Rohnert Park and the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria have outlined a new revenue-sharing deal worth at least $40 million more than one they signed in 2003.
The City Council is to consider the revised agreement Tuesday at 5 p.m.
The 2003 deal directed $211 million to the city over 20 years - $2.77 million of which the city already has received - in one-time and recurring payments for public safety, education, traffic improvements and other services.
It was intended to address impacts of the tribe's proposed casino. The new deal comes with casino construction well underway and a projected opening date of late this year.
Also, the casino site is on land that the city once planned to annex, which means it will lose tax revenue it had banked on.
"We looked at this project like we would at any other development project and with a whole new lens," said City Manager Gabe Gonzalez.
The most significant addition to the proposed new deal is an annual payment to the city of $2,369,00 "to mitigate potential impacts to the city."
Assistant City Manager Darrin Jenins said in a staff report that the city intends to use the money in part for public safety and other city costs that he did not specify.
The impetus for the new deal is that the former deal was designed around a different site than the one where the tribe and its Las Vegas partner, Station Casinos, is building a 3,000-slot machine casino.
That initial site overlapped in places with the tribe's current 254-acre reservation, but the proposed casino footprint was closer to Stony Point Road than where it is now being built on 66 acres along Wilfred Avenue.
Opponents to the casino who are challenging it in court have argued that location change made the old agreement invalid. Since the tribe's gambling contract with the state was conditioned partly on such an agreement with Rohnert Park being in place, it was illegal for the tribe to move forward without a deal that articulated the correct casino location, the Stop the Casino 101 group had said.
Tuesday afternoon, Gonzalez said the revised agreement is needed for multiple reasons.
"It was going to have to be done, at the very least to amend the project site location, but along with that there were obviously other issues we needed to address."
You can reach Staff Writer Jeremy Hay at 521-5212 or jeremy.hay@pressdemocrat.com.
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