Posted on 04/21/2005 2:53:19 PM PDT by calcowgirl
North County's Los Coyotes Indian band is considering a partnership with a Northern California tribe to get the governor's OK for an off-reservation gambling complex in Barstow.
A spokesman for BarWest Gaming, a Michigan firm backing the project, said Los Coyotes, which has been pursuing the Barstow project since 2003, is now discussing a joint venture with Humboldt County's Big Lagoon Rancheria.
BarWest spokesman Tom Shields said the tribal partnership is being encouraged by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose blessing is essential for any off-reservation Indian casino. "It's a marriage put together by the state," Shields said.
Neither Los Coyotes nor Big Lagoon has a state gambling compact, though both have been trying to get one. Leaders of both tribes did not return calls for comment.
Big Lagoon has filed suit over the state's long-standing refusal to grant the tribe a compact for a casino on its redwood-studded coastal reservation north of Eureka.
Schwarzenegger's deputy press secretary, Vince Sollitto, said the governor has environmental concerns and wants Big Lagoon to build elsewhere, although he would not confirm any specific site.
"The state of California would like very much to reach an agreement with the Big Lagoon tribe that meets their desire to operate a gaming facility to provide for their tribe while not building a casino in their environmentally sensitive reservation," Sollitto said.
Tribal casinos must be on federal reservation land. To get off-reservation land placed in federal trust for gaming, a tribe must clear three hurdles: local support, approval of the governor and concurrence of the U.S. interior secretary.
Big Lagoon Chairman Virgil Moorehead addressed the Barstow City Council last week, saying his 18-member tribe would rather stay close to home but is pursuing a partnership with Los Coyotes in Barstow.
City spokesman John Rader said that until the tribes reach agreement, it is uncertain whether they would build two casinos side by side or one large gambling hall divided in half. Either way, each tribe would be entitled to at least 2,000 slot machines, he said.
The proposed site is off Interstate 15, about halfway to Las Vegas from San Diego or Los Angeles. The council has unanimously and eagerly welcomed the project, which would be the first of its kind in California.
Los Coyotes sees dollar signs in the distant but high-traffic city. Its reservation, 125 miles to the south near Warner Springs, is one of the most remote of 18 in San Diego County. Most of the tribe's roughly 300 members do not live on the 25,000-acre reservation, where the only enterprise is a campground.
Under an agreement reached last summer, the tribe and BarWest would pay the cash-strapped city more than $1 million for roads, fire protection and other services, plus 4.3 percent of net slot revenue, a sum estimated at $4.63 million a year.
Barstow would expect a similar agreement with Big Lagoon, Rader said.
Another local tribe, East County's Manzanita band, is pursuing an off-reservation casino in the Imperial County city of Calexico.
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