The Timbisha Shoshone tribe has unveiled its renderings for a proposed casino that would be located near the China Lake naval base, in Ridgecrest, California. The renderings were previewed at a meeting of the Ridgecrest city council, a meeting attended by about 40 people.
A groundbreaking could come as early as April of 2018. Besides a casino, the proposed project will also have two restaurants, a buffet, café and a high-end steak house.
The tribe proposes a casino with an 80-room, three-story hotel and a 52,000-square foot entertainment center that could seat as many as 5,000 for phase 2. Its land must first be put into trust before any of that can happen.
The drawings, by the Friedmutter Group, were presented last week to the Ridgecrest Chamber of Commercial by casino developer Nigel White, accompanied by tribal Chairman George Gholson.
Gholson described the casino as “No flames, no glitter, no spotlights. Not over the top,” and “A nice respectable looking building that is not going to interfere with the rest of the city.”
He promised to “buy everything we can locally,” and said the facility would employ about 180 local people. He invited potential vendors to look at what the casino will need and see if they can supply it.
Gholson added, “What we want to focus on bringing is business not only for the casino, but business for the surrounding community. Because people are not going to want to come to a blighted community for a casino. They are going to want to come to a thriving community.”
The land was acquired for the tribe by the Department of the Interior through the Timbisha Shoshone Homeland Act of 2000. The Bureau of Indian Affairs is now in the process of determining whether the land can be put into trust.
The tribe will need to negotiate and sign a compact with the state of California before it can conduct gaming. Finally, that compact must be approved by the National Indian Gaming Commission.
The casino would be developed by Global Investment Enterprises Ridgecrest, LLC, Nigel White’s company.
The tribe claims the area to have been its aboriginal home prior to the first European settlers in 1849.
During the meeting Gholson was nonplussed when he was asked if the tribe planned to drill a well on its land and sell water from it.
In response to the question the chairman declared “The tribe has no plans whatsoever to drill a well. It doesn’t make any sense for us to do that,” adding “It’s not a good location and it’s not something we would even anticipate. Going through the [municipal services agreement] process is where we are making sure that we get our services from the city.”
The meeting also included a presentation by the tribe’s environmental consultant on the Tribal Environmental Impact Report it is preparing for the BIA. The document’s purpose is to identify possible off-reservation impact. This process will include a 45-day comment period. The document will probably lead to possible agreements between the tribe and Kern county on how to mitigate possible impacts.
