Two California tribes got the green light to start construction on casinos.
The fight by North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians to build a casino in North Fork in Central California was upheld April 10 by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The tribe wants to build a casino with 2,000 slots machines and 40 gaming tables, a hotel and dining.
The appeals court upheld a lower court ruling that rejected a challenge to the authority of the Department of the Interior to take the land along Highway 99 into trust for the tribe. The department had employed the two-step determination for off-reservation land into trust applications.
The ruling rejected the petition by a coalition led by Stand for California, a casino watchdog group which headed a coalition of individuals, organizations and rival area casinos. They argued that the land was too far away from the tribe’s traditional homeland, which is 35 miles from where the casino will be built.
The majority opinion stated: “After reviewing thousands of pages of evidence over the span of seven years, the Interior Department took the tract of land at issue into trust for the North Fork tribe and approved the tribe’s proposed casino.”
The opinion continued, “Viewing the same extensive record and affording the appropriate measure of deference to the department’s supportable judgments, we, like the district court, conclude that this decision was reasonable and consistent with applicable law.”
A longtime supporter of the casino, Madera County Board of Supervisors Chairman Tom Wheeler, who has testified in favor of the casino before multiple panels, told the Sierra Star, “This decision is one more of many steps for the tribe to provide a great economic boost to Madera Country, especially for North Fork.” He added, “The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the tribe and Madera County is one of the most generous in the state of California for mitigation of the increased impact of traffic, water, fire, and law enforcement.”
Meanwhile, Mechoopda Rancheria, which had by 1992 been reduced to a single acre, has won an important victory towards restoration by unanimous decision of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals—which ruled last week that a 645-acre parcel just ten miles from the original reservation could be put into trust.
Judge Sri Srinivasan wrote for the majority, first noting that the tribe was cheated by virtue of a treaty that was negotiated and then hidden away in Washington D.C. to prevent it from being ratified by the Senate.
He wrote, “Indeed, the parcel is situated just one mile from the Pentz Hills, a set of buttes that are of spiritual significance to the tribe. The tribe also hunted, fished, and gathered on the parcel. And in 1851, the Mechoopda negotiated a treaty with the federal government, which, if ratified, would have included the Chico parcel within the tribe’s reservation.”
The tribe proposes to build a casino on the land. Normally it is not possible for tribes recognized after 1988 to build a casino. The exception is Section 20 of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of that year which addresses cases of tribes that have been restored.
The tribe is based in Butte County, in California Central Valley. The case was Butte County v. Chaudhuri. The County sued, challenging the tribe’s status.
The D.C. Circuit has issued five similar rulings in recent years related to restoring of tribal homelands.
The Trump administration is trying to discourage tribes from seeking new homelands by adopting new regulations at the Department of the Interior. The proposed changes to Fee-to-Trust Regulations are opposed to most of the changes, which caused them to be delayed after they were first proposed last year.
Critics of the changes say the administration is trying to stem the growth of the Indian gaming industry.
