Officials say federal and state laws make a casino inevitable

CLARK MASON
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

On a cul-de-sac in Rohnert Park, neighbors find themselves on opposite sides of their manicured front lawns when it comes to the recall election and the proposed casino that spawned it.

At the end of Fern Place, retired CHP sergeant and real estate agent Tim Miller finds his pro-casino views at odds with those of neighbors.

"I don't see doom and gloom," Miller said of the Graton Rancheria's project on the western edge of Rohnert Park.

Three doors down, Marc Orloff, a claims supervisor, is opposed to the casino. "When you're living in a suburban area, it's not the most appropriate place for it to be," he said.

The disagreement among neighbors on Fern Place is polite. But passions in Rohnert Park are growing as the Aug. 24 election approaches and longtime residents say past battles over growth pale in comparison.

The stakes in the recall election go well beyond this bedroom community of 42,000 residents. The 2,000-slot casino, 2,000-seat performing arts theater and 300-room hotel - the biggest in Sonoma County - would set off sweeping changes to Rohnert Park and its economy.

But the recall vote itself could bring further attention to a question that is being raised statewide as Indian casinos proliferate in California: Do angry residents really have the power to overturn a tribe's decision to build a gaming hall near their community?

The divisions in Rohnert Park can be seen on lawns and in open fields across the city, where red and blue campaign signs have sprouted with competing messages for and against the recall.

Critics hurl invectives at City Council meetings, where casino opponents routinely blast the council for not standing up to the tribe and its project.

In many voters' minds, the recall has turned into a referendum on the casino itself. At City Council meetings, critics repeatedly state the casino is "not a done deal" and suggest a new council can stop the project.

But city officials and gaming experts maintain the casino is inevitable, regardless of who serves on the City Council, because of federal and state laws that favor the Graton tribe.

Life in the "Friendly City" has not been quite the same since the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria announced a year ago that they were buying land to build a casino resort on 360 acres west of town.

Meetings to discuss the tribe's plans drew raucous crowds of 500 people, forcing the City Council for the first time to abandon City Hall and move to the sprawling Spreckels Performing Arts Center to accommodate overflow crowds.

Casino opponents, angered that the city promised to support the casino project under a $200 million revenue-sharing pact with the tribe, launched the first City Council recall in Rohnert Park history. They quickly followed with a petition drive to put the revenue-sharing pact itself to a public vote, but the City Council ruled the agreement was not subject to referendum.

Two incumbents, Armando Flores and Amie Spradlin, are battling for their jobs and six casino opponents are vying to replace them.

Meanwhile, the three remaining council members are up for re-election in November. Casino opponents threaten to challenge anyone who supports the project.

Recall organizers are emboldened by the success of a similar recall election in May in Plymouth, a small town in the Sierra foothills east of Sacramento. Voters ousted three members of the Plymouth City Council for their support of an $80 million agreement with the Ione Band of Miwoks.

In Rohnert Park, casino opponents claim that a successful recall would send a message to Sacramento and Washington and, at the least, stall the casino. They suggest that recalling the City Council may convince the tribe to look somewhere else, as it did after fierce opposition surfaced to its initial site near Sears Point.

Council critics say the recall is about more than just the casino, and would help curb the influence they say developers have too long exerted over City Hall.

At Tuesday's meeting, Larry Esparza, a steadfast council critic, characterized the $200 million pact with the tribe as "a bribe." He suggested Flores and Spradlin are getting campaign money from former mayor and developer Jimmie Rogers, who helped broker the land sale for the casino site.

"I used to think you were gutless. Now, I think you're just corrupt," Esparza told the council during the televised proceedings.

But defenders of the council, including the politically active Peace Officers Association and other city employee unions, said council members are being unfairly persecuted.

James Grundman, a spokesman for the Rohnert Park Employees Association, said the council was trying to avoid what happened at the River Rock Casino in the Alexander Valley. There, Sonoma County officials did not negotiate with the Dry Creek Rancheria and consequently got no money to offset impacts from the casino.

Vince Amato, president of the peace officers union, said the tribe's revenue-sharing pact offers opportunities that the city could not afford without raising taxes.

Among the benefits the city will derive from the tribe's money, he said, is a new police and fire station on the west side of town. The tribe has already provided $700,000 for a new five-person enforcement team, which has produced 52 arrests, returned five parolees to prison, and seized almost a pound of methamphetamine in its first three weeks of operation.

Amato said the council acted with "competence and foresight" to safeguard the community by striking the 20-year revenue-sharing deal with the Graton Rancheria.

But council critics such as the Rev. Chip Worthington, who is running to replace Flores if he is recalled, said council members seem to be less emphatic these days that the casino is a foregone conclusion. Council members, he said, now talk about the casino's becoming a reality only "if the casino receives government approval."

The recall election has prompted new urgency for the tribe to obtain a gaming compact - the license needed to operate - from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Last week, City Manager Carl Leivo disclosed that he and Mayor Greg Nordin met in July with the governor's chief negotiator and his legal secretary, urging them to negotiate a gaming compact with the tribe.

The meeting was arranged by the tribe and Friends of the Graton Rancheria, a group that includes developer Hugh Codding and his wife, Connie.

Both council members Vickie Vidak-Martinez and Jake Mackenzie objected last week that they had not been notified of the meetings.

"These sorts of meetings and this sort of effort adds gasoline to the fire," said Mackenzie, who has joined critics who complain of secret dealings by city officials.

In letters to the governor's office, the city manager and mayor touted the city's pact with the tribe as unprecedented in California and probably the nation.

City officials are also seeking concessions from the tribe in addition to the $200 million agreement reached in October. Leivo said the city is seeking to have the compact require the tribe to pay for a $40 million Wilfred Avenue interchange and an extra lane on Highway 101 from there to the Rohnert Park Expressway.

Graton Rancheria leaders, who routinely decline interviews, had no comment about their recent meetings with state officials and attempts to secure a compact.

But a spokesman for the governor said no compact is currently being negotiated with the Graton Rancheria.

Cheryl Schmit, a gambling watchdog and casino critic, said the opposition in Rohnert Park has managed to delay the project.

"When you have a recall, a referendum, or a grand jury investigation, it indicates to the state there is not popular support. It means the state has to look into it further," she said.

The tribe's partner, Station Casinos of Las Vegas, expects the casino to open in 2006 or 2007. While a recall could slow the casino or encourage Schwarzenegger to scale back its size, Schmit said the project cannot be halted by a new City Council, even one opposed to the development.

"Can it stop the casino, remove the casino? No. Absolutely no," said Schmit. "This is a mandatory land acquisition. You need an Act of Congress to stop this land acquisition."

In fact, Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, last year introduced legislation in Congress along with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., seeking to give regulators some leeway to reject the tribe's application to create a reservation. The measure would change language in the bill that restored the Graton Rancheria so that its application for a reservation would not be automatically approved.

That bill has languished, according to Woolsey, because members of the powerful Senate Indian Affairs Committee who uphold tribal rights are not interested in having it go forward.

The Graton Rancheria has an unusually strong restoration act that was authored by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., four years ago, essentially mandating the Secretary of the Interior to take land the tribe buys in Sonoma or Marin counties into federal trust.

Boxer's son, attorney Doug Boxer, subsequently went to work as a consultant for the Graton Rancheria, although the senator has disavowed any connection.

Schmit said the Restoration Act exempts the tribe from federal criteria that ordinarily require regulators to consider local impacts and community sentiment.

I. Nelson Rose, a law professor at Whittier College in Costa Mesa and an authority on gambling law, noted the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the last say on anything involving Indian tribes.

"So, now that Senator Boxer pushed her bill through Congress, I don't think anything can stop this casino from being built," he said in an e-mail interview. "The governor's main power is the ability to stall. He'll probably force the tribe to share 15 percent of its casino revenue with the state."

A spokesman for Schwarzenegger said the state is under no obligation to negotiate a compact with the Graton Rancheria - until the tribe's land is taken into federal trust and cleared for gaming.

That is not expected to happen until next year at the earliest, according to Rohnert Park officials, after a federal environmental review of the tribe's project is complete.

"Clearly there exists under federal law a time when the state is obligated to negotiate," said governor's spokesman Vince Sollitto, noting that a tribe can sue the state if a governor does not negotiate a gaming compact in good faith.

He said there are instances in which the governor may choose to pursue negotiations before he is obligated.

There would be a number of things the governor would take into account, said Sollitto, including the views of local elected officials and the concerns of the community.

City Manager Leivo said the governor's representatives are weighing whether to start negotiations with the tribe or wait until the environmental review for the project is completed early next year.

Leivo reiterated that a successful recall will not stop the casino, but could delay it.

"I understand that the governor has some discretion in dealing with the timing on all of this," Leivo said. "I don't believe in the end he can stop the tribe from pursuing the project."

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