August 1, 2003 - Lane County Leaders Divided Over Casino Plan - Commissioner Bill Dwyer asks Lane County to oppose a Florence location. - Commissioners in Lane County took their first practical look at the county’s role in a planned American Indian gambling casino, scheduled for completion near Florence in June 2004.
Some of them didn’t like what they saw.
Tribal members may need permission from the county if they want to get access to the North Fork Siuslaw Road, which is one of the nearest arterials to the project, along with Highway 126.
In return, Commissioner Anna Morrison wants a Lane County representative to sit on a board that will decide how to distribute money from a community benefit fund, which will contribute up to 6 percent of the casino’s profits toward charitable causes.
County staffers also have discussed working amendments into the state gaming compact, the document signed in January outlining the tribe’s relationship with the state.
Tension remains on the subject of whether tribes should be allowed to build the Three Rivers Casino at all.
Commissioner Bill Dwyer said Wednesday that he would only grudgingly proceed with negotiations with tribal leaders, “who looked me right in the eye” and said they had no intention of building a casino if they acquired the 98-acre parcel of land called the Hatch Tract.
He further blamed Congress for passing the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and former Gov. John Kitzhaber for authorizing the first gaming compact with the tribe.
“I find it offensive that Congress would give the tribes a way to make a living in a way that’s not available to every other citizen and in fact preys on the weak,” Dwyer said. “When I was a child, gaming was a racket, controlled by the mob.” Dwyer asked commissioners to adopt a resolution opposing the casino.
That prompted Chairman Peter Sorenson to facetiously tell Dwyer he’d go along with the resolution if he “could include that we’d like to give the lottery money back to the state and oppose state gambling.” Dwyer replied: “If you’ve got some agenda tied to Indian gaming, I want it to be smoked out in front of God and everybody else.”
Dwyer’s comments were not well taken by members
of the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians.
Tribal administrator Francis
Somday said he doesn’t understand why people like Dwyer refuse to accept
two federal court rulings, upholding the tribes’ right to build a casino.
“This is not a good meeting to start out negotiations
with the tribe,” Somday said. Somday said tribes did not lie about
their casino intentions. He also said he was miffed at discussions of trying
to amend the state gaming compact. He said the tribes would be willing
to consider the community’s suggestions that didn’t substantially change
the agreement.
“With the eight other casinos in Oregon, each
of the tribes were treated consistently” in negotiations, Somday said. “We
expect no less. “If the intent is to do something other, that’s discrimination,
and it will not be tolerated by this tribe.”(Source: 8/1/03 - Statesman
Journal, Salem, Oregon, Associated Press)
Also see: CFF Casino Information
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7/20/03 - Oregon Tribe to Build Casino Despite Town Protests - FLORENCE, Ore. -- Francis Somday stood in slacks and a tie, his loafers brushing the dry grass and sandy soil on a hill where a Siuslaw Indian village bustled more than a century ago. The coastal site overlooks an estuary of reeds and brackish water on the north fork of the Siuslaw River where tribal members once fished for salmon and gathered oysters and clams. An Indian cemetery surrounded by Douglas firs holds unmarked graves dating back centuries. These cultural ties were key to the tribe's legal victory this month over local residents who opposed plans to put a tribal casino on the site of the former village. "This is the only hope for self sufficiency of this tribe," said Somday, the tribal administrator. A sign at the property's entrance reads: "Yes. Casino coming soon." When it opens, the casino will be the first in Oregon on nonreservation land.
This past Monday, Gov. Ted Kulongoski announced he would not appeal a federal judge's dismissal of a lawsuit against building the casino, ending a six-year dispute. Local residents are not happy about his decision. "If a casino comes to Florence, the town will change and not for the better," said anti-casino organizer Deby Tod, who is part Cherokee but opposes Indian gaming. "It's real nice here. You go to the grocery store and the post office and you got all your socializing done."
Residents packed council meetings, voicing fears of traffic snarls, gambling addiction and an influx of seedy characters, and the vague sense that the sleepy, oceanfront community of Victorian homes and shops selling knickknacks and lawn sculptures made from driftwood would change forever. "No casino" billboards popped up along the coastal highway, U.S. 101.
At issue, say casino opponents, is the practice of "casino shopping," or tribes from California to Connecticut snapping up land for casinos near large markets.
People Against a Casino Town, an anti-casino group, collected 2,300 signatures in this town of 7,500 people nestled along the Siuslaw river 150 miles north of the California border. Mayor Alan Burns, a part-timer who is also owner of the town's only funeral home, rejected an offer from the tribes to pay for an additional policeman. In a letter to the governor, Burns said the tribe misled Florence by first saying it would build a cultural center on the site of the former Indian village -- called the Hatch Tract -- and later announcing plans for a casino. The City Council voted to exclude the tract from water and sewage service.
The Hatch Tract is a promising site for a casino. It will be the closest casino to Eugene, the state's third-largest city. The tribe is unapologetic. Officials are quick to cite Oregon coastal Indians' history of persecution as the reason they had no significant property before purchasing the site of their former village in 1996.
"Congress didn't pass the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act for the city of Florence," Somday said. "It was created so tribes could become self sufficient."
Under the act, only land owned by tribes prior to 1988 qualified for casino development -- but there were exceptions for tribes that recently took land into trust because of cultural ties.
Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton wrote in a letter last fall to New York Gov. George E. Pataki that it is unclear whether tribes have a legal right to off-reservation gaming. "While I do not signal an absolute bar on off-reservation gaming, I am extremely concerned that the principles underlying the enactment of the (law) are being stretched in ways that Congress never imagined," she wrote.
In the starkest example, Maryann Martin, who grew up in an inner city home in Los Angeles, learned later in life that her mother was the last surviving member of the Augustine Band of Cahuilla Mission Indians. The tribe was recognized in 1991. Because of the 1988 law, Martin was able to build a 349-slot casino on restored tribal land southeast of Palm Springs and is its sole owner.
Local and state governments have little say in the process that
reshapes entire communities.
Kulongoski's predecessor as Oregon governor -- fellow Democrat John Kitzhaber -- had sued to stop plans of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians, who now number about 700, for a tribal casino on the site of the Siuslaw's former village in Florence. For decades, the Hatch Tract was owned by a tribal member. The confederated tribe could not own it because under federal law the tribe did not exist.
The confederated tribe lost its federal status in 1954 under the Western Oregon Termination Act, passed by Congress as the tribe dwindled to a few hundred members. It marked the culmination of a century of turmoil begun in 1855, when the U.S. Army cleared out Indian villages up and down the Oregon central coast, including the Hatch Tract site, and marched the inhabitants to a reservation. About 1,500 Indians died of starvation or illness.
About 200 surviving members won federal recognition in 1984, but had no land. They bought the uninhabited 98-acre former village site in 1996, and took it into trust based on cultural ties a few years later.
Las Vegas-based gambling developer ROI will build and manage the
casino on the Hatch Tract, and is paying legal fees to Greene Meyer &
McElroy, a Boulder, Colo., firm specializing in Indian gaming law representing
the tribe. ROI and the tribe plan a 50,000-square-foot Vegas-style casino
floor that will cost $26 million to build. The operation
is expected to net $10 million to $12 million a year, and overnight will
become the largest employer in Florence with 300 or so jobs. Somday said
the tribe will drill its own wells for water. Source:
Andrew Kramer, Associated Press, Jul. 20, 2003 12:00 AM
The City of Rhododendrons is getting thirsty. As the sun beats down across the dune-bedded sandscape, the lawns are drying out, the sprinklers are coming on, the city's wells are emptying, and another season of water troubles begins in Florence.
Or does it? City leaders promise that this season could mark the end of the problems that have plagued this coastal town for years.
A boost in population, new water testing regulations and a fallout with the nearby Heceta Water District in 2000 left the city relying on its own limited system of drawing water from dune wells during the summer months.
But last month, the city struck a deal with the water district that signaled a new era of cooperation between the once-feuding governments, and a long drink of water that could quench the city's thirst until it finishes a current well-drilling project this fall.
"In the next several years, we will be able to handle the current development and population of Florence," said Mayor Alan Burns. Still, he added, "We cannot sit around and wait, because development is coming, and before you know it, we will be caught behind the 8-ball."
But those monitoring the daily amount of water that Florence buys from Heceta worry that securing enough water to meet today's needs is short-sighted.
With the seven wells Florence is currently using, the city has produced up to 1.8 million gallons in a day. In the off-peak seasons, the city uses about 750,000 gallons a day. In the summer, the need can triple, to more than 2 million gallons daily, which requires the city to turn to Heceta for water.
As long as Heceta has the water to sell, that arrangement works out fine. But it's not cheap. Florence used to buy water from the district for 75 cents per thousand gallons. That price went up a decade ago when the federal government required more stringent treatment methods.
Initially, the plan was to build a joint treatment center, shared by the city and the district. But political head-butting - and fear of lawsuits from a landowner on the lake from which Heceta draws water - nixed the arrangement.
The result was that Heceta built a $2.9 million water filtration plant and bumped up customer rates to $1.40 per thousand gallons. That's what the city of Florence pays, too.
The problems will arise, critics say, when Heceta runs out of water to sell or when the dune wells, which have a life span of only five to seven years, dry up.
That day may be closer than many think.
Although Heceta has acquired the water rights of up to 4 million gallons a day from clear Lake, the Lane County Commission permits the district to pull out only 1 million gallons.
That, says Heceta manager Mike Kendoll, is because Clear Lake resident Aaron Jones has threatened lawsuits if the water district draws too much from the lake. "He feels it's his lake, and it's not," Kendoll says.
Jones says he's won more than a dozen lawsuits on the issue over the years, but he wouldn't say why he opposes more water to be drawn from Clear Lake. "We've conducted ourselves as a partner with the government," Jones said. "We get along fine with the city; neither us nor the city particularly gets along with Heceta Water District."
The county, which has some authority here because Heceta's pipeline crosses county property on the way to Clear Lake, set the limits because lowering the lake levels can impact fish habitats, county Commissioner Anna Morrison said.
Heceta's new filtration plant, which was dedicated Wednesday, has the capacity to pump 1.2 million gallons a day, which works fine for now, since the county's limit is 1 million. In emergencies, the county will likely approve an extra 200,000 gallons.
But the demand from Heceta's customers is growing, and if Florence's new wells don't meet the city's needs in the coming years, it could be back to the district for more water.
Kendoll thinks getting more from Clear Lake is the answer.
Jones and the county commissioners "think we're going to drain the lake like a bathtub," Kendoll said. "That's absurd. It's a 150-acre lake. A quarter-inch of water is a million gallons. Water comes into that lake and goes out. We take a little bit out. They feel like it belongs to them.
"It belongs to the people of Oregon. It's designated as a drinking source."
As water demand in the city continues to grow - 12 percent to 15 percent from 2001 to 2002, some estimate - even the new wells could dry up before too long.
Dave Franzen, a local businessman who's tracked the water issue since the city broke off its agreement with Heceta in 2000, said the city bought 217,000 gallons of water from Heceta on Wednesday. "Heceta isn't going to be able to sustain us at the demand we have," he predicted.
Some say Florence's water problems have loomed for years, and the city simply failed to plan for the increased need.
Franzen and resident Dick Walker say the city should either be drilling more wells now or looking for a new source of water, like a lake, to pull from. "It's no big deal (as long as) Heceta continues to sell to us," Walker said. "But if demand keeps increasing, we're going to have to look for new ways ot get water."
Burns says there are plenty of solutions, including two new well permits that the city will gain by annexing land from the Ocean Dunes Golf Course, a process begun Monday night when the city decided to include the area in the urban growth boundary.
But how bad the city's problems gets depends on how much it grows. "Growth is the unknown," Burns said. Source: Eugene Register-Guard, 7/12/2003, by Winston Ross.
July 8, 2003 - Ruling Only Widens Debate Over Casino - Florence - "IT'S NOT A DONE DEAL," declares the campaign literature tacked to bulletin boards across this coastal town. The flyers have been up for months, long before last week's federal court ruling that brings the likelihood of a casino on Highway 126 ever closer.
And yet, even though Judge Tom Coffin's ruling is the second time a federal court has upheld a Coos Bay Indian tribe's right to put a casino on a 98-acre stretch of land called the Hatch Tract, the battle continues.
On Monday night, the Florence City Council voted to send a sharply worded letter to Gov. Ted Kulongoski, asking him to appeal Coffin's decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The council also voted to exclude the Hatch Tract from the city's Urban Growth Boundary, preventing the tribes from hooking into city water and sewer services.
The Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians are trying to set up a meeting with the governor to urge otherwise, as People Against a Casino Town also is pushing for a meeting with the state's top elected official.
And on the streets of Florence, a battle of the billboards is taking shape. There are now three "No casino" billboards up - in and out of city limits - the most recent addition erected last Thursday.
Casino supporters are rallying with their own message to the public, as two "Yes casino" signs have sprouted, one on the Hatch Tract itself.
The propaganda assault has gotten ugly. One "No Casino" sign was vandalized on Saturday, when a clever graffiti artist spray-painted a "Y" before the "No" and a "T" after it, so the sign now reads "Y not casino." PACT is offering a $100 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the vandal.
Last Thursday, when Don Young got home from work to find a billboard sticking out of his lawn, he got mad. Young's mother works for the tribes, he said. He looks forward to the $26 million casino, because among other reasons, he's in construction and would love to help build it.
"No casino" doesn't exactly sum up his feelings about the project. But Young only rents the property at 35th Street and Highway 101. The property manager and owner gave permission for the sign to be built there, so Young is stuck with the billboard. "I was hot," he said. "It's a big eyesore. I'm getting complaints about it, and it's not my sign."
So Young grabbed a drill and disassembled the billboard, moving it into the bushes on his property, which prompted a visit from casino opponents. After the man who installed the sign was "chased off the property," according to PACT member Deb Tadd, she returned with the Florence Police.
"We view this as a landlord-tenant dispute," Police Chief Lynn Lamm said. "The officer advised (Young) to look at the lease and call the landlord. It's a civil issue."
On Monday night, the City Council sent two strong messages to the community and to the state by excluding the tribe's property from its boundaries and voting unanimously to ask the governor to keep the fight against a casino in Florence alive.
The Hatch Tract decision means the tribes will have to drill their own wells for water and build their own water and sewage treatment plants. The tribes had put forth a deadline for the city to include the property, and when it expired last month, Tribal Administrator Francis Somday said negotiations were finished.
Mayor Alan Burns' letter implies that the tribes misled this community when it asked for the Hatch Tract to be taken into trust in 1998.
The letter quotes past newspaper articles, where Tribal Chairman Greg Norton described the land as "a significant part of the Indian cultural history, and stressed it would be used for cultural and historical purposes." Norton reiterated in a letter to the U.S. Interior Department that the tribes didn't have plans to introduce gaming on the Hatch Tract while it was trying to acquire the land, Burns wrote.
"Relying on these representations (and good-faith assurances from the governor's office that any proposed use of the Hatch Tract for a gaming casino would be subject to a separate process...) Florence was lulled into accepting the trust status," Burns wrote. "The result has been the denial of any opportunity for a 'due process' consideration of Florence's contention that a casino will have a serious, detrimental effect upon the city, its economy and its community life."
City Councilor Phil Brubaker said he carefully read Coffin's decision before deciding whether to ask the governor to appeal. The judge made it clear that the courts should not hear this case again for the same reasons, Brubaker interpreted.
"The magistrate is saying directly to all parties, 'Don't come back a third time with the same argument,' " Brubaker said. "What the magistrate is saying is ... there still needs to be an element for local public input on the facility."
With that, Brubaker suggested the governor should review the state's gaming compact with the tribes, taking into consideration an increase in Florence's population and the addition of several hundred homes along the Hatch Tract's boundary.
Councilor Dave Braley said this issue is bigger than Florence, than Oregon even. If tribes can mislead governments about their intentions for taking land into trust, then "does (the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act) say what it really says, or are there all kinds of loopholes where you can do whatever you want?"
Somday reiterated comments he made last week on this topic: that the tribes didn't want to lock themselves into building a casino on the site, because if they had, it would have prevented other economic development opportunities. He naturally opposed the notion that the city would send such a letter to Kulongoski.
"What they're asking the governor to do is violate the compact. He's approved the Hatch Tract as the site," Somday said. If either the tribes or the governor violates the compact, he said, "there will be actions against that party." Source: 7/8/03 Register-Guard, by Winston Ross.
Also see: CFF Casino Information Page
