An anonymous critic of a 0 million casino resort that the Wilton Rancheria tribe proposes to build on 35.9 acres in Elk Grove, California has launched a campaign of attacks through flyers, a website and robo-calls to local residents.
The tribe proposes a 12-story hotel, casino with 2,000 slot machines and 84 table games in Elk Grove, a town just a few miles south of Sacramento, the state capitol. It has partnered with Boyd Gaming, which would build and manage the casino.
The anonymous group calls itself Protect Elk Grove. No one knows who is behind it, but its activities stirred a lot of discussion at a recent city council meeting when nearly two-dozen residents debated the issue of the casino, with supporters being a definite minority.
Most who showed up were prompted to attend because of the flyers, while some said they got phone calls that brought them out.
One local resident expressed a concern about the anonymous agitating. “Who is paying for the robo-calls and the fliers?” said a 58-year resident. “Who is trying to defeat this is worth knowing.”
The flyers targeted Elk Grove Mayor Gary Davis, who has been somewhat ambivalent on the casino, seeming to support the idea at a town hall meeting one night and then saying he was uncommitted later on.
Davis said that the anonymous critics made him suspect that they might have something to hide.
At a July 6 town hall style meeting a week before the city council meeting— a gathering that was attended by about 300 residents—Wilton Rancheria Tribal Chair Raymond “Chuckie” Hitchcock gave a PowerPoint presentation, with artists’ conceptions of the finished casino. He also spoke about the history of the 700-member tribe, which consists mainly of descendants of the Plains and Sierra Miwok Indians of the Sacramento Valley.
The tribe lost federal recognition in the 1960s when the federal government attempted to dismantle the reservation system—and was restored in 2009. It has applied to the Bureau of Indian Affairs put the land into trust.
The tribe has a 62 percent unemployment rate and a very low college graduation rate. The purpose of the casino would be to give members self-sufficiency, said the chairman. “It’s about being able to provide for ourselves and not rely on federal grants and taxpayer money, if you will, to provide services and not have to be a burden on other services in our county and in our city,” Hitchcock said, according to the Elk Grove Citizen.
He said it would also enable the tribe to donate to local charities as well as generate up to 2,000 construction jobs during the two years it will take to build and 2,000 fulltime casino jobs thereafter.
“It’s going to bring many jobs to our tribal members, it’s going to bring jobs to Elk Grove residents, south Sacramento residents and to other outlying businesses, as well,” said Hitchcock. He also addressed the oft-made false accusation that Indians don’t pay taxes. They pay federal taxes, but don’t pay state taxes for enterprises that happen on the reservation. If the tribe and the town of Elk Grove have a services contract then the tribe will pay for those services, he said.
He added, “This is going to be a very high profile place. We’re going to have high-tech surveillance, we’re going to have tribal-trained law enforcement officials that have law enforcement experience and a military background. They’re going to work cohesively with the city of Elk Grove Police Department to make sure that patrons are safe.”
The entire property is 99 acres, with 35.9 devoted to the casino resort, and 2.3 percent set aside for the casino itself. It would be adjacent to a planned Outlet Collection at Elk Grove owned by the Howard Hughes Corporation.
If the land is put into trust in a timely manner, it could be challenged by a lawsuit or two, said the chairman, who predicted that a groundbreaking would be in about five years.
At that July 6 meeting Mayor Davis was asked whether he supported the proposal. He replied, “At this point, I’m not taking a position. I’m here to listen like you all.”
A week later, at the city council meeting the mayor, and other council members, did a lot of listening, as a majority of audience members attacked the casino proposal.
One man declared, “If you don’t want your children here, then vote against, we don’t want it,” reported CBS Sacramento.
Another said, “If I knew I’d live next to a casino, I wouldn’t have moved here.”
A third declared, “The great possibility of bringing in crime and all the other things that come along with it.”
Other comments were more positive: “It’s about the opportunity to live community, have fun. The jobs thing is huge, really huge,” said a supporter.
