California’s Enterprise Rancheria won its seventh court victory last week when the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held for the tribe against challenges to its land into trust application for 40 acres, where it wants to build the $170 million Fire Mountain Casino.
In the majority opinion the court described how the tribe, based in Northern California in Yuba County, worked for more than ten years on the application and that the Bureau of Indian Affairs made no mistakes putting the land into trust—despite challenges from about a dozen opponents, including the Cachil Dehe Band of Wintun Indians, who operate a casino, the Colusa Casino and don’t want a rival in the area.
Construction had paused four months into the casino project, despite a groundbreaking held two years. At that time Chairman Glenda Nelson commented, “It’s difficult to witness the continual replay of one of the saddest chapters of American Indian history — the specter of tribe fighting tribe out of greed and ignorance,” adding “We’ll get through it, our project will get built, but it’s just tragic and unnecessary – there’s more than enough to go around.”
The Cachil Dehe Band disputes that, claiming that the Fire Mountain would have a “devastating economic impact” on its casino. But a different study that the BIA cited when it was putting the land into trust showed that the tribe would lose $4.3 million annually. The judge writing for the majority points out that the tribe doesn’t claim that figure is “a detrimental loss.”
The United Auburn Indian Community, which also operates a casino, at first tried challenging the Cachil in state court, but that lawsuit was unsuccessful.
The multiple challenges had their effect, causing the legislature to not ratify the compact Governor Jerry Brown negotiated with it. After the delay Brown refused to reopen negotiations. Lacking a Class III compact meant that the tribe was only able to operate a Class II bingo style casino. The tribe sued the state and eventually won the right to a Class III compact, which was imposed on the state by the BIA.
The decision by the 9th Circuit would seem to write the end to this set of legal challenges, unless someone decides to try to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
