Posted on 12/19/2004 8:18:09 PM PST by B Knotts
CASCADE LOCKS, Ore. - For 12,000 years or more, Columbia River tribes gathered along the banks near here to do business with distant tribes.
Now they want to come back - not to cut deals in fish and baskets, as their ancestors did, but to deal blackjack and poker.
The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs want to close a small casino on their reservation in remote central Oregon and build one on nontribal land in this town on the banks of the Columbia, much closer to Portland, the state's largest city, and the thousands of gamblers a casino would attract.
Cascade Locks officials see a casino as the last, best hope for this struggling town of 1,100.
But the Friends of the Columbia River Gorge, formed to protect the beauty of one of the nation's first designated national scenic areas, cringes at the thought, predicting pollution, crowds and bad precedent.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
"We're tourism-based now, and that base is the 100 days of summer," he said. "In the 1950s we had 90 businesses here. We have about 19 now, and many of them are for sale.
"We had doctors, dentists, a bank," he said. "Those things are gone."
We should build it on the Capitol Mall. Don't you think ?
The environmentalist extremists have destroyed all our natural resource industries, and told people at the time "don't worry...you can survive on tourism!"
Now, tourism is all that's left, and they are trying to destroy that too.
If there's one thing they hate, it's small town and rural America.
FYI PING
It's been done before.
In Southeast Alaska, the tribes have been given half the National Forest, then, in the dark of night, choice strips of highgrade timber, strategic harbors, hydro sites......
...speak up now or kiss it goodbye.
Not sure what you're talking about. Are you afraid the Indian people are going to take everything over?
I can tell you that most of the locals that I talk to are very happy that there will be something coming that will help the local economy.
Screw the warm springs tribes. They already have a casino on the reservation at the kahneetah resort. If the tribes build a casino at Cascade Locks, how much casino money do you seriously think will actually go into the pockets of the people of Cascade Locks?
How about instead we recognize the private property rights of all landowners, and let the people of Cascade Locks instead build their own damn casino, or theme park, or whatever. That being said, I don't think a casino will help them live in the lap of luxury like they intend. Casino or no, the I-84 drive up the gorge can be very lousy in winter. Portland's winter casino patrons will still go to spirit mountain, along with gamblers from Salem and Eugene. Eastern Oregon gamblers will still go kahneetah.
Nobody's planning on "living in the lap of luxury." They're just trying to survive.
And I-84 in the Gorge is treacherous about 5 days out of the year...not a big deal.
Incidentally, this is within the city limits, so the Gorge Commission does not have jurisdiction. The issue is whether or not the "activists" will talk the governor into not going through with this plan.
If this gets approved watch the flood gates open to Indian casinos on private land. Indian casinos pay nothing into the economy except for the jobs they provide. If this is allowed they should allow non Indian casinos to operate also. They at least, would be paying into the state coffers.
Hey Rocket Scientist, do some more homework.
Lincoln City, Grande Rhonde, Pendleton, and Cow Creek have all boomed and benefitted from their Casino's. Kah-Nee-Tah, "The Camp" in Burns, and Kla-Moy-Ah north of K-Falls have all been busts due to being off the beaten path. The Casino in Coos Bay is picking up well, as is the new one in Florence. So the towns and tribes in 6 well traveled area's have all benefitted. If the Warm Springs group gets the Casino in the Gorge, they as well as Cascade Locks will benefit. And yes they will too draw some of the crowds from Lincoln City, Grande Rhonde, and Pendleton. As for nasty weather; it's doesn't get that bad until you pass Hood River in the winter. Try and sell it somewhere else cuz' yer full of it!
Gary Locke should be hung by his toes for what he has done to this state.
ping
Some will live in the lap of luxury: The Nevada Company that is backing them will get around 50% of the money off the top.
And many tribes "decide" that only a few of the full blooded members of the tribe are actually members.
In one case here in California, a tribe has about 200 people in it, and there are less than a dozen that are "certified" so they get all the money.
Business as usual except for the town's people that have to dodge drunken drivers and those that can't end up with a mangled car.
I just do not see the logic in the move to have casinos established. Really, what does it bring to a community, besides a bunch of losers, for we all know winning at gambling is about as rare as getting struck by lightning. So why don't I see people outside waving a golf iron in the air? They certainly would save a lot of money trying to get hit by lightning instead of dumping their paychecks into casino coffers.
Point taken ... for the people of Cascade Locks. However, certain people are planning on getting rich off this casino. Some are the high muckity-mucks of the warm springs tribe (the average tribe members will still depend on reservation welfare, compliments of your tax dollar), but the others are the vegas casino corporations who are using the tribes as a front.
The people of Cascade Locks? They might get a few jobs if they're lucky and the casino doesn't import its own workers. Some tourist dollars might also manage to escape the casino nets and land in their pockets. They'll also get a higher crime rate, so more taxes will be needed for police. You can bet the casino won't be paying for that. More drunk and disorderly people will need to be held somewhere. Will the casino be paying for a new jail? They'll also need to pay for more and better roads. The casino will again leave that up to the tax payers. The freeway offramp for the casino will also come out of the taxpayers pockets. And when the good people of Cascade Locks try to recoup their tax expenditures from the casino, they'll find all sorts of rich tribal attorneys (with law offices in Vegas) to explain all about native entitlements and exemptions.
Again, though, my original point was "screw the warm springs tribes. Let the people of Cascade Locks put up a casino on their own and benefit directly." Then they'd at least be one level higher up on the casino money chain.
Also, has anyone considered a riverboat casino? What would the 'friends' of the gorge say to that? Just a thought.
They can also boost their economy by copying the capitalist spirit north of the river. I hear the meth industry of Stephenson is booming, and it's at least as ethical as a tribal fronted casino.
I think my best idea is to go along with the 'friends' of the gorge and the other busybody environmentalists. If they can get Bonneville Dam torn down to "save our salmon", then the locks will be needed again, and they can all live well by charging a handsome toll on all the traffic going up and down the river. That's as likely to work as the tribal casino.
And I-84 in the Gorge is treacherous about 5 days out of the year...not a big deal.
Once you get east of Troutdale, sure. Before then, the combination of Oregon winter weather and Portland's evil commuter traffic (that light rail was supposed to cure - but didn't) means you're taking your life into your own hands 24-7. And God help you if you get in the way of a school bus carrying a football team from a high school east of the Willamette.
OK...which is it? Is it that you don't like gambling, don't like Indians, or both?
Actually, I don't really care either way about gambling or indians. I don't gamble, but I don't care if other people gamble. And native americans are just people like everyone else. Whether or not I like them depends on what they do, not who their parents are.
Here is what I don't like:
Fair enough. My opinion is that Indians got a raw deal for hundreds of years, so I'm OK with them having a special arrangement, which derives treaties signed by our government long ago.
So what? You could say the same thing for the native britons under the saxons, or the saxons under the normans. Or everyone under the romans. Do they all get preferential treatment? Who does not have ancestors that were oppressed at some point? More importantly, has anyone living today oppressed the indians? I know I haven't.
Just how raw a deal have the indians gotten under westerners? Yes, there have been deplorable incidents and policies, but think on this: before Columbus, the indians were still living in the stone age. Sure, some had advanced cultures, but what did most of those advanced cultures base themselves on? War, enslavement, human sacrifice, and other despicable acts. The aztecs were doing well before the spaniards came on the scene, but what about the tlaxcala under the aztecs? Sure, some horrible westerners gave indians blankets infected with smallpox, and that was one of the most evil acts possible. But without the westerners, modern indians wouldn't have penecillin. Without westerners, indians wouldn't even have horses and would still be subsisting by chasing buffalo over cliffs.
My point is that history is full of human interactions and migrations that were either harmful or beneficial to other humans. You can't place blame on modern people for those acts. We are not guilty of the sins of our fathers.
so I'm OK with them having a special arrangement,
But in theory, all men (and women) are created equal. Injustice cannot be corrected through more injustice.
which derives treaties signed by our government long ago
Then we honor those treaties. Which means, I believe, that indians are entitled to do whatever they want on reservation land. There is nothing in any of those treaties about granting indians the privilege of building casinos in non-reservation land where the average citizens is disallowed from doing so. When they leave the reservation, they abandon any privilege granted to them, and must be subject to the same laws as everyone else. Anything else is unfair and unjust.
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