April 14,
2005 - Supes may spend more to fight casino By NOEL STACK Staff writer
Confirming that El Dorado County leaders have
no intention of backing down, County Counsel's office has put
in a request for more money to fight the Shingle Springs
Rancheria in its bid to build a casino.
The El Dorado
County Board of Supervisors will consider the request for an
additional $200,000 at its April 19 meeting. The county has
spent $500,000 this fiscal year on casino-related litigation
and expenses, including retaining attorneys and hiring traffic
experts.
To date, the county has spent $1,689,645
fighting legal battles against the Shingle Springs Band of
Miwok Indians and the tribe's financial backers, Lakes
Entertainment, since the fall of 2002, according to Chief
Administrative Officer Laura Gill.
"Whatever we spend
to keep the casino out every year is 1/100th of the economic
detriment to the county if it were to go in," said Chief
Assistant County Counsel Ed Knapp. "In terms of other impacts,
(i.e. traffic, noise and light pollution) you can't even
quantify it."
The county, working with law firm
Diepenbrock Harrison, is challenging the casino and tribe on
several fronts. It is currently appealing rulings it lost on
in its case against Caltrans to stop the interchange that is
needed to build the casino. Caltrans has also appealed a
portion of that case that it lost. No hearing date for the
appeals has been set.
On the federal level, the county
has filed an appeal with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to
appeal a decision in its case against the Bureau of Indian
Affairs. The county filed a lawsuit against the BIA, claiming
the BIA's declaration that the casino project would have no
significant impacts on the environment is incorrect, but a
judge ruled in favor of the federal agency. The county is also
monitoring legislation and the tribe's efforts to renegotiate
its compact with the governor, according to Knapp.
An
important thing to remember, Knapp said, is that for every
dollar the county spends, the casino backers are spending much
more.
"When we go to any of these court hearings the
other side has two, sometimes three, times the number of
lawyers that we do," Knapp said. "We're fighting huge
international law firms ... getting paid twice the hourly rate
that we pay, including lawyers who wrote the book on
California Environmental Quality Act.
"We're often
outmanned but never outgunned," he added.
If the
funding is approved, the additional $200,000 will come from
the county's contingency fund.
A press statement issued
by the rancheria states that the tribe feels the money spent
fighting its casino projects is a waste.
"It is
unfortunate that the county continues to waste taxpayer
dollars trying to delay the tribe's casino-interchange
project," states the release. "The county has, so far, lost
every point of both their lawsuits, except one. We believe it
is in the best interest of the taxpayers of this county for
the Board of Supervisors to sit down with the tribe and work
together like other tribes and counties have across the
state."
The board has openly opposed a casino on the
rancheria since the first tent casino, Crystal Mountain, was
erected in 1997. That casino was closed four months later
because the only road leading to the rancheria is privately
owned and a judge ruled it could not be used to access the
casino. The tribe has since donated the tent to a Sacramento
church and it's expected to come down from its site, in view
of travelers on Highway 50, within the next couple of
months.
A position statement previously released by the
Board of Supervisors states that the board feels an Indian
casino, and eventually hotel, does not fit in with the
residential, rural area surrounding the rancheria. Also, it
states, the amount of traffic generated and water needed to
supply such a project is astronomical.
"This is a
planning nightmare - no rational planner and no sensible
public official would ever approve a commercial project of
this magnitude in an area zoned for rural residences,"
according to the statement. "Yet this band and its gambling
financiers claim to have the right to build such a monstrosity
because of a distortion of history."
The tribe has
countered with statements of its own saying a casino will
ensure financial independence for its members and it has also
stated that the tribe would be willing to mitigate impacts by
compensating the county. The county has denied that a formal
monetary offer was ever made.
