Petaluma casino threat lingers

<p>News that the Dry Creek Band of Pomo Indians is considering building a minor league baseball stadium on property it owns alongside the freeway just south of Petaluma offers some hope to local residents that an unwanted gambling casino might never be built. The very uncertain future of the property, however, remains a justifiable cause for public concern.</p><!-- Nothing to do. The paragraph has already been output --><p>Shortly after the tribe announced its controversial plans to take the 277-acre property into federal trust in 2006 in order to develop “a class III gaming facility,” 80 percent of Petaluma voters went to the polls and said no to a casino on the site located opposite Kastania Road between the highway and the river.</p><p>But the vote was advisory in nature, and can only serve as one piece of a complex and shadowy decision-making puzzle that could one day lead to a casino development in Petaluma. As part of negotiations last year to expand the tribe’s existing River Rock Casino in Geyserville, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors signed an agreement stipulating that no casino would be built on the tribe’s Petaluma property for eight years in exchange for dedicating a portion of the land as open space. The tribe later said it would permanently abandon all plans for a casino in Petaluma if the city would just provide water and sewer hook-ups for an alternative commercial project on the site, such as a baseball stadium, hotel or service station. </p><p>But should Petaluma be forced to relinquish some of its increasingly precious water supply and limited sewer capacity to an Indian tribe in order to prevent a casino from being built on its doorstep? So far, the city has properly declined to even consider this brazen proposal. </p><p>But with a little over six years remaining until the tribe can resubmit its application for a casino, the city’s position on the matter could change. For the Dry Creek Pomo tribe, it really boils down to how much they can leverage the perceived threat of a casino in order to get special dispensation to build a large commercial development alongside the freeway using Petaluma’s water and sewer capacity. </p><p>A big part of any development negotiations for the property relies on the likelihood that the federal government will one day decide to take the land into trust, but that’s become a less predictable political proposition, especially for the Dry Creek Pomos who already operate a gambling facility on their reservation just 25 miles to the north. In 2007, the tribe was advised by an official with the Interior Department that the rules may soon be changing to prevent the common practice of “reservation shopping,” a shameful practice whereby competing tribes purchase private property well beyond their own ancestral boundaries in order to develop more profitable gambling enterprises. </p><p>Since then, badly needed federal legislation designed to prevent reservation shopping died under the weight of enormous opposition from Indian gaming interests and their cohorts in Las Vegas who heaped millions of dollars in campaign donations upon dozens of U.S. congressmen and senators in exchange for their support of the status quo. It remains to be seen whether the Obama administration’s Interior Department officials will put the brakes on the Indian gambling business that the New York Times reported last year has become a “$26-billion-a-year behemoth with 423 casinos across the country.”</p><p>Whether the Pomo tribe can stake a legitimate claim to lands in southern Sonoma County, which were primarily occupied by the Coastal Miwok tribe, is also in dispute. The Miwoks, organized as the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, are attempting to gain approval of a monstrously large casino and commercial complex in Rohnert Park and vigorously oppose the notion of a Pomo casino operating in Petaluma. Given that the casino located closest to the Bay Area is likely to earn the biggest revenues and profits, it’s easy to see why the Pomos would still want to build a casino here, and why Petalumans have good reason to be concerned. </p><p>If both tribes are successful in building their casinos, Petaluma could find itself sandwiched between two of the largest gaming complexes in California. The resulting impacts would forever change this community for the worse with massive traffic jams, increased crime and air pollution, severe water shortages, wastewater disposal problems impacting the nearby Petaluma River, and impaired fire protection and law enforcement services, among the more obvious impacts.</p><p>At this point, Petaluma’s best hope to stop the casino threat is coming from Assemblyman Jared Huffman, who is fighting an uphill battle in Sacramento to give local residents more power to determine whether a casino can locate in a given community. Also appreciated is Supervisor Mike Kerns’ renewed effort to place an advisory measure on the ballot next year to allow county voters to weigh in on the Rohnert Park casino plan. </p><p>We hope to see more from Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey and State Sen. Mark Leno in this very important fight to prevent Petaluma from becoming a smoggy, traffic-choked gambling mecca.</p>