Despite the fact that California voters a year ago overwhelmingly voted down the tribal state gaming compact with the North Fork Mono Rancheria Indians for their off-the-reservation casino, tribal officials are confident that they will soon be able to ignore that result.
In November of 2014 opponents of the casino proposed by the tribe and their partners Station Casinos were able to gather the signatures to force the compact that the legislature had approved previously onto the ballot. This initiative, Proposition 48, was defeated by 60 percent, where the opposition was heavily financed by rival gaming tribes in the region.
The tribe wants to build a casino with 2,000 slots, 40 gaming tables and a hotel on 305 acres adjacent t Highway 99 near the town of Madera. Because the site is 36 miles from the tribe’s actual reservation, it created opposition from those who employed the pejorative “reservation shopping.”
The tribe has been trying to build its casino for 13 years, and is taking something of a long view, where the defeat at the ballot box fits in as a bump in the road that probably won’t ultimately stop the casino from happening.
For one thing, the tribe asserts that the referendum has no legal power. According to Kenneth Hansen, a Fresno State professor and coauthor of “New Politics of Indian Gaming, who was interviewed by the Fresno Bee, “It allows voters to express their opinion on the issue, but it isn’t terribly unusual that in the end it’s just kind of a nonbinding kind of statement.”
Two active court cases may force the issue. Recently a Madera County Superior Court judge ruled that Governor Jerry Brown has the authority to approve of the compact, despite the proposition’s results. Stand Up for California, the same organization that collected the signatures for Proposition 48, has appealed this decision.
The same group, along with the Chukchansi tribe, has sought an injunction against the casino compact’s approval in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. The injunction was not granted, but the case moves forward. The plaintiffs charge that the federal government did not follow environmental laws when it put the land into trust for the tribe.
Late last year a U.S. District Court ordered Governor Brown and the tribe to resume negotiations, but without result. In January both sides were ordered to submit proposed compacts, and the mediator chose the tribe’s compact. The state has been given until April 11 to agree to the compact or it will be submitted to the Department of the Interior, which can sidestep the state and impose the compact.
Although it looks to many as though the casino is inevitable, despite state opposition, opponents point out that they have been able to delay it for a dozen years—with no building in sight.
Maryann McGovran, tribal chairman, is confident that that will soon be rectified. But they have to get through the court hearings first. Meantime, the tribe is doing preconstruction activities that don’t require a compact.
McGovran commented, “We just have to get through all the court-ordered proceedings, so there is nothing else we can do until we are done with that process,” she said. After that, “we are going to do it in phases.”
