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."