The Elk Grove, California City Council last week voted to repeal an ordinance that paved the way for the Howard Hughes Corp. to sell 35 acres that was part of a mall to the Wilton Rancheria tribe, which wants to build an Indian casino there.
Elk Grove is near Sacramento, where several card clubs operate. A company that provides workers for the club backed a petition effort to overturn the ordinance.
The council took the action after it was confronted with a petition campaign that raised the required number of signatures to put a measure on the June ballot that would overturn the council action. Petitioners submitted nearly 15,000 signatures to the city clerk, more than twice the number required. The council had the option of adopting the ordinance (the action it took) or to put it on the ballot.
Mayor Steve Ly declared “I’ve heard loud and clear,” the public opposition before he voted with the other three council members who voted. One councilman, Patrick Hume, abstained.
Last October the council, wanting to grease the skids for the casino so it allowed the Howard Hughes Corp. an exception to the development agreement with the city. The tribe proposes a $400 million casino, hotel and convention center and has asked that the Bureau of Indian Affairs put the land into trust. Howard Hughes wanted to sell 35 acres out of the 100 total acres that was part of the agreement to finish development a shopping mall near Highway 99. The mall has lain vacant since 2009 when the previous developer went bankrupt.
The city action complicates the tribe’s plans because normally the federal government cannot put land into trust that is encumbered. The land must be put into trust before the tribe and its partner, Boyd Gaming, could acquire it. On January 20, the tribe claimed that the BIA had put the land into trust. Opponents claim that this is only partially true and that the land-into-trust process is incomplete.
The tribe wants to build a casino with 2,000 slots and 84 table games, a 12-story hotel and spa, events center and fitness center.
Wilton Rancheria Chairman Raymond “Chuckie” Hitchcock argues that the city and the region need the jobs a casino would generate. “Elk Grove is a bedroom community, many people are traveling to Sacramento,” he told ABC 10. “If there’s job opportunities right here in this community, then there’s more tax revenue, more people are spending in the community and that helps bolster the community coffers for sure.”
He also sees a casino as a way to help his tribe’s members. “It’s an economic driver that will bring over 2,000 jobs so that will give tribal members an opportunity to work,” he said.
A city spokesman said last week that the city action might not prevent the land from being taken into trust. The spokesman, Kristyn Nelson said “The city council does not have the authority to make that determination.”
The 800-member Wilton Rancheria is a landless tribe that the federal government stripped of recognition in 1958 and then restored several years ago. Since that time the tribe has tried to acquire land to put into trust to restore as a reservation.
Meanwhile, the mall, called the Outlet Collection at Elk Grove has signed several large brand tenants, including Nike, Forever 21, American Eagle Outfitters, Victoria’s Secret and Express. The mall property is located at the south end of the city.
