Non-Tribe wants casino on non-tribal lands.. sound familiar?

Once again we have a group of people trying to re-tell historical records to twist things to their advantage. The difference in this case is that the surrounding community is doing their homework first. Then of course you hear the usual disrespect.. hate... racism against indians. The priceless quote from this article by Rhonda Morningstar Pope in the Sacramento Bee:

"Pope said Beckham misunderstands the Indian way if he bases his conclusions on the absence of written records. Such formalized activities were not the tradition of Indians."

But running a large gambling casino and bilking people out of their money IS in the tradition of Indians... alrighty then. Got it. Absolutely ludicrous.

Amador ups ante against Ione casino plan
County's federal suit says the tribe has no historic presence on the land.
By David Whitney - dwhitney@mcclatchydc.com
Published 12:00 am PST Sunday, November 25, 2007

WASHINGTON – Amador County has stepped up its legal fight to stop a tiny Ione Indian tribe from building a large casino on a narrow strip of land in the rural county, about 40 miles southeast of Sacramento.

In a recent federal court filing that challenges a casino development effort by the Buena Vista Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians, the county says it has uncovered new information showing "the total lack of any historical tribal presence on the Rancheria by this tribe."

Tribal chairwoman Rhonda Morningstar Pope condemned the statement, saying, "I take great offense to this idea that we are not a tribe."

"This is the county looking for anything they can to get accomplished what they need," Pope said. "They are doing it in a way that is completely disrespectful to not only my band but to other natives. It's a shame that we even have to stand up and justify that we are Indian, that we are a tribe and that we existed."

The county has challenged the casino plans in a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The National Indian Gaming Commission has said tribal members have continuously occupied land known as Buena Vista since 1905. In 1927, the federal government purchased a 67 1/2-acre site for Pope's great-grandfather, a Me-Wuk laborer named Louie Oliver; his wife, Annie; and their four children, Lucile, Eleanor, Enos and Marie.

But the county claims the Buena Vista Rancheria property was never an Indian reservation and therefore the Interior Department should not have approved a state compact in 2004 that qualified it for a casino. It has asked U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts to add its new contention to its lawsuit against the department.

The county also claims that even if the land is determined to have reservation status, the Buena Vista Rancheria band has no right to build the casino because it was never a tribe there.

The NIGC says the tribe has been a federally recognized Indian tribe since 1985.

The county's allegations build a new layer in a case pending before Roberts for 18 months awaiting a decision on the Justice Department's motion to dismiss it.

The Justice Department objected to reopening the case now, giving Roberts another decision to render. But the county's attorney, Dennis Whittlesey, said that if Roberts does not permit the case to be expanded, the county will file a separate lawsuit.

Buena Vista is proposing a Las Vegas-style casino with 2,000 slot machines and 80 gambling tables on a strip of land that's less than 200 yards wide but a mile long. The development also would include a hotel complex and a parking structure for as many as 4,000 cars.

Amador County contends that the proposed development on Coal Mine Road near Highway 88 would create a traffic nightmare and overwhelm county services.

The county's new arguments are based on research conducted by Stephen Beckham, a scholar and author on American Indians in the West and a history professor at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore.

While the Rancheria's tribal chairwoman appears to be a direct descendent of the Oliver family that settled on the property, Beckham said he could find no evidence that the small family of mixed Indian heritage ever operated as a tribe.

Beckham said he searched Bureau of Indian Affairs and National Archives records "for days and days" for anything that would show tribal activities. None was found.

He also talked to a stepson who lived on the property from the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s.

"My particular reason for interviewing him was to ascertain whether there was a tribe functioning there," Beckham said. "He said there was nothing. There were no meetings. There are no minutes. There is just not a record of tribal activity nor their treatment of the property as a reservation."

Pope said Beckham misunderstands the Indian way if he bases his conclusions on the absence of written records. Such formalized activities were not the tradition of Indians.

"Buena Vista is one of the most documented places in California," she said. "We had three roundhouses there. That place was the central capital of ceremonialism. There were great medicine people. There were dancers. There were doctors. This is so disrespectful that this is even being brought up."

Pope has previously produced documents for The Bee, including a court ruling involving child support and Social Security records, that identify her as the daughter of Jesse Pope, a Me-Wuk who grew up on Buena Vista land and was buried in the Buena Vista cemetery. In addition, his death certificate, court probate records and tribal rosters from national archives show that Jesse Pope was the son of Eleanor Oliver and the grandson of Louie Oliver.

Beckham's report, which he described as a tragic history of the Oliver family, has not been released by the county.

In its court filing, the county says it is not enough that the Buena Vista property was found by the National Indian Gaming Commission in 2005 to be reservation lands suitable for a casino.

"Newly discovered evidence demonstrates that no tribe, including this tribe, resided on the lands comprising the Rancheria at any time," the county states.

Don't hold your breath...

...if you think you will see the following information from the Capitol Weekly any time soon in the local MSM (main stream media). KEYT, The News Press and the (so-called) Independent are way too addicted to the advertising dollars received from the Chumash Casino to print anything that is not utterly positive about their gambling operation. As this information about the tribe comes to the surface all you are likely to see in local media are puff pieces on how wonderful and dandy the casino is for the community and environment. Basically when you buy a local 'news' paper you are paying to read the opinions of that newspapers advertisers. Same thing for local TV 'news'. Whores.

The Santa Ynez Chumash: A question of legitimacy
By James Lynch (published Thursday, November 22, 2007)

In a recent commentary published by Capitol Weekly (November 1, 2007, “Gonzo journalism gone wild”), Vincent Armenta, Chairman of the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians continued a litany of disparaging remarks concerning citizens groups and media outlets located in Los Olivos (POLO) and Santa Ynez (POSY), groups that have in the past questioned the Chairman’s leadership and tribal activities.

Behind all the comments and counter-comments made between the tribe and these two groups there is not only a question of distrust, but a core issue that centers upon the question of legitimacy. Myriad questions have arisen as to the legitimacy of the tribe, the legitimacy of the Santa Ynez reservation, and even the genealogical legitimacy of Chairman Armenta. We are confronted then, with three such core issues: tribe, reservation, and leadership. When these three issues are examined, we will be able to see why there is such a controversy.

First of all, there is the question of the legitimacy of the reservation. Chairman Armenta, in his May 2005 testimony presented to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee claimed that a reservation was established in 1901 for the Santa Ynez by the federal government. When the historical record is examined, we find this was not so.

In 1899, the Roman Catholic Bishop of the region bought suit against the Indian population living on the Church-owned lands at Santa Ynez. The Church, in its suit named five families who were the descendants of the original Santa Ynez Mission Indian population as defendants. In 1901, a settlement was agreed upon wherein the Church and a second property owner (Santa Ynez Land and Improvement Co.) agreed to convey the acreage in question to the Department of the Interior with certain stipulations, the principle one being that if the five families or their descendants ever abandon the tract, ownership would revert back to the owners. There were also other issues of residual rights. What is important also was the lands were being conveyed to the Interior Department, not to the tribe. The agreement was never put into effect due to title-related issues. The problem was still not resolved in 1940, when again the property-owners agree to “donate” the land to the government under a 1931 Indian donation Act.

Historical investigations into the resolution of this issue find no actions in the federal record that indicate that the federal government finally took ownership of the lands of the reservation. Yet we find in a 1967 document that the land is now a considered a reservation. Where is the documentation signifying that the United States took ownership of the reservation lands? Where is the documentation or announcement in the Federal Register declaring the existence of a Santa Ynez reservation? An additional question is thus raised. If the title to this land was assumed by the federal government as title-holder, how can these lands be declared to be “in trust”, if the Tribe never had ownership title to be placed into federal trust to begin with?

Our second question concerns the legitimacy of the tribe itself. Both the tribe and the current Bureau of Indian Affairs leadership claim that the Santa Ynez received federal recognition as an Indian tribe by virtue of the 1891 Mission Indian Relief Act. Yet when the congressional record of the Act is researched, we find a listing of the names of the Mission Indian bands that were to come under this Act. The Santa Ynez was not listed among them. Further investigation reveals no subsequent amendment or specific legislation that places the Santa Ynez band under this Act. There were no subsequent Acts by Congress recognizing the Santa Ynez as a tribe nor were their any administrative acts by the Bureau of Indian Affairs bestowing such recognition. In 1964 the Santa Ynez voted to come under the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act. This vote would or should have declared invalid in that the band did not meet the qualifications or requirements specified in the Act to be eligible to come under its auspices (residing upon a reservation for one). Thus there is no record of the Santa Ynez Chumash ever having been federally recognized as a tribe nor was such an announcement ever published by the federal government.

Additionally, none of the current membership of the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians can trace their genealogies back to the five families present on the church-owned lands at Santa Ynez in 1901. As a matter of fact, none of the current membership can trace their ancestry back to the Santa Ynez band prior to 1940. Thus the result was a tribal constitution written in 1964 which required that the members of the tribe need only prove their Santa Ynez ancestry back to 1940. Bureau of Indian Affairs documents, census’s as well as federal census records from 1910-1930 described this post 1910 population as being Mexican, Shoshone, and from Senora (the documents do not tell us whether they meant Senora in Mexico or from the Senora Mission Band in Arizona)

Third, there is the question of Chairman Armenta. Vincent Armenta is the son of Manuel Armenta and his wife of German descent, Iona (Selig) Armenta. Manuel’s father was a “Spanish-Mexican” Loreto Armenta. His mother was Florencia (Pina) Armenta.

Florencia according to census records was listed as having 1/4 Indian blood in 1910. She was the daughter of Jose Deserderio who was born in 1866 at Purisima. Her mother Maria Antonia Pena was from Senora (Arizona or Mexico?). Maria was the daughter of a Maria Solares and a man of unknown ethnicity named Aguirres. None of these descent lines can be traced back to any of the five families so-named by the Catholic Church in 1901 as being the descendants of the Santa Ynez Indian community at Mission Santa Ynez. According to a Bureau of Indian Affairs census Vincent Armenta’s family did not move onto the Santa Ynez reservation until 1940.

Is it no wonder that residents of Los Olivos and Santa Ynez question the legitimacy of the current Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, its leadership, and by extension the legitimacy of their gaming facility established under the provisions of the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, and act intended for federally-recognized Indian tribes, residing upon federally established Indian reservations whose lands are held in-trust by the federal government. All POLO and POSY are asking for are accurate and honest answers to fair, legitimate questions.

So there you have it - the chumash casino is on non tribal land, owned by a non-tribe - run by an man of german/mexican descent. Isn't that just terrific.

Previously at tribal watch:
Gonzo! Whacko! Holy Bingo Batman!!
SY Valley's Journal

Arrogance, thy name is Pedro Nava

Once again I find myself carefully inspecting the snail mail I receive, and okay! Here's one letter addressed to me.. and YES! It does stipulate U.S.A.!! Wow, am I relieved! After reading a couple of editorials over at the Santa Ynez Valley Journal I was starting to think I was in another country... Venezuela perhaps? Mr. Nava does not seem to have time for constituents that don't throw money at him. He has informed Valley residents that he does not have time to attend a town meeting to answer community questions - but I see he does have time to give his friends and paying constituents - The Chumash Casino - a nice green environmental award. Maybe folks, what he is trying to say is 'hit the tip jar', and once there are several thousands in there - it will be good enough for him to show. And here I was thinking regardless of who got you elected into office, once there - you represent all the people in your district. Silly me.


Editorial From The Santa Ynez Valley Journal:
By Edmond Jacoby, Journal Editor

Last month, a group of concerned constituents in Nava’s 35th Assembly District sought his attention, asking that he confer with them and their neighbors — also Nava’s constituents — about the strange ways in which strings were pulled by unseen hands to memorialize something by renaming a feature of the constituents’ back yard at the behest of someone who lived half way across the state. Not only were the constituents not asked what they thought of the idea, they weren’t even told that it was being considered.

Nava feigned ignorance of the string pulling, but as a member of one of the assembly committees that debated the measure, and as chairman of another, his claim that he had no idea what was happening is hardly credible. As his constituents’ representative, he had a duty to know what was being planned for the district, and a duty to inform the people who live there. He confesses that he did not perform the first duty, and he dismisses the second as unimportant.

Being an assemblyman is a little bit like being a lawyer, in that an assemblyman represents his constituents somewhat like a lawyer represents clients. Nava surely understands this, because he used to be a lawyer.

Most people, Nava included, would fire any lawyer who failed in his duty to represent a client and who then refused to meet with the client to talk about that failure.

But Nava, upon receiving a written invitation to address his constituents at a town hall meeting, dismissed his constituents’ invitation out of hand, saying in a letter dated Nov. 1, “I am unable to commit to any town hall meeting due to scheduling commitments.” In other words, he doesn’t have time to talk to the people he works for about the job he’s doing — or not doing — for them. He justified having such an inflexible schedule by saying he heard the governor calling him.

That is arrogance, promoted to such heights that it makes Nava incompetent to represent his district. Political power and deal making have so gone to his head that he is no longer suited to hold office — any office. And he told you so himself when he signed that letter to the River Committee.



In case anyone needs a reminder, Mr. Nava has accepted at least in $6,400 in donations from the Chumash.
He is also the politician who had two local men investigated by law enforcement, who simply had the temerity to suggest to him that people in the valley were unhappy with the re-naming of Highway 154.

It's about the casino, stupid!

In rebuttal to Vincent Armenta's article in Capitol Weekly, a Santa Ynez resident says it clearly enough that even Mr. Armenta should understand. It's not about race hatred. (How can it be about "race" when most people have potted plants that are more "Indian" than the "Chumash"?) According to Vincent however people like Ms. Bowen here are full of hatred and jealousy, and have no business stating their opinion, she's just another whacko, gonzo, hater.

“Hate groups” or average citizens?
By Kathryn Bowen (published Thursday, November 08, 2007)

I am a 43-year-old mother of two. I have a family, a job, a home, I vote and I pay my taxes.

In the year 2000, a 260,000 square foot casino gets built in the heart of our rural community in Santa Ynez Valley (Population 22,000) less than a mile from four elementary schools and our high school with little to no input from the public. In fact, the mere questioning of the size and scope of the project brought immediate and brutal allegations of racism among other epithets from tribal Chairman, Vincent Armenta and tribal spokeswoman Frances Snyder.

Fast forward 7 years. Not much has changed. Screaming racism or “hate” as Chairman Armenta did in his November 1 “Gonzo journalism gone wild” commentary in Capitol Weekly is far easier than to address the real issues of land use, regulatory paralysis, the loss of representative government and the outright abuse of federal law.

Slowly our rights as a community have disappeared as elected officials continue to turn their backs on the people that elected them to office and open their pocket books to big gambling interests. Unlike much of the legalized gambling spreading like a cancer across this country, our casino along with 390 other tribal casinos nationwide are non-transparent, government sponsored, cash printing machines. Casino tribes are allowed to rely on services and infrastructure provided by the hosting community, but the community in turn cannot impose its regulatory system or property taxes for reimbursement because it is perceived as impeding on their sovereignty.

Let’s just be very clear. Casino tribes are not subject to the same laws or taxes as any other business in this country, are not accountable to host communities, not accountable to their own tribal members and if four casino tribes have their way come February, not accountable to the California taxpayer either. Yet, taxpayers are expected to subsidize a $27 billion and growing industry. Shall we dump the tea in the harbor one more time?

These issues are serious enough but just the tip of the iceberg. The more global issues are still submerged under the surface and considering the exhaustive list of related cases before our federal courts, is about to erupt.

Bottom Line: The American taxpayer and the growing number of disenrolled tribal members have become collateral damage to our government in a disastrous experiment that began with a train called the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) and given “run away status” when the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) was passed in 1988. Promoting inequality and separatism through granting gambling monopolies and allowing tens of thousands of acres to be placed into federal trust status to expand “sovereign” tribal territories within our borders because of past persecution is misguided at best and at worst will undue the constitutional protections secured to all people, tribal and non-tribal.

All we have requested from the press is to report the facts without bowing down to intimidation methods or multi-millions of dollars of casino advertising revenue. Nancy Crawford-Hall of the Santa Ynez Valley Journal has done both for our community. Giving Chairman Armenta space to spew such hateful and divisive remarks without having to address the real issues illustrates the kind of intimidation host communities have put up with for years.

Since when did taxpaying, law-abiding citizens exercising their constitutional right to question what our government is doing become the enemy and labeled “hate groups” for challenging flawed federal laws that are weakening a democratic form of government?

Worldwide, casinos are being shut down by the thousands due to the economic and social strain they produce. So why is it considered “hate” when we challenge tribes and our government in their partnered effort to promote gambling as “easy money” when taxpayers are going to be the ones footing a very expensive bill when the party is over and the hangover begins? Why can we not question the Governor for signing every taxpaying citizen on to this lie of free money when he can privately negotiate deals excluding the host communities that are affected the most?

We challenge the Governor and the legislators on the false promise of growing revenue for the state. Where is the close to $1 billion Governor Schwarzenegger promised from his renegotiated 2004 compacts? He has collected an anemic $27 million with costs to the state continuing to grow. Just one example: Governor Schwarzenegger recently took away $1.3 million our community was suppose to receive from the Special Distribution Fund (SDF) intended to minimally mitigate the impacts of the casino. Who is going to pay for this?

The myriad of constitutional issues along with the fallacy that gambling revenue with solve budgetary shortfalls and stimulate economic vitality in our state must be questioned. Hate isn’t the issue.


RELATED ARTICLES:
Gonzo! Whacko! Holy Bingo Batman!!
SY Valley's Journal

Gonzo! Whacko! Holy Bingo Batman!!

Mr. Armenta of the Chumash casino of Santa Ynez submitted this rebuttal to Capitol Weekly in response to their original article. Though he criticizes Ms. Halls's journalistic skills, I myself wonder why he would knock off the title of a soft porn movie to launch his diatribe. Perhaps he needs to look elsewhere for inspiration. Or maybe just pay better attention. It is not 'hate' to dislike having a casino in one's backyard Mr. Armenta. Nor is it 'hate' to want to limit casino expansion. The only ad hominem attacks I see in any of these articles are in your rebuttal Mr. Armenta. As for drama? This editorial is a splendid example! Congrats!

Gonzo Journalism gone wild
By Vincent Armenta (published Thursday, November 01, 2007)
Capitol Weekly's October 18, 2007, article, "Santa Ynez woman buys paper, covers tribal casino," painted a rosy picture of a local woman purchasing a newspaper. But like the Santa Ynez Valley Journal itself, the article didn't tell the whole story.

It's no secret that Nancy Crawford-Hall, the new owner of the Santa Ynez Valley Journal, is a longtime foe of our tribe, the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians. She has attended Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors meetings to speak out against our tribe, participated with anti-Chumash hate groups in the community and has written many angry columns in her publication accusing the tribe of everything from paying off politicians to being parasites.

Since Crawford-Hall took over ownership of the Valley Journal, we have had the displeasure of seeing multiple rants against our tribe in her "newspaper" on a weekly basis. Clearly, she doesn't follow the principles of good journalism by bringing quality news reporting to the public. In fact, there's no pretense of journalism at all. If journalism's first obligation is to the truth, the Valley Journal's obligation is to sensationalism and propaganda.

The Valley Journal goes back in time to the media climate prior to the 20th Century where the media market was dominated by smaller newspapers and pamphleteers who usually had an overt and often radical agenda, with no presumption of balance or objectivity.

From our perspective, it appears that the Valley Journal is a publication that is designed for the sole purpose of promoting hate against the tribe by criticizing the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians in every issue. The publication's motto might very well be: "All the Gossip That's Not Fit To Print."

Take, for example, Crawford-Hall's "expose" on the tribe's so-called plans to bring 5,000 more slot machines to our facility. She obtained copies of minutes of a tribal council meeting and printed excerpts, but didn't bother to paint the entire picture. We weren't planning to bring 5,000 more machines to our facility, and we haven't. Facts, apparently, aren't important to Crawford-Hall.

Instead, readers were treated to weekly updates of the "No More Slots" campaign in an attempt to cause panic and hysteria by predicting that the sky was falling. The tribal opponents established a Web site, collected signatures, had a town meeting, donned T-shirts with "No More Slots" slogans and marched around Sacramento carrying a Tupperware container filled with scraps of paper. Their campaign fizzled after much fanfare and, as we said all along, we didn't bring 5,000 more slots to the Valley.

Ex-employees of the Valley Journal, of which there are many, tell us of Crawford-Hall's tirades against any editor or reporter who tries to include anything that remotely resembles balanced reporting when it comes to matters concerning the tribe. [if you think those stories are bad you should hear what ex-casino employees have to say about YOU Vincent. I would invite them to post here but our 'family' rating would go right out the window.- ed] She recently fired a columnist who wrote an op-ed that was non-biased. Evidently, an opinion that didn't condemn the tribe didn't have a place in her paper.

Crawford-Hall claims that her paper is the only one printing the truth about the community. The reality is that the local media--print, television and radio--all uphold journalistic standards and run fair, balanced and truthful news on the community, including news on the tribe and our Chumash Casino Resort. Because the coverage is objective, the way journalism should be, Crawford-Hall doesn't like it.

We have battled the Crawford-Halls of our community for nearly a decade. It seems that the more successful our business enterprise, the angrier they become. They hold town hall meetings that a casual observer described as one long gripe session against the tribe. They circulate petitions that go nowhere. They become incensed by virtually everything our tribe does--including making donations to the community.

Crawford-Hall's purchase of the Valley Journal is not a testament to a community member buying a paper to create a community voice. It's a demonstration of what happens when a group of elitists have too much time and too much money.

In Capitol Weekly's article, Crawford-Hall says, "We are telling the stories that no one else will tell." One example might be the front page article she ran stating that Mars will be the brightest object in the night sky when it comes within 34,649,589 miles of Earth. Of course, the story, an urban legend, was a false chain e-mail and passed off as the truth. Like everything else in her paper, the article failed miserably when it comes to meeting basic journalistic standards.

At the end of the day, Crawford-Hall's publication is just another chapter to add to the legacy of the local extreme groups. More drama, more hate, and more fish wrap.

SY Valley's Journal

A few weeks ago at Capitol Weekly, this article appeared covering Nancy Crawford Hall's purchase of the local Santa Ynez paper, 'The Journal'. I am reposting it here along with the responses that have cropped up on the web regarding the original article.

Santa Ynez woman buys paper, covers tribal casino
By Malcolm Maclachlan (published Thursday, October 18, 2007)

Nancy Crawford Hall didn't like how her local newspapers were covering the nearby Chumash tribe and casino. So she did something that people have fantasized about for centuries: She bought her own newspaper.

Last October, she purchased a small monthly, the Santa Ynez Valley Journal. She turned it into a weekly and quickly began having her staff crank out stories that a spokeswoman for the Chumash has labeled "propaganda" and "conspiracy theory of the month."

"It's an interesting paper," said Frances Snyder, and tribal member and spokeswoman for the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians. "Frankly, every week I dread looking at it. All of the stories are inaccurate. All of the stories are biased."

Hall claimed that hers is the only paper printing the truth about the casino--and that the community has responded. The Journal had a circulation of 6,000 when she bought it, she said, but has since grown to 22,000. She said she started looking into buying a paper after years of the other local papers refusing to print anything critical about the tribe or the casino--even in their "letters to the editor" sections.

"I can't go anywhere in town without people saying 'thank you for the paper,'" Hall said. She added, "I think we've really hit a chord. We're telling the stories no one else will tell."

Hall pens a column each week called "On the Ranch." About every third or fourth column deals with the Chumash, she said. But the paper regularly covers the group, including printing numerous letters to the editor--including one by a disgruntled tribal member, Hall said, who asked that their name be withheld.

For many in Sacramento, the first they heard about the dispute between the Chumash and local activists came in the last few weeks when Assemblyman Joe Coto, D-San Jose, successfully carried a bill to rename a section of Highway 154 as the "Chumash Highway." This angered local anti-casino activists with groups such as No More Slots and Preservation of Santa Ynez. Hall said she has never belonged to any of the local anti-casino groups.

Snyder had harsh words for the activists who oppose the renaming of Highway 154. The route had long been used by the tribe, she said, and the naming followed all legal and Caltrans rules, she said.

"Is it named the Chumash Casino Highway? No," Snyder said. Nowhere in the regulations around naming a highway, she added, does it "say you need the permission of [anti] tribal hate groups."

While the Journal has weighed in on the Highway 154 renaming, the paper has focused more squarely on what they allege are the tribes plans to expand the casino. This past spring, the Journal printed that the tribe was in negotiations for 5,000 new slot machines, along with tribes such as Pechanga and Agua Caliente, that got amended compacts in August.

The Chumash responded by saying the article was inaccurate--a point they sought to emphasize with full-page ads in several competing papers. On April 18, the Journal responded by reprinted the minutes of Chumash Tribal meeting, along with a 4,000 word story titled "Tribal Chairman Claims 'Whackos,' Tribal Government Minutes Say Otherwise." This included a quote from tribal chairman, Vincent Armenta stating: "We met with the Governor's Office but there has been no progress yet. We are asking for 5,000 machines."

Jim Marino, a local attorney who sued the Chumash twice on behalf of former casino employees but got caught in the "catch 22" of trying to sue a sovereign tribal government, said the tribe got caught with their pants down. Many tribal members themselves are angry about the way the tribe is being run by chairman Vincent Armenta, he said, which explains the regular stream of internal tribal information that has been fed to the Journal.

"They said they weren't going to expand," Marino said. "We had the blueprints of exactly where they were going to put the slot machines."

"They quit calling us liars," Hall said of the exchange.

Not quite. Snyder said the minutes were used out of context. The same quote goes on to state than new slots would be 10 years off. The Chumash were invited to talks, she said, because they are a gaming member of the Tribal Alliance of Sovereign Indian Nations, but declined to pursue expansion. Other tribal minutes would show this to be true, she said, but added that these documents are confidential.

The dispute between the tribe and locals goes back to the beginning of the tribal-gaming era. The Chumash were one of the first tribes to gain a gaming compact under then-Gov. Gray Davis.

The Chumash face something other largely rural tribes have not: an extremely well-funded opposition. The town of Santa Ynez, located 30 miles northwest of Santa Barbara, has median household income of $96,300, according to the 2000 census--a figure that precedes that advent of the casino. The statewide median income at the time was $53,600.

Some have far greater wealth than that, as well as long-term ties to the land. Hall declines to state how much she paid for the Journal, or how many horses and cows she has on the ranch her family has owned for four generations. But she owns a horse-show arena. Her great grandfather, John Vickers, was co-owner of one of the Channel Islands, Santa Rosa Island; the U.S. government bought it for $30 million in 1978.

"The other tribal opponents don't have these type of resources," Synder said. "They try really hard to look like they're not elitist. They don't represent the community."

Marino said that charges of elitism don't mean much when they're coming from a tribe that hands out $40,000 (Snyder refused to confirm this figure) in gaming money to each member every month--not to mention nearly $1 million in political donations since 2001, including $16,200 to Coto. He went on to say the tribe has used this power--and the tens of thousands they regularly spend on newspaper and television advertising--to crush any criticism in other newspapers in the area.
"It's the millions of dollars they spend plus the fear of being labeled a racist," Marino said.

Many of the comments about the tribe do have racial overtones, Synder said, especially those posted on blogs. The tribe is criticized essentially no matter what they do, she said, including when they gave $1 million to the local Cottage Hospital and $3 million to refurbish the athletic fields at Santa Ynez Valley High School.

As an entertainment venue, they do regularly advertise in the local press, she said, though not in the Journal. The real reason the opponents don't get coverage elsewhere, she said, is because their claims are inaccurate. Many writers in the area, such as Santa Barbara News-Press columnist Travis Armstrong and local blogger Rick Lee, have frequently written positive stories about the tribe.

In any case, Hall said the Journal is going to keep after the Chumash. All she ever wanted was a part in the debate, she said, and the paper has given her that in spades. She's looking at adding new staff and shining light elsewhere, as well.

"The phrase 'the power of the press' is really true," Hall said, then added, "There's a lot of sneaky stuff the county does."

The Rose Colored Glasses are OFF in Orange County

Too often we hear plaintive murmers about 'job creation' and 'economic boosting' by communities contemplating an indian casino in their midst. Not so in Orange County though, at least in Congressman John Campbell's office. From the California Republic.

Of Casinos and Indian Tribes
by John Campbell [congressman]
By now you may have heard that there are several groups trying to get federal recognition as the federally sanctioned Juaneno Indian Tribe in Orange County. It is very clear that the groups seeking recognition as this tribe are doing so because they intend to establish a casino in urban Orange County. I have a copy of a lobbying contract under which the lobbyists are paid only by a contingent fee of the "take" of the eventual casino. If there is no casino, they are working for free. Furthermore, the Orange County Register recently featured a story in which one of the tribe organizers, Joyce Stanfield Perry, says, “it is our inherent right to build any kind of economic development once we have a government-to-government relationship.” There has been talk of putting this casino in San Juan Capistrano or near Irvine's Great Park. The Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs is scheduled to decide whether to recognize this tribe in about 60 days. If they do achieve recognition technically they could establish a casino on any land they buy in Orange County, although they would have to get a gambling "compact" with the state.

I oppose the recognition of this tribe and I oppose a gambling casino in Orange County, or frankly any other urban area. Lest you think I am not consistent on this issue, while in the California State Legislature I aggressively opposed the establishment of what would have been the largest casino on earth for a roughly 20 member tribe that had been recognized in Berkley, California. We have been successful so far in stopping that one. Here is why I oppose these things:

1) Indian casino gambling was originally conceived in order to provide economic opportunity for big groups of largely full-blooded Indians who were poor and whose ancestral reservations were in remote areas with little economic opportunity. That has worked in many areas. Fine. But now you see a handful of professional people tracing small fractions of Indian ancestry, in urban areas where economic opportunity abounds wanting to become tribes so they can make tons of money on gambling. If they would agree to never have a casino, as a tribe in North Carolina recently agreed to do, then we would know that they were merely trying to preserve their cultural heritage. But the Juanenos are not doing that.

2) The federal tribal recognition process has existed for 30 years. Why has this tribal application only surfaced in the last 20 years or so? Perhaps because the availability of and profitability of casino gambling only came to California recently.

3) These are not tribes of thousands of people here. The people trying to establish these tribes usually number less than a dozen. I remember meeting once with a group of 6 trying to establish a tribe and a casino in downtown San Diego. So, we're supposed to grant gigantic casino rights so that 6 people can have economic opportunity?

4) Indian casinos are federally granted monopolies. You and I cannot open one to compete with the Juanenos if we wanted to. In an urban area, why not? They are also basically self-regulated in California so their profit margins are very high because of that lack of competition.

5) Casinos in urban areas are usually accompanied by increases in crime and spousal abuse and gambling addiction.

6) These things are hard to stop because they are very profitable that there is plenty of money to go around for lobbyists and cities and consultants and the only losers are the public.

For all these reasons I have introduced a bill to place a 25 year moratorium on Indian casinos for newly recognized tribes. This will preserve the tribal recognition process for those who truly desire to preserve their heritage, but it will stop the practice of setting up these monopoly casinos in urban areas for at least a while.

If you agree with this bill or that we should not have casinos in urban areas like Orange County, please e-mail me back so that I can show the Bureau of Indian Affairs the breadth of the opposition to this tribe's plans.