The North Fork Rancheria Of Mono Indians of Central California last week received approval of its tribal state gaming compact by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The tribe plans to partner with Station Casinos to build a casino with 2,000 slots, and 40 gaming tables on 305 acres near the city of Madera on state Highway 99. The facility will also have a hotel.
The casino will be competing in the same market as the Chukchansi Gold Resort And Casino, whose owner, the Picayune Rancheria of the Chukchansi Indians had gone to federal court to challenge the Mono Indians’ right to build a casino. The two casinos would be 35 miles apart.
The construction of the new casino is expected to generate 750 construction jobs and 1,500 full time permanent jobs. After the casino operates for two years it may add another 500 slots.
Tribal Chairman Maryann McGovran told the Match Forecaster: “We’re very excited and pleased and proud of the perseverance and dedication it took to achieve this milestone.” She added, “We were pushing for it but we had no inkling that we would have it today.”
The way ahead is not entirely without potholes, however. The lawsuits pending from the Chukchansi Indians still haven’t been resolved. The Chukchansi have challenged the federal government’s decision to put land into trust for the tribe.
McGovran dismisses that lawsuit as largely an annoyance at this point and predicts that the casino will create revenues of about $54 million annually for the tribe. But that estimate is actually on the low side. Some industry observers put the estimate at closer to $200 million, according to the Fresno Bee.
McGovran implied that the Chukchansi tribe has better things to do than sue her tribe. “It’s sad for Indian Country to watch all the trials and tribulations Chukchansi has gone through over the last few years,” she told The Sierra Star. “They are North Fork’s relatives and it’s sad to think that in the end, all of that tribal money will be wasted when it could have been better spent fulfilling the true promise of Indian gaming … helping Indian people and building strong tribes and communities.”
Madera County Supervisor Tom Wheeler, a longtime supporter of the casino, is also not worried about the lawsuit. He told Roundhouse Talk: “We haven’t lost one of those lawsuits yet,” adding “The Department Of The Interior making this decision, I think, will really sway the judges. It’s just a stalling tactic. The new casino is such a big deal to the county. It’s not just the money they will donate to the county for fire service, the sheriff, roads and social services; there are the jobs and they are higher-paid jobs.”
He told the Sierra Star, “We look forward to resolving the remaining obstacles as quickly as possible and moving forward to build and operate a project that will be beneficial for the tribe and our entire community.”
But the issue is more complicated than that. The tribal state gaming compact was approved with the tribe in 2012, but the lands that the BIA put into trust are “off-reservation” lands, which immediately sparked accusations of “reservation shopping” by rivals such as the Chukchansi, but also by other large gaming tribes, including Table Mountain Rancheria, who funded an effort by Stand Up for California, a gaming watchdog group, which qualified an initiative for the 2014 ballot called Proposition 48. Voters then rejected the compact by a large margin.
However, in 2015 a federal judge basically told the state government to disregard the results of Proposition 48 and to renegotiate a compact with the tribe. When the state dragged its feet the judge appointed a mediator. The mediator chose between a compact backed by Governor Jerry Brown and one backed by the tribe and selected the tribe’s. Brown declined to ratify the compact and so that compact has now gone to the Department of the Interior, which has the option to force the compact on the state.
Under the old compact that was rejected by the voters the Chukchansi tribe would have been paid compensation for some of the losses that it will suffer as a result of the competition. The new compact does not include that provision. The tribe claims that it could lose as much as 38 percent of its revenue if the rival casino opens.
Madera County will be paid $5 million annually for public services, including $2.3 million for public safety.
