The Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians is building an expansion of the Chumash Casino Resort in Santa Ynez, in the central part of California. Construction begins this month and should be completed by 2016.
The last week tribe “self-certified” its own environmental statement in a 254-page document that answered comments from residents and governmental agencies.
The tribe awarded the $112 million building contract for the expansion to Sylmar-based Tutor Perini Building Corp., which has worked with the tribe for 12 years including building the original Chumash Casino Resort. It has worked on some of the largest Indian casinos in the U.S., including the MGM Grand at Foxwoods, Graton Resort & Casino in Rohnert Park and Pechanga Resort and Casino in Southern California.
The company will oversee construction of a 136-foot, 12-story, 215-room hotel tower, expanding the gaming square footage, adding a parking structure with 584 spaces, as well as additional restaurants. This triples the size of the existing 106-room hotel.
The tribe self-certified its environmental evaluation last week after holding a series of public meetings and also meeting with county officials. It provided many pages of answers to objections that had been raised by Santa Barbara County, including concerns over air quality, the water table, and whether the expansion will strain the resources of the Sheriff’s Department. The tribe countered that the county did not provide details as to how the tribe’s evaluation was inadequate.
The county had also criticized the aesthetics of the expansion. The tribe retorted that the expansion is being built to blend in with the existing casino and hotel.
This prompted Supervisor Doreen Farr to send a letter to people in her district making clear that the tribe was going forward despite objections by her board. She criticized the tribe’s offer to fund a single fire department position and half of another one and to fund an ambulance on the reservation. The Chumash also offered to pay for one half of a deputy’s position and fund a sheriff’s patrol vehicle on site.
The supervisor criticized the state tribal gaming compact of 1999 for not requiring the tribe to provide mitigations for problems identified by the county. In reply the tribe asked for the county to pay for a full time deputy and fund a new patrol vehicle to be stationed on site.
The Board of Supervisors will be voting at a future meeting on a response to the tribe’s comments. Farr says she plans to work with state officials to give counties are greater say in casino projects.
Tribal Chairman Vincent Armenta called Farr’s comments “insulting” adding, “What she’s saying, essentially, is that the county as a government can self-certify their projects, but our tribal government shouldn’t be allowed to do so.”
He also implied that the county was overreaching its function when he wrote to County CEO Mona Miyasato, that the county’s requests for mitigation, “seems to reflect a misunderstanding of the role of the county in this process. The county is not the lead agency; the tribe is.” Among those mitigation requests was a request that the tribe spend $1.7 million for a hook and ladder fire engine to be able to reach the top of the hotel tower.
The tribe announced previously that it would employ only union workers, about 350 of them for the building, and 250 new permanent positions.
