March 22, 2003 - Gambling Information Meeting in Florence - About 50 people met at the library on Saturday to discuss actions that could be taken by the community in response to the proposed gambling casino.  A newly formed group, People Against A Casino Town, (PACT)  sponsored the informational meeting.

Julie Hynes, Gambling Prevention Coordinator for Lane County Health  and Human Services, described some of the effects gambling has on families and communities. Ms. Hynes stated that "Up to two-thirds of pathological gamblers commit crimes in order to pay off debts or to continue gambling." She explained that "the vast majority of crimes are non-violent.  Embezzlement, check forgery, stealing credit cards, employee theft and fraud are common gambling-related crimes."

Susie Dewberry, spokesperson for the PACT group, said, "We are working closely with the National Coalition Against Gambling, and we intend to do everything we can to make sure Florence doesn't turn into a casino town." You can contact PACT at P.O. Box 978, Florence, OR 97439. 
PACT Casino Fact Sheet
Lane County's gambling prevention web site:  www.lanecounty.org/prevention/gambling

The Grand Ronde already owns and operates the largest casino in Oregon - Spirit Mountain, about 60 miles southwest of Portland. The tribe said it would foot the bill for a new $350 million major league baseball stadium in Portland if in exchange the tribe were granted permission to locate a casino in the city. The governor became involved because he negotiates Oregon's compacts with the various tribes and has final say on whether a tribe can have an off-reservation casino. Federal law authorizes Indian tribes to build and operate casinos on their reservations, but gives state governors a veto over off-reservation casinos.  The baseball angle arose when the Montreal Expos chose Portland as one of three possible sites for relocation. The other two areas are Washington, D.C., and northern Virginia.

Kulongoski's decision to reject the casino-for-stadium swap idea is welcome for several reasons.  First, it probably would have been self-defeating for Portland to take the stadium proposal to major league baseball in its application for a franchise. Since the infamous gambling-related Black Sox scandals of the early part of the 20th century, baseball has been striving to keep gambling at a safe distance. The ban against all-time hits leader Pete Rose is a case in point. For a potential Portland team to play in a stadium paid for by a casino-owning tribe would simply be a non-starter for big league baseball.

In addition, current state policy calls for only one casino per tribe and requires that it be on tribal land. Had the governor junked that sound policy, he would have opened the door to expansion of off-reservation tribal casinos throughout the state.

The governor's decision also speaks to a third issue: problem gambling in Oregon. The most recent estimate is that there are about 80,000 problem gamblers in Oregon, about half of them classified as gambling addicts. To add a casino in the heart of Portland - and pave the way for additional casinos elsewhere in the state - would only aggravate what is already a huge social problem.

What's more, a casino in the center of Portland would have cut into revenue generated by the state-owned Oregon Lottery. An estimated 70 percent of the lottery's revenues come from the Portland tri-county area. While state-run gambling is few people's idea of a marriage made in heaven, lottery revenues do fund a variety of worthwhile programs in Oregon. The tribe's gain would have been Oregonians' loss.

Portland's efforts to land a big league franchise deserve guarded support, so long as Oregon taxpayers aren't stuck with the bill. Provided the Expos are genuinely interested in the Portland market, an alternative stadium-financing proposal might be stitched together via a mixture of private investors' money and funds from taxes on ballplayer salaries.

But gaining a stadium by promoting gambling at a casino in downtown Portland was not the way to achieve the desired goal. The governor wisely understood this.  Source:  March 16, 2003, The Register-Guard, Editorial.
Also see:  CFF Casino Information Page and Public Comments

Lately, there has been talk about adding even more gambling opportunities to help Oregon out of the budget mire. Our new governor recently stated he's willing to look into revenue areas - like video slot machines - that he wasn't considering before these difficult economic times. These new video slot games would certainly increase revenue for our state - but at what social cost?

Data from 2002 show that problem gamblers in treatment overwhelmingly favor video poker (74 percent of clients) to any other form of gambling. Combine that information with the fact that more people prefer video slots to video poker, and you've got an interesting question: What might video slots do to problem gambling prevalence rates in Lane County?

We've also heard about the battle for a Florence casino. Ron Brainard, chairman of the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians, scoffs at opponents' ideas that the casino would cause any problems besides more traffic. "Before they say these things, they ought to do some research about what does happen" (Register-Guard, March 6).

Jeff Marotta, Oregon's manager of problem gambling services, has researched the effects of casinos, and estimates that adding a casino raises the problem gambling rates in the area by about 25 percent. In Lane County, this could mean countless hundreds affected. One compulsive gambler costs society about $26,000 a year, but there are many other human costs to consider.

More than 7,000 people in Lane County have a gambling problem. For these people and their families, gambling has turned from occasional fun to a relentless focal point. They're playing with money meant for food, home, family and education. Many are playing with their lives; studies have shown that about 20 percent of gamblers in treatment have attempted suicide. Gambling's strong grip is exemplified by research showing problem gamblers' brains respond similarly to those of substance abusers - only the gambler doesn't need to ingest any substances to get high.

Yet many of us don't recognize the dangers of problem gambling - why is that? Probably because problem gambling is incredibly insidious. You won't see your coworker staggering when she just comes back from playing video poker, you won't smell March Madness on your friend's breath, and you may not even find the bills that your own spouse hides. It often takes until the gambler is in deep debt or depression, or far into family, job or criminal crises, before someone sees the problem.

That's why Lane County is celebrating the first-annual National Problem Gambling Awareness Week, March 10-16. We want people to come away with two main points: awareness and hope.

First, be aware of the problem and look for warning signs, like missing money, mounting debts, preoccupation with gambling, or unexplained whereabouts. Next, know there is hope. Help is available. Treatment in Oregon is award winning - and it's free, funded through legislation by the Oregon Lottery.

Lane County's gambling treatment program, ACES Meridian, saw almost 200 gamblers and family members last year. ACES also houses the state's gambling Help Line, 1-877-2-STOP-NOW, which is answered 24 hours a day, seven days a week by a certified and trained gambling treatment counselor. Lane County also offers phone-based gambling counseling and the newly formed Gambling Awareness & Prevention Program, which provides prevention and outreach services to help reduce the harm of problem gambling in our communities.

Fortunately, most of us don't have a problem when we gamble. But we can't ignore that there is a problem, that it's serious, and that it affects thousands in Lane County. Even in these tough economic times, we also can't ignore the problem as gambling opportunities become increasingly available in our communities.

Julie Hynes is the gambling prevention coordinator for the Lane County Health & Human Services Department's Gambling Awareness & Prevention Program. Nita Vannice is program director of the ACES Meridian Gambling Treatment Program.  Source:  March 13, 2003, The Register-Guard, Guest Viewpoint,  By Julie Hynes and Nita Vannice

March 12, 2003 - More gamblers seeking help for problem - PORTLAND - At least 40 percent more Oregonians sought treatment for problem gambling last year than the previous year, according to a new state study.

The increase for the 12-month period between July 2001 and June 2002 could mean that prevention efforts are reaching more people who need them, or just that more Oregonians are taking up gambling, officials said.

Jeff Marotta, the problem gambling services manager for the Oregon Department of Human Services, said the study shows the state's treatment programs are reaching their intended targets.

But a key lawmaker said he is concerned the report is a sign of a larger problem with gambling, including state-sanctioned gambling such as lottery games and video poker.

``I think our state walks a fine line when, on one hand we advertise the Lottery and then on the other hand we say, if you do this, it may become an addictive habit and it may require treatment,'' said state Sen. Charlie Ringo, D-Beaverton, who has led an effort to give the Legislature more control over the Oregon Lottery.

The report for the state by the Wilsonville-based consulting firm of Herbert & Louis also showed 1,380 people enrolled in gambling problem programs for a record 34,000 hours of treatment during the period.

A follow-up survey 90 days after people left treatment indicated about three out of four found the help they needed to stop or reduce their gambling.

Marotta said the study is a test of new treatment programs. The state has offered to shift the focus from case-by-case handling of severe gambling addiction to a broader public health approach of preventing addiction or at least recognizing a problem quickly, before it becomes serious.

The Oregon prevention program already is considered a national model, said Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling in Washington, D.C.

``It's more ethical and economical to catch them before they jump off a cliff rather than waiting at the bottom of the cliff and trying to pick up the pieces,'' Whyte said of problem gamblers.

By law, 1 percent of state Lottery net proceeds go into a treatment fund that now totals about $3.2 million. The fund supports 17 regional problem gambling prevention programs, 30 outpatient programs, three short-term residential programs, one telephone counseling program and a toll-free problem gambling help line.

Gary Hanson, executive director of the Washington State Council on Problem Gambling, said the rate of gambling addiction appears to be relatively stable in states with treatment programs while it appears to be increasing in states without them.  Source: March 12, 2003, The Register-Guard, By William McCall, The Associated Press

Smith, who first drafted the bill last year after meeting with tribal leaders, is a strong advocate for re-establishing part of the tribes' homeland, said Kerry Tymchuk, director of the senator's state office. "Sen. Smith has been working with the tribes for a year and is committed to introducing this legislation," Tymchuk said.  The bill would propose transferring about 62,865 acres of land in the southern part of the Siuslaw forest to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which would hold the land in trust for the tribes' 720  members.

The land is spread over three tracts in the mountains south of Highway 126. The tribes plan to manage it to restore habitat for sensitive species such as coastal coho salmon; protect archaeological  resources, including spiritual and burial sites, significant to tribal culture and history; develop recreation and eco-tourism opportunities; and harvest timber primarily through thinning projects that promote old growth and salmon recovery. The public would still have access to the land.

The tribes would not be allowed to build a casino on the land, and the proposed transfer is unrelated to the tribes' efforts to gain approval to build a casino near Florence.

In a related gesture, Siuslaw forest officials will sign an agreement Monday giving the tribes consultation status in certain management decisions on the 630,000-acre forest, which falls in parts of Lane, Douglas, Coos and five other counties.  The agreement, called a memorandum of understanding, compels the agency to consult with tribal leaders on areas of interest to the tribes, such as cultural sites, logging and road building.

The tribes have been laying the groundwork since 1997 for the transfer of up to 100,000 acres of Siuslaw forest lands, which  they identify as part of 1.6 million acres of ancestral homelands. That land was taken by the federal government in the 1850s, and an 1855 treaty drafted to allow for peaceful acquisition and settlement of the lands was never ratified, although the tribes adhered to its conditions anyway.

The government allowed pioneer settlement and moved the native people to a reservation. It never compensated the tribes for loss of the homeland.   Through congressional actions the coastal reservation was diminished and eventually eliminated, and federal status of the tribes was terminated without the tribes' consent in the 1950s. Congress restored federal recognition of the tribes in 1984 but has not compensated them for loss of the land. The tribes are the only on the Oregon Coast with no land base.

Somday said he's optimistic it will finally happen.  "It's been a long time coming," he said. "This memorandum of understanding and the passage of the bill will finally right the wrong that was done to this tribe when the United States entered into the 1855 treaty and promised compensation to the tribe. ... It's important the United States make good on the promises it made in 1855."

Several environmental groups spoke out against the proposed land transfer last year, citing concerns about the effects on public access, old growth and roadless forests, threatened salmon and clean water. Those groups include the Oregon Natural Resources Council, the Kalmiopsis Audubon Society and the Coast Range Association.

Previously, Congress granted a land base to three other Oregon tribes, including the transfer of 5,400 acres of Bureau of Land Management forestlands in Coos County to the Coquille Tribe in 1996.  Source: March 8, 2003, The Register Guard, by Scott Maben

About 250 people packed into the standing-room-only meeting at the city's Events Center to tell the City Council, once again,  just how they feel about a proposed casino by the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians.

Opinion was divided - and heated. "It's an emotional issue," Mayor Alan Burns said, "and we need to listen. But ultimately, it's in the hands of the governor." Kulongoski, who will be in Eugene today, hasn't commented publicly on the lawsuit.

The state filed the suit last April against the tribe and the U.S. Department of the Interior challenging federal approval of the tribe's 98 acres off Highway 126 on the North Fork of the Siuslaw River. The suit is scheduled to be heard April 10 in U.S. District Court in Eugene.

Reacting to rumors that Kulongoski was going to withdraw the lawsuit, about 25 people showed up at the council's regular meeting Monday demanding that the city write to Kulongoski and insist that the state continue fighting the casino. But city officials said they would not do that without listening to residents once again, and thus scheduled Wednesday's public forum.

"We are not anti-Native American, we are against a casino in Florence," said Nancy VanGalder, a Florence resident and a member of the recently formed People Against a Casino Town, or PACT, a group of concerned residents who believe the casino will bring increased traffic and a host of other problems. The group has collected more than 1,200 signatures opposing the casino and plans to present the petition to Kulongoski today in Eugene.

Although opposed to the casino, one of Kitzhaber's last acts as governor was to sign a compact with the tribe that would allow the casino, but only if the tribe and the Department of Interior prevail in the lawsuit.

The tribe's chairman, Ron Brainard of Lebanon, scoffed at the notion that the casino would cause problems, with the  exception of increased traffic. "Before they say these things,  they ought to do some research about what does happen," Brainard said, citing the jobs and other economic development casinos bring to communities. Source: March 6, 2003 Register Guard, by Mark Baker.
Also see:  CFF Casino Information Page and Public Comments