More than 200 people attended the sunrise groundbreaking April 8 for the 0 million Fire Mountain Casino in Yuba County, northern California.
The ceremony included mixing of water from the lake that inundated half of the tribe’s land in the 1960s with soil from the land that remained un-flooded.
“Bringing this dirt and water to our tribal trust land in Yuba County unites the two locations as they once were when our people roamed between them along the entire length of the Feather River watershed,” said Tribal Administrator Creig Marcus.
“This is a great day for our tribe. It’s also great day for our community which stood behind us all this time as well as for many other California tribes still struggling to reclaim damaged political status and/or lost tribal lands,” said Enterprise Rancheria Tribal Chairwoman Glenda Nelson. “Only a small number of California tribes are lucky enough to have ample land in a suitable location to build a casino capable of generating revenue to support critical tribal programs and services. Today our tribe turns a corner and, God willing, can begin to significantly re-build our resources towards self-sufficiency, cultural revitalization, and strong government for our people and community.”
The Estom Yumeka Maidu tribe began work on a controversial 140,000 square foot casino that will offer Class II gaming while the tribe continues to pursue the right to offer Class III gaming. The work could be completed within a year.
According to tribal spokesman Charles Banks-Altekruse the tribe plans a two-phase development. The first phase will be the casino, conference center and gift shops.
“We’re going to build a world-class facility,” he said. “It’s going to be a destination resort complex facility with gaming, restaurants, meeting spaces and gift shops.”
Also speaking was Yuba County District 3 Supervisor Mary Jane Griego and Marysville Mayor Ricky Samayoa. Griego accepted a $697,120 payment from the tribe, which agreed to period payments in its 2002 memorandum of understanding with the county. Samayoa received a $114,068 check for the city.
“Nearly 15 years ago, I referred to the Yuba County – Enterprise Rancheria MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) – as the ‘Gold Standard’ of agreements between tribes and local governments,” said Griego who helped negotiate it. “Thank you for fulfilling your side of the bargain and making these words truer today than ever.”
Besides the $170 million in construction costs, the casino will generate $21 million in payroll annually and $5 million to fund public safety in the area.
Eighteen protestors from the anti-casino Citizens for a Better Way waved placards nearby. They noted that Yuba County residents twice voted no in advisory elections against the off-reservation casino.
Although the tribe has decided to go forward with the casino, it is still under a legal cloud from two lawsuits that have not been resolved. One lawsuit was resolved in the tribe’s favor in February by a federal judge. Sandra Gilbert, of the anti-casino group, is still hopeful that the lawsuits may halt construction.
“It’s not a good fit for our county,” Gilbert told the Mercury News. “It’s off-reservation, and there are too many problems associated with casinos.”
Enterprise Rancheria Tribal Chairman Glenda Nelson disagrees with the term “reservation shopping.” “This is our aboriginal land, and we’ve proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt,” she said. “We have a connection to this land.”
The 900-member tribe lost part of its land in 1968 to inundation when the Oroville Dam was built in the late 1960s. It was paid nothing for the lost land. The land where the casino will be built was acquired by purchase and then put into trust by the federal government. The tribe applied to the federal government in 2002 to put its land into trust.
In 2013 the Bureau of Indian Affairs gave the tribe permission to acquire the Yuba County property and put it into trust. Governor Jerry Brown negotiated a compact with the tribe, but the legislature declined to adopt it.
In February federal judge U.S. District Judge Troy Nunley ruled that the state acted in “bad faith” and ordered the state to negotiate a new compact, or else he would force one on the state.
The remaining legal challenges are by the tribes that own the Thunder Valley and Cache Creek casinos, claiming that the impacts on their casinos were not taken into account when the BIA put the land into trust, and over whether enough environmental review was done before that decision. Thunder Valley casino is located in Lincoln, just a few miles from the Yuba site.
“Despite the ground being broken, this is still unsettled,” Cheryl Schmit of Stand Up for California, a gaming watchdog group, told the Sacramento Bee.
The tribe does not require a compact to offer Class II gaming. In February a federal judge ordered California to negotiate a gaming compact with the tribe, which would then allow for Class III gaming.
According to Nelson the money brought in by the casino will fund education, health, elder care and housing services.
