SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – For decades, a landless tribe in Northern California is on a mission to get land, open a casino and tap into the gaming market enjoyed by many other tribes that earn millions of dollars a year.
The Koi Nation’s chance to own a Las Vegas-style casino seemed impossible until a Federal court decision in 2019 cleared the way for the small tribe to find a financial partner to buy the land and put it into a trust to make it eligible for a casino.
Now the tribe of 96 members has teamed up with the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, which owns the largest casino in the world, and is waiting for the Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to decide what 68-hectare (27-hectare) parcel. The purchase of the tribe for $ 12.3 million in Sonoma County in 2021 has been put into trust.
Placing the land into the trust will allow Koi to move closer to building a $600 million casino and resort in prime real estate in the heart of Northern California’s wine country.
The decision comes as the US government tries to redeem its history of dispossessing Indigenous peoples of their land, partly through a federal legal process that goes beyond returning ancestral lands and allows a tribe to believe that it can prove “a significant historical connection to the land.”
The Koi tribe, the Southeastern Pomo tribe whose ancestors lived in Northern California for thousands of years, faced increasing opposition from other tribes and even California Gov. Gavin Newsom over plans for the Shiloh Resort and Casino, which will include 2,500 slot machines. casino and 400-room hotel with spa and pool.
If approved, the casino will be built near Windsor, about 65 miles (105 kilometers) north of San Francisco, near two other Native American casinos a few miles away: Graton Resort and Casino in Rohnert Park and River Rock Casino in Geyserville.
The money raised will allow tribal members to live better in one of the most expensive areas of the country, including educational opportunities for young tribal members, said Dino Beltran, Vice Chairman of the Koi Nation Tribal Council.
“You’ve been on the same playing field with every other tribe in the United States for years and now the same tribe is against us. It’s very sad,” Beltran said.
Among the most vocal critics of the Koi Nation project is Greg Sarris, chairman of the Graton Rancheria, a federation of Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo people with more than 1,500 members. The tribal casino is the largest in the Bay Area and is undergoing a $1 billion expansion.
Sarris, who last year was appointed by Newsom to the University of California Board of Regents, said the Koi Nation is a Southeast Pomo people whose ancestral home is in Lake County, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of the project site.
The tribe, Sarris said, has no linguistic, cultural or historical ties to Sonoma County and he accused the tribe of being cherry-picking land that has attracted tourists.
“He said that part of his deep historical connection is that he has family members in the early 20th century who lived in Sonoma County,” Sarris said.
The Indian Gaming Regulation Act, passed by Congress in 1988, sets rules for how and where Native American tribes can operate casinos, and generally limits them to ancestral lands that have been returned to the tribe.
But the law also makes “restored land” an exception for federally recognized tribes that do not have a reservation – or rancheria, as they call it in California – to build a casino outside their ancestral land if the tribe can demonstrate a historical and modern connection to it. the area where the gambling facility will be located. The land should also be close to where many members of the tribe live.
“Generally speaking, the tribe can not game on any land that was taken into trust after 1988 but there is an important exception to the general prohibition that is intended to be fair to the tribe that did not have land in 1988,” said Kathryn Rand, an expert on. tribal gaming law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas International Center for Gaming Regulation.
Before white settlers came to California, the ancestors of the Koi Nation lived on an island in Lake County and traded with other tribes in Northern California, according to the tribe’s website.
In 1916, the US government approved land in Lake County for the Koi Nation rancheria about 28 miles (45 kilometers) north of the proposed casino site. The land was eventually reclaimed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs because of the rocky terrain and many of the Koi families moved south into Sonoma County, particularly in Sebastopol and Santa Rosa, where the tribe is now headquartered.
Forty years later, the federal government took the land and sold it for an airport, leaving the tribe with no land. After a long court battle, a federal judge in 2019 ruled that the Koi Nation had the right to purchase the land for the casino.
Michael Anderson, attorney Koi Nation, said the historical trail used by the tribe from the basin of Clear Lake to Bodega Bay, in Sonoma County Pacific Coast, runs through part of the property, which supports the legal requirement of having a “significant history. connection to the land.
Anderson said the legal case is strong. However, “politics is a different matter,” he said.
Sarris, whose casino gives millions to small, non-gaming tribes and has been a major donor to California politicians, said Koi Nation has previously tried to get land in trust to open a casino in Solano and Alameda Counties – both in San Francisco. Bay Area — and accused the tribe of “shopping the reservation.”
Anderson said the term was offensive and Sarris was just trying to protect the lucrative casino from competition.
“This is about market protection, that’s the heart of it,” Anderson said.
Newsom and local politicians also oppose the project along with the Garing Creek Pomo Indian Band, which operates the River Rock Casino.
Newsom’s office sent a letter last month to the Department of the Interior Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Bryan Newland urging him not to move forward with the Shiloh casino project and other proposed casinos in the Bay Area, saying the governor is concerned the department does not consider others. site for the casino and approve it will “stretch the limits of the ‘restored land’ exception.”
The department weighed three other land trust applications in the “restored land” exception, including one by the Scotts Valley Tribe that wants to build a casino in Solano County. In Oregon, the Coquille Indian Tribe wants to open a casino in Medford, about 170 miles (273 kilometers) south of the tribe’s headquarters and close to the California border.
Casino-owned tribe pushing back in two. The Guidiville Rancheria Tribe in Northern California has applied but has not designated land for the project, according to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Haaland will consider several factors in making his decision, including opposition to casinos, said Steve Light, an expert on tribal gaming privacy at the UNLV International Center for Gaming Regulation.
But the secretary will also take into account whether the casino will help with “tribal self-determination, tribal self-governance, and tribal economic development, creating jobs and resources for tribes,” he said.
Of the 574 federally recognized tribes, 110 are in California. According to the American Gaming Association, there are 87 tribal casinos in the state, making California the largest tribal gaming market in the country.
“With 40 million people in California, it’s probably still an untapped market, but it’s a much more competitive one,” Light said.
