Vallejo sees the light and stops these plans in their tracks right now,” Schmit said.
Eager for land
The tribes say they are almost desperate to have a new homeland to call their own, and they want it to be in Vallejo. They say being off reservation is a nonissue, because if federal officials designate land as tribal territory it is no longer off anything — it’s reservation land.
Neither tribe is claiming that Vallejo was an ancestral homeland, but the Pomos did travel through the area and trade with the local Ohlone and Miwok, tribal members said at Thursday’s council meeting.
The Koi unsuccessfully floated a proposal a decade ago to plant a casino near Oakland International Airport. The Elem band has drawn headlines over the years for tribal infighting, including a reservation shootout in 1995 that left nine wounded and the expulsion in 2007 of an elder who supporters said was the last speaker of the tribe’s 8,000-year-old language. Elem leaders say the infighting was just part of a process of cleaning up tribal enrollment records.
“We are the tribe best suited for this proposal,” said Elem tribal Chairman Agustin Garcia. “As an impoverished tribe, we want to uplift not only ourselves but others who are disadvantaged by providing good jobs — and we can get this plan done quicker than anyone else.”
Contaminated home
The band has a rancheria, so all it would need to build on Mare Island would be an act of Congress. Garcia said he believes he could get that within three years.
The present Elem rancheria is so contaminated by mercury and arsenic from a long-closed nearby mine that it is a Superfund site, so “there is a breach of trust with our people regarding our land,” Garcia said. “I believe we could get land designation very quickly in Vallejo.”
The Elem have no developer yet on board for their proposal. The Koi, however, have retained Cordish Co. of Maryland, which has built several casinos around the nation under the “Live” brand name.
What the Koi lack is land, and that’s a significant drawback: It typically takes the Bureau of Indian Affairs and other federal officials a decade or more to designate new territory for a landless tribe.
Koi Treasurer Dino Beltran said that if his tribe gets the go-ahead, its casino is “probably going to be the most exciting development on the West Coast.”
