Two challenge Harvey Hopkins in Dry Creek Pomo leadership role

Harvey Hopkins, longtime chairman of the Dry Creek Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians, is up for re-election, facing two challengers, including the tribal vice chairwoman who tried to recall him four years ago.

Saturday’s election comes at a pivotal time for the tribe, which for 11 years had a monopoly on Indian gaming in Sonoma County, only to see revenues at its River Rock Casino near Geyserville plummet by half following the opening a year ago of Graton Resort and Casino next to Rohnert Park.

Subsequently, the tribe missed interest payments and defaulted on more than $140 million owed to River Rock bondholders. It also is delinquent on a $3.5 million payment to Sonoma County, owed since July.

“We’re not trying to run from debt. We want to pay our bill, pay our debts,” Hopkins said in an interview this week, adding that the tribe’s representatives expect to sit down with a majority of bondholders after the election to restructure the debt. He said the tribe is negotiating with the county on the missed annual payment, most of which goes to pay for extra patrols by sheriff’s deputies in the vicinity of River Rock Casino.

As a result of the casino’s decline in fortune, Dry Creek tribal members have seen a reduction in their monthly payments and have had programs curtailed or discontinued that provided books and clothes to schoolchildren and assistance for college tuition and housing.

But whether members will take it out on Hopkins, who has led the tribe with about 1,200 members for 10 years, remains to be seen.

Hopkins’ challengers for leadership of the tribe include the current vice chairwoman, Salvina Norris, 36, and Chris Wright, 43, head of marketing at River Rock.

Neither returned phone calls or requests for comment over the past several days.

Hopkins said he has kept a keen eye on expenses, trimming the budget, while creating new ventures to increase income. The tribe has bought vineyards, produced wine, expanded into tobacco sales, explored olive oil production and worked to develop a highly profitable wetlands mitigation bank on the 277 acres the tribe acquired south of Petaluma during his tenure, he said.

The tribe this week also announced a joint effort to develop a large, 10-megawatt solar array in the hills overlooking Lake Sonoma on land leased from the Army Corps of Engineers, a project that is expected to both cut the casino’s electric bills and potentially produce income.

Hopkins said the five-member board of directors recently took a 20 percent salary cut, but he began forgoing his entire $100,000 salary this month in exchange for a monthly $200 stipend, an arrangement he said will likely continue into the first quarter of next year. He said he did it to avoid more layoffs in tribal operations.

“I have a lot of confidence the membership may see their way through to select me again,” he said.

Not all members are convinced however, with some saying it’s time for a change and there’s a good chance Hopkins, 66, may not be re-elected.

Reg Elgin, a tribal elder who supports Hopkins, said “I don’t know if there’s a sure thing” as far as the election result. “I am hopeful.”

He stressed Hopkins’ experience and his ability to see projects to completion.

“He probably has done more for our tribe than anybody in the past 25 years,” Elgin said.

Whether sufficient tribal members agree that Hopkins should get another two-year term hinges on the votes cast by an estimated 300 to 400 adult members of the tribe expected to show up Saturday out of about 650 adults who are eligible to vote. There are no absentee votes allowed, and some tribal members who live out of state fly in to cast ballots.

In biographies circulated to tribal members, Norris and Wright each stressed their experience and background as qualifying them to lead. Neither of them criticized Hopkins.

Norris, who has been on the board of directors for six years, serving initially as secretary/ treasurer then vice chairwoman, said she is comfortable handling budgets and reading contracts to make sure the language protects the tribe. She said she is confident in her ability to negotiate with investors and county or state officials, and also has been looking into more grants for education and housing.

“Although I may appear to be quiet at times, I can assure you that I have fought many times for all of you behind closed doors in dealing with business or personal issues,” she said in a candidate statement.

Wright said that working at the casino for more than a dozen years has given him a unique perspective on marketing, advertising, promotions, finance, bus programs and structuring a budget up to $33 million.

He said a huge priority is to get the tribe’s Petaluma property into federal trust for economic development.

While cutting expenses, generating revenue and renegotiating with the county and bond holders, he said, there need to be funds provided to maintain payments to tribal members and tribal programs.

Norris, along with then-board member Marina Nojima, led a recall effort against Hopkins in 2010, due to controversial disenrollments of tribal members as well as disputes over access to financial and board records.

Although 165 members voted to oust Hopkins, with 85 opposed, the vote was later invalidated because a majority of eligible voters did not participate.

Norris at the time said she mounted the recall effort against Hopkins because of his repeated challenges to individuals and their tribal membership, despite an audit of tribal rolls completed in 2009.

She said people were afraid to run for office or speak up in a meeting because they feared their membership status would be questioned.

The disenrollments sometimes pitted cousin against cousin, as tribal leaders winnowed the rolls of anyone they believed did not meet the test of ancestral lineage.

Hopkins and other board members defended the practice as necessary to ensure the legitimacy of their members, who must be able to trace their ancestry to someone who was living on the rancheria when it was established in 1915. They also cannot have been a member of another tribe.

But critics said the enrollment reductions - which have occurred in a number of other tribes that own casinos - were used to get rid of political rivals, intimidate members from running for elected office or reduce the number of people who receive payments from casino revenues.

Last May, the tribe voted to put a ?10-year moratorium on disenrollments.