Officials of Elk Grove city and the Wilton Rancheria, located in California’s Sacramento Valley, are in talks about a possible Indian casino on 28 acres near the defunct Elk Grove mall site, although the tribe’s first choice continues to be 282 acres north of Galt.
The tribe previously asked the Bureau of Indian to put the Galt property into trust as reservation land. But Elk Grove is one of two alternative sites that are listed in the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that the BIA has created for the tribe.
The other alternate site is 75 acres at the historic Wilton Rancheria.
According to Tribal Chairman Raymond Hitchcock, any of the three alternate sites are “viable.”
The tribe proposes a 12-story hotel with more than 300 rooms, a convention center and a casino.
So far the Elk Grove city government hasn’t taken a position on a tribal casino. Various officials, including the fire chief, have had discussions with tribal officials about mitigations and payments the tribe would make to the city.
At a January 29 public meeting on the Fee to Trust proposal Elk Grove Economic Development Director Darrell Doan said “We are carefully evaluating the environmental impact statement,” he said. Public comments on the EIS will be taken until February 29.
At that meeting Chairman Hitchcock promised, “We’re committed to being a good partner with all of our neighbors and jurisdictions alike.”
A member of the tribal council Joyce Dozier, stressed the tribes roots to the area. “It’s important for people to understand who the first people of this region were,” she said.
A spokesman for the city released a statement last week that said, “The city remains committed to working with the tribe to mitigate any potential impacts, should the tribe ultimately decide to pursue the Elk Grove site.”
In an op-ed in the Sacramento Bee Mayor Gary Davis wrote, “An Elk Grove high-end shopping, entertainment convention and hospitality facility is definitely worth considering. At the end of the day, the tribe has sovereignty and will make their choice.”
The Elk Grove mall, located adjacent to Highway 99 has been considered a “ghost mall” and an eyesore since construction on it stopped at the beginning of the Great Recession. In 2014 it was announced that the property would become an outlet center. Last year a 14-screen cinema was also announced.
However these proposals are dwarfed by the possibility of a hotel tower, convention center, dining and 110,000 square foot casino. Said casino resort could create 1,750 permanent jobs and bring in 14,000 visitors daily.
Many people in neighboring Galt, a city of 24,000, say their city is more worthy of the development because Galt needs it more. It is a city in the midst of economic doldrums, with many houses that were built during the building boom that ended abruptly in 2007. Many of the stores in its historic downtown are also boarded up.
“Galt is short of a lot of businesses,” LeeAnn McFaddin, vice chairman of the Galt Chamber of Commerce, told the audience at the January 29 meeting.
Nancy Bennet, who moved to Galt last year, takes a different view. She told KCRA-TV “They’re sticking this in our backyard and no one mentioned anything about this when we bought the home.”
The tribe lost federal recognition along with its small reservation in the 1960s, only to regain the recognition, but not the land, in 2009. About two-thirds of the tribe is below the poverty line and 45 percent are unemployed.
According to tribal member Joaquin Tarango, quoted by KCRA “You see a lot of them coming from the reservations, rancheria, a lot of drug and alcohol, unemployment, problems within families,” He favors a tribal casino. “It’s creating these jobs, this opportunity and it’s helping communities come back together to heal the wounds from the past.”
