The Wilton Rancheria in Northern California has paid $36 million in Elk Grove for the 36 acres it will use for its $400 million casino, hotel and convention center to be built in partnership with Boyd Gaming of Las Vegas.
The tribe and Boyd Gaming were both listed as purchasers of the property that is part of a larger 100 acres that is an unfinished outlet shopping mall owned by the Texas-based Howard Hughes Corp. The corporation says it needs the casino to attract more visitors to the mall to make it successful. It sold the land, which is just off Highway 99, to the tribe after obtaining permission from the city of Elk Grove to alter its original development agreement.
The next step would be for the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs to put the land into trust, something it announced it planned to do under the Obama administration. However it is not clear that the Trump administration will complete that process.
An added wrinkle occurred last week when the Elk Grove City Council voted unanimously to repeal the ordinance that altered the original development agreement. The council did so under intense pressure from a petition drive that obtained 14,900 signatures that would have placed a referendum on the ballot to repeal the ordinance if the council had not acted.
Opponents of the casino argue that it will attract crime and harm residential areas in the vicinity.
It may be a moot point since the land sale has been completed and the city says it no longer has a say in whether a casino will be built. Kristyn Nelson, a spokeswoman for the city, told the Sacramento Bee, “The rest of that is left to the federal and state level. Once it’s taken into trust, it is sovereign land.”
But that may not be the case, according to Howard Dickstein, an attorney who specializes in Indian law. The Sacramento-based attorney told the Bee that the council’s action creates uncertainty because the Trump administration has not yet officially put the land into trust. Typically the BIA considers a variety of factors before putting land into trust, he said. That includes the views of local jurisdictions. The BIA has declined to answer inquiries from the press on the issue.
Dickstein said, “I don’t think anyone knows what the policy of the new administration is,” adding, “We’ll just have to wait and see.”
