Tribal members convicted of attempted murder

In January we featured a story about the San Manuel Band of Indians, their casino, links to crime and their feelings that this is none of the publics business. We follow up here today - with the convictions of said members. Nice folks we have tied to out California Indian Casinos. Attempted Murder. Gang Membership. Methamphetamine charges and more. Personally I just cannot WAIT until they open one of these fine establishments in my back yard. Oh. Wait. They already have. Perhaps that is why crime is up for 2007 by 35% in my neighborhood?


San Manuel tribal members plead guilty in murder-for-hire case
06:05 PM PDT on Thursday, April 17, 2008
By JOHN F. BERRY MICHELLE DeARMOND
The Press-Enterprise

SAN BERNARDINO - Two San Manuel tribal members and gang member pleaded guilty this afternoon to charges involving a 2006 murder-for-hire scheme.

Salvador Orozco Hernandez, 43, identified in federal documents as a Mexican Mafia leader in the San Bernardino area, agreed to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to attempted murder charge and conducting the crime to benefit a criminal street gang.

Tribal member Stacy Cheyenne Barajas-Nunez, 25, also pleaded guilty to attempted murder charge and admitting criminal gang activity. She also pleaded guilty to charges of transporting methamphetamine and possessing illegal substances in a jail.

Her brother, Erik Barajas, 35, pleaded guilty to one charge of assault with a firearm and admitted gang membership.

Both tribal members will receive probation when they return for sentencing Aug. 7.

Two others also charged in the case, Janette Amaya, 51, and Alfred Orozco Hernandez, 39, brother of Salvador Hernandez, also pleaded guilty.

Amaya pleaded guilty to one charge of transporting methamphetamine and the sentencing enhancement of criminal gang activity. She pleaded no contest to a forgery charge in a separate case. She will be sentenced to probation.

Alfred Hernandez pleaded guilty to an attempted murder charge as well as admitting criminal gang activity. He will be sentenced to nine years in prison in August.

The Hernandez brothers and Barajas siblings were initially charged with conspiracy to commit murder in September 2006.

According to court records, the plot was to kill the manager of The Brass Key, a Highland bar. The business is owned by Greg Duro, son of former tribal Chairman Henry Duro.

The pleas emerged after five hours of back-and-forth plea negotiations in San Bernardino County Superior Court before Judge Michael Dest.

Defense attorneys said the agreements were better than going to trial, where the accused risked significantly longer sentences.

Deputy District Attorney Doug Poston said the case helped keep criminal gangs away from the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, which own a huge and profitable casino near Highland.

"We don't want the tribe members bringing the criminal element onto Indian lands or into Indian businesses," Poston said outside the courtroom. "We've done everything we can in this case to rid that problem from Indian land and Indian business."

Today's convictions resulted from Dec. 12, 2006, law enforcement raids lead by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The raids targeted the drug trade in the San Bernardino area.

Authorities made 19 arrests and seized more than $1 million in methamphetamine and cash as well as 56 guns.

Reservation homes were also raided, documents show.

DEA records included in the case file show that Hernandez was collecting "taxes" from Inland Hispanic gangs and making a methamphetamine deal at the San Manuel Indian Bingo & Casino.

Another DEA document said investigators fear the Mexican Mafia has infiltrated the reservation and is extorting money from tribal members, who receive $100,000 checks from casino profits each month.

Chumash Casino Drug Busts - Tip of the iceberg

Keep in mind this Casino is less than a mile from the high school in the Santa Ynez Valley. Keep in mind many kids from that high school have been in the casino - no one checks ID upon entry. And now you have a 17 year old kid buying meth AT the casino. Nice neighbors they have there in Santa Ynez. And these cretins want to expand their gambling operation? From the police blotter in the SYV Journal:

2-27
Arrest
Unit block of Bobcat Springs, Buellton

A 17-year-old male from Buellton was arrested for being in possession of methamphetamine after a citizen reported that she found methamphetamine in her son’s jacket pocket. She also told the officer that her son was on probation for other offenses and was routinely checking his room to make sure he didn’t have any contraband. The minor was questioned at the Solvang Sheriff’s Station, where he told police that he bought the methamphetamine from an acquaintance at the Chumash Casino. He informed police that he frequented the casino, even though he was not of legal age. He was booked into the Santa Maria Juvenile Hall for being in possession of a controlled substance.


2-25
Arrest
3400 East Highway 246, Santa Ynez (Chumash Casino)

A 55-year-old female from Santa Maria was arrested for being under the influence of a controlled substance after officers on patrol at the casino questioned her because she exhibited behavior that is usually associated with drug addiction. The woman admitted to using methamphetamine the previous night. She was booked into the Santa Barbara County Jail.

2-24
Arrest
3400 East Highway 246, Santa Ynez (Chumash Casino)

A 42-year-old female from Thousand Oaks was arrested for being under the influence of a controlled substance after an officer on patrol at the casino contacted her at a gambling machine. The woman’s urine tested positive for cocaine and methamphetamine.

Arrest
3400 East Highway 246, Santa Ynez (Chumash Casino)

A 44-year-old male from Oceano was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol after an officer responded to an auto accident that occurred at the casino. While the officer questioned the man about the accident, he noticed that the man exhibited signs of being intoxicated. The man failed a series of sobriety tests. He was booked into the Santa Barbara County Jail.

Arrest

3400 East Highway 246, Santa Ynez (Chumash Casino)
A 43-year-old female from Santa Paula was arrested for being under the influence of a controlled substance after an officer on patrol at the casino noticed her exhibiting tell-tale signs of drug use. The woman’s urine tested positive for methamphetamine. She was cited and released.

2-23
Arrest
3000 block of East Highway 246,
Santa Ynez

A 48-year-old male from Solvang was arrested for being in possession of cocaine and drug paraphernalia after Chumash Casino valet parking security reported that the man was under the influence of a controlled substance. Officers visited the hotel at which the man was staying and found the illegal substance. The man was booked into the Santa Barbara County Jail.

Tribe in New York attempts to stifle free speech

The Mohawks look to be taking a page out of CAIR's (Council of American Islamic Relations - and unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Trial) book. CAIR is famous for screaming 'hate crime! slander! libel! racisism!" etc, when ever anyone has the temerity to suggest that something a Muslim is doing, could actually endanger US citizens. Well it wasn't Catholics, or Amish, or Lutherans flying planes into skyscrapers on September 11th. I guess here the Mohawk's want us to believe that people who build casinos have the natures of innocent three year olds, and create worlds full of fluffy bunnies and pretty rainbows. Anything else is libel and slander!! Spend a little time in almost any Indian casino and the nature of the beast is obvious - and it isn't fluffy bunnies.

Hey Mowhawks - you are free (for now) to run your dictatorial regimes on your reservations and harm your citizens the way you see fit (again, for now). Here in the United States there is a little thing called freedom of the press. If you want to persist in your rude, uncivilized attack on democratic systems, perhaps treating you like any other barbarian regime is in order? (Think Iraq, Afghanistan, Nazi Germany...) Also when casino Indian tribes allow YOUR workers, your citizens, your patrons the same right you are attempting to exercise right now - taking you to court like you are doing to The Post, (knock off the no jurisdiction nonesense), then perhaps you should be entitled to do so. Until then, in net vernacular because your legal stunt deserves no better... STFU.

Tribe Sues Paper Over Casino Editorials
By JARED IRMAS
Special to the Sun
February 20, 2008

An American Indian tribe that is seeking to build a casino in upstate New York is suing the New York Post for $60 million because of two editorials the newspaper published that accused the tribe of being a "criminal enterprise" with "an extended history of often-violent criminality."

In a February 21, 2007, editorial, "The Gov's Gambling Goof," the Post chronicled the efforts of the St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Council to build a casino on the site of the former Monticello Raceway in the Catskills. The Post editorial accused the council of being involved in a $687 million contraband smuggling ring, importing illegal immigrants from China, and engaging in shoot-outs with the New York State Police.

The council is suing the Post for two counts of libel.

Also included in the lawsuit is a January 8 editorial, "A Bad Bet on the Mohawks," that criticizes Governor Spitzer for supporting the council's bid to build the Catskills casino and repeats the previous editorial's allegations of criminality.

The Post's series of accusations against the council "tends to injure them in their profession, and tends to expose them to public contempt, ridicule, aversion, and disgrace," the lawsuit, which was filed yesterday in New York State Court in Manhattan, says.

A spokeswoman for the Post, Suzanne Halpin, declined to comment.

Hey California!! Change! We needed it! We got it! .. uh.. whoops?

Thats right.. step right on up Californians.. the more YOU LOSE, the more money the State will have to spend! What a deal! Let's all go get big L's tatooed in the middle of our foreheads after forking over our money to the sacred slot machine to show 'we care'. From the Morgan Hill Times:

Filling a slot

The current presidential campaigns, which have now gone on longer than FDR's presidency and spent a sum of money nearly equal to the gross national product of Mitt Romney, have mutually decided that there is a single word which defines, delineates, describes, and distills what America wants, needs, and hopes for in the next administration. That word is change. No, make that Change; wait, I've got it: CHANGE. No, I mean CHANGE!!!. No, hold on -- imagine an enormous billboard, say, the size of western Nebraska, floating overhead and imagine the word CHANGE completely filling it, in flashing neon with Roman candles going off and cannons firing, and the special effects guys from "Lord of the Rings" making it do all kinds of really interesting things, and ... .

Anyway, we need change; we get it. And in California, thanks to the small piece of this miserable circus which actually wended its annoying over-commercialized way to a conclusion on Stupor Tuesday, we, alone among our sister states, have officially declared that we really need change, need it bad, need it now.

We need change, preferably quarters, to funnel into the shiny, flashy, electronic noise-making new slot machines, all 17,000 of them, which we approved by a large margin after discovering that slot machines have recently become a threatened species due to excessive expansion of non-gambling activities in this state, requiring that drastic steps be taken to preserve and protect our precious casino environment before it's too late. If through our own negligent selfishness we fail to grow our native slot machine population so that our descendants can enjoy the awesome beauty of thundering herds of one-armed bandits roaming free across the Southern California plains grazing on our money we will have deprived posterity of a sacred right.

Naw! I was just joshing with you; we didn't do it for the environment, we did it for the money! Yes, we decided to partner up with the tribes to "share the revenues" and help bail out the State after discovering that pesky $14 billion shortfall. Perfect: just as the public is hit with the body-blow of a huge budget crisis the tribes come along and generously offer to help -- a win-win outcome if ever there was one, so of course everybody says look, free money and just when we need it. And now we all have a vested interest in the success of those bigger and better casinos, because the more they make the more they share and the more we get the better off we are.

There is a small fly in the ointment, really nothing worth bothering about: revenue sharing comes from profits and profits come from gamblers who lose. That's how it works -- players lose, house wins, house gives some to us. The more of the first the more of the second and the more of the third. So the logic of the situation takes us far beyond legalizing gambling and far beyond tolerating gambling; it is now officially in our interest to ENCOURAGE gambling, or more specifically, to encourage losing. We have to want our fellow Californians (who are the majority of the gamblers in Indian casinos) to get in there and lose, lose big, lose often. If we don't have a large continuous stream of players pouring coins, bills, and credit cards into those machines without equal reward there won't be much profit, and we will be getting chump-change out of the deal. All those millions that the tribes could afford to spend on advertising, all the sympathy generated for their earnest desire to become self-reliant so they could share the wealth with us, will produce only a drop in the deficit bucket.

So come on, people! Step up to the plate and show us what you're made of; put your money where your vote was. We don't want to pay several dollars more in taxes, do we? Of course not; root canals without anaesthetic are infinitely better than paying any amount at all in increased taxes no matter what they're used for. So it's up to us to make the alternative work; we have to go to the Indian casino of our choice and lose hundreds, thousands if possible. We need to be making bad bets, reckless wagers; don't quit just because you're behind.

This will be good, really. It's not a bad thing, it's totally different. See, the problem with traditional gambling is that traditional gamblers are pitiful creatures, blowing the rent money on their favorite roulette number, staking the kids' college fund on long odds, and getting deeper and deeper in the hole because they always think the next bet is going to turn it all around; they're going to become winners raking in the chips and overtipping the croupier like in the movies. But we're just the opposite: we WANT to lose -- winning is not an option. If we go into a casino and don't come out broke we've failed California: we've failed our kids' schools, we've failed our highways and bridges, we've failed our cops and firefighters. Every dollar we don't put in a slot machine means revenue the casinos can't share with the State. Can't have that; defeats the whole purpose of the election.

So, in keeping with the version of reality California has always been most fond of, the only way to win is to lose. If we all do our part someday the Governor will call a press conference, smile that inimitable Schwarzenegger smile, and proudly announce that our budget woes are over because we have met the challenge: we are all losers.

Poor Oklahoma indians may have to pay millions to fund education

Sounds like they're on to something. Most would agree that casino indian tribes are not paying fairly into our tax system. The article was interesting enough, but then I got to the comments. Take a peek for yourself. Apparently one person felt that our government is not giving to the tribes and only takes, takes, takes. Last time I checked, the government IS still giving indians millions in aid. So our government is taking our tax money and turning around to give it back to the indian people...poor indians? - don't think so.


Proposed gaming restrictions could hurt tribes
By Associated Press

OKLAHOMA CITY -- A proposed new federal restriction on the types of slot machines tribes can offer at casinos could cost Oklahoma tribes millions of dollars each year, but would boost funding for the state's education system.

The National Indian Gaming Commission wants to create a greater distinction between Class II games based on bingo and Class III, or Las Vegas-style, slot machines.

The distinction is important because states can only collect a portion of tribes' profits from Class III games.

Indian gaming experts have said the vast majority of existing Class II machines would become illegal in 2013 if the new regulations, as proposed, take effect.

Tribes have almost universally denounced the plan as an unfair imposition on their sovereignty.

Two Oklahoma congressmen seem to agree, according to their recent letters to the commission.

"I remain deeply concerned that there has not been sufficient consideration of the economic impacts of these proposed regulations," Rep. Dan Boren, D-Okla., wrote in a Dec. 20 letter.

Boren joined Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., in a second letter asking that the comment period on the proposed changes be extended
until June.

However, a letter signed by 10 other congressmen urges "prompt adoption" of the proposed rules.

Both Boren and Cole are on the House Natural Resources Committee, which oversees Indian gaming.

The 30,044 Class II machines in Oklahoma at the end of 2006 represented 59 percent of all such machines in the country, economist Alan Meister reported in a study prepared for the Indian gaming commission.

In 2004, Oklahoma voters approved compacts allowing tribes to offer modified Class III slot machines. In return, tribes must pay the state 4 percent to 6 percent of the revenue.

That money goes to fund teacher pay raises and other education programs. Tribes paid the state $54.5 million from Class III machine revenue in 2007, according to the Office of State Finance.

Most state tribal casinos have incorporated Class III games, and a few have moved solely to compacted machines. However, Class II machines still comprise a large majority of the games available in Oklahoma, Meister reported.

Meister said the proposed Class II restrictions would force tribes to use only compacted machines by 2013.

If that happens, Oklahoma tribes would have to pay the state an estimated $122.3 million a year in revenue-sharing costs, Meister reported.

Oklahoma's current tribal gaming compacts expire in 2020.

Indian casino cheats patron with their sovereign immunity

Once again we have a tribe playing their sovereign immunity card, kind of like a "get out of jail free" card in Monopoly. Only Monopoly is a level playing field where everyone has to play by the same rules. Casino tribes don't play by the same rules governing the rest of us. They get to ignore planning departments, OSHA regulations, fair labor practices, taxes, environmental laws AND still get free health benefits paid by you and me while individually making monthly incomes of ten, twenty, forty thousand dollars a month or more depending on the tribe.

Judge dismisses jackpot lawsuit against Sandia casino
The Associated Press
Article Launched: 02/04/2008 05:09:19 PM MST

ALBUQUERQUE—A state district judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Bernalillo County man who accused Sandia Resort & Casino of not paying him a jackpot of nearly $1.6 million.

Gary Hoffman claimed he was playing a slot machine in August 2006 when hit the jackpot. The casino refused to pay, saying the machine wasn't working properly and that Hoffman had actually won about $400.

Hoffman alleged the casino violated the Unfair Trade Practices Act and he sued for the jackpot winnings plus punitive damages.

Paul Bardacke, an attorney representing Sandia Pueblo, argued that the tribe couldn't be sued in state district court because of sovereign immunity, and Judge Linda Vanzi agreed during a hearing Monday.

Hoffman's attorney, Sam Bregman, said he will appeal the ruling.

Bregman argued that tribal sovereignty wasn't meant to protect tribes from luring people to their casinos and then cheating them out of their winnings.

"This decision has national implications," he said. "There are billions of dollars at stake when it comes to Indian gaming and the idea that they never have to be held accountable is very troubling."

previously on TribalWatch:
Ripped off on the Reservation

What is wrong with sovereign immunity

In America - if a child were to be sexually assaulted in a day care center, the day care would be shut down (for more than a week or two) and the employees held to account along with the owners. The victim and family would have their day in court. But in a dictatorial regime where they build Indian casinos sovereign immunity protects all the guilty parties. It may get to court but all the tribe does is send in their attorney - he tells the judge 'no jurisdiction' and its over. The attorney for the victim's family in the story below from the AP says ""The family's main concern right now is to make sure this doesn't happen to another kid." Good luck with that.


Child Accused of Sex Assault of Boy, 3
By PATRICK CONDON – Jan 31, 2008

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — An American Indian tribe has closed the child-care centers at its two casinos while authorities investigate a reported sexual assault by a child against a 3-year-old boy.

Tribal authorities said the suspect is a boy between 8 and 10 years old but wouldn't identify him further or discuss whether he was in custody. The police report will remain confidential at least until the investigation is finished, tribal police Sgt. Justin Churchill said.

The 3-year-old was attacked Jan. 23 inside a crawling tube in a play area at Grand Casino Mille Lacs, in the central Minnesota town of Onamia, run by the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe.

A worker noticed bruises on the boy and had his parent paged in the casino, tribal attorney Tadd Johnson said. The next day, the parent noticed more bruising and took the boy to a doctor, who concluded a sexual assault may have happened.

Johnson said that the suspect was identified from surveillance video, but that the tube obscured footage of the actual assault.

Criminal charges against the older boy won't be possible under state law if he is younger than 10, said Mille Lacs County prosecutor Jan Kolb, whose office would handle any resulting criminal case. She said she hadn't yet reviewed the case for possible charges.

She and Johnson said that if the older boy isn't charged, a social services agency could intervene to investigate his family situation.

The Kids Quest child-care center at that casino and the tribe's other casino in nearby Hinckley will remain closed at least until the investigation ends, Johnson said.

"We're doing everything we can to get a quick and accurate resolution to the case," he said.

Both of the casinos' child-care centers are operated by New Horizon Academy, a Twin Cities company that leases space from casinos in 11 states and runs freestanding day-care centers.

In a written statement, New Horizon said employees failed to follow its "comprehensive" procedures to keep children safe.

"We deeply regret the actions of these employees," spokeswoman Beth LaBreche said in the statement. Company officials declined Thursday to answer questions about the assault or the status of the employees being accused of not following procedures.

Richard Ruohonen, an attorney for the victim's family, said the younger boy had bruises and scratches on his face, arm and back. The attorney said it was unbelievable such an assault wasn't stopped.

"The family's main concern right now is to make sure this doesn't happen to another kid," he said.

Before you head to the polls...

... you might want to read this if you still have any confusion regarding 94, 95, 96 and 97. One of our regular readers sent this out to family members forwarded a copy to me. I thought it would be a good post for today, election day.


Dear friends and family,

Why we should vote note on 94 - 97.

At stake there is a supposed 9 Billion dollars of revenue for the State of California, and for the tribes almost 20,000 slot machines. California will far surpass Nevada as a gambling State with the addition of these slots.

It is 9 billion over 20 years, around 200 million per year. It is less then .5 percent of the estimated revenue from these tribes - a FRACTION of a percent of what they would have to pay if they were any other business. Businesses and individuals pay taxes in our country to support all the infrastructure we have and need. (emergency services, roads etc. Imagine what would happen if we suddenly had no money for these things. Imagine what happens just when one business increases traffic and visits to its facility by over a million people a year, with ZERO money going to the government to cover costs related to all those new visitors, not to mention regular employees and contractors.)

Will it it actually be 9 billion? Most economists who have been crunching the numbers agree that it could be as little as half that amount. The sad fact is Indian casinos are unregulated. There is no one checking to see if they had the revenue they claim. They can and do say anything they want under the protection of their 'sovereign immunity'. They can actually decide not to pay and the state has no recourse. Once the slots are in they are in. Right now there have been lawsuits filed because they have not paid on the old compacts. Matter of fact the tribes have paid LESS THAN 10 PERCENT on the old compacts, so why should we think they will pay more on a new agreement? These lawsuits will likely be thrown out because you cannot sue a sovereign nation. So the answer is NO the state will probably not collect what is being promised and there is no recourse to do so.

Where does the 9 billion really come from? California gamblers will have to LOSE 60 BILLION dollars in the slot machines first. This is 60 billion that will not pay mortgages, utility bills, tuition or get donated to charities. It is 60 billion that will not pay for other entertainment venues where taxes to the state are generated. It is 60 billion dollars down the toilet, there are no residual taxes that will help the State. Add to that for every dollar of revenue a casino makes - there is $3 - $5 dollars in social costs (addiction and crime etc). You don't have to be a math genius to see where this is going. If you don't believe that crime and casinos go hand in hand, take a little trip to your nearest Indian casino and talk to some of the business owners and residents in the area. By the way, thats 60 billion lost in slots only. This does not include millions spent on rooms, meals and merchandise. Rooms, meals and merchandise they will charge YOU state tax on but THEY will NOT remit to the state. Illegal you say? For any other business yes but Indian casinos are immune.

Another nifty little deal that was written into these compacts was to do away with what is called the 'special distribution fund'. This fund is currently what the Indian casinos pay into and from there the money is supposed to be earmarked for certain things like helping non-casino Indian tribes, education etc. Lets forget for a moment that there are lawsuits pending because money has not been paid into the special fund properly at this time. What the governor has now arranged is for the money to go into the general fund. Where it can be used for anything, anything at all. Things like special interest projects for taking care of high-paying donors to political campaigns. So you can kiss that money good bye.

Then there are the politics behind these referendums - and this is where it gets very murky and the implications are very disturbing. This summer our Governor in a bid to secure these deals NO MATTER WHAT THE CALIFORNIA VOTERS DECIDE, sent them off for approval to the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. See, by getting federal government approval it is thought that it will trump any vote by Californians. Tribes are under federal jurisdiction NOT the State. It gets more twisted. The Department of Interior LOST this paperwork for over 80 days. They are given 45 days to review and approve, otherwise by default, the agreements are AUTOMATICALLY APPROVED. So these compacts were approved by default without review by the feds. If you think I am nuts, just google it, it was all over the web and news 2 weeks ago. (or go to the website at the bottom of the page - it has links to original news stories)

There is much, much more. The Pechanga tribe has been taken over by outsiders and the real Pechangas have been ousted. The San Bernardino tribe is being run by the Mexican Mafia. Workers at these casinos are not protected like workers in any other business in the US, nor are visitors to Indian Casinos. The laws of the United States are not valid on tribal lands. But what you are seeing on TV is an ad blitz funded by $120,000 million dollars of gambling money telling you things that are simply not true. There is no money earmarked for education or to help poorer needier tribes, there is no guarantee the funds will be paid at all, there are no economic studies that support any of the claims the tribes are making. They are NOT creating NEW revenue - it is simply money that is going from one venue to another, and this new venue is a black hole that generates no tax money for the state. The iffy 9 billion is a mere drop in the bucket of what that money would do if it were spent elsewhere.

The tribes will say anything at all to get these slots. Not a word of it has to be true. Who is going to sue them if it isn't true? What court will allow a suit against a sovereign nation? No one and none. There are many tribes who are not included in these compacts who are against them, but they cannot afford to fight the kind of money that is being dumped into the campaign. Indeed there are tribal members within these four that are against the compacts but they cannot speak up for fear of being disenrolled.

Indian casinos for better or worse might be here to stay, but Californians could do a lot better than this measly deal by our Governor and members of the Legislature. Vote NO on 94, 95, 96 and 97.

Vote NO on 94, 95, 96 and 97

Another excellent summary on 94 -97, the rich get richer - there rest of us pay the bill for it. An irony this article does miss though, these very rich so-called 'Indians' STILL get free health care services provided by the American taxpayer. I am not talking about the dis-enrolled Indians - they get squat. I am talking bout these newly made millionaires, they get free health care in their tribal clinics paid by YOU and ME.

Indian casino measures help rich tribes, but nobody else
NO ON PROPS. 94-97: WORKERS AND NEIGHBORS DESERVE A BETTER DEAL
By Enrique L. Fernandez

The Indian gambling initiatives on Tuesday's ballot are all about an old, familiar story. The rich get richer. While the rest of us? We lose.

Four Southern California tribes are behind these deals that would give them 17,000 new slot machines. That's enough slot machines to fill 12 Las Vegas casinos. That's enough slot machines to make those four tribes spend $92 million and counting to get us to vote yes on their deals.

Propositions 94 through 97 are great deals - for those four tribes, Pechanga, Morongo, Sycuan and Agua Caliente. But for California taxpayers, for workers at those casinos, for the communities around those casinos and the environment - in short, for everybody but those four tribes, we need a new, fairer deal.

The 17,000 slot machines would effect one of the largest expansions of gambling in U.S. history. When we originally said yes to Indian gaming, less than 10 years ago, I think most of us thought we were helping all Native Americans in California, and help was needed. I don't think most of us expected it would turn into this - that we are now asked to vote to make four wealthy, powerful tribes even more wealthy and more powerful.

Now, back to that $92 million those four tribes have been spending: Mostly, they've been using that money to buy ads to tell us how the state of California will get money from this - so we should vote yes. But that turns out to be just another sales pitch. The state's impartial Legislative Analyst's Office says that any money the state would get from these deals would be less than one half of 1 percent of the state's annual general fund. That's next to nothing - and certainly no cure for the state's budget troubles.

But even that money we may never see. These four tribes wrote into their deals language that eliminates any outside independent accounting of the tribes' books, language that means they will decide how much money they give the state. The state can look at the tribes' math and check the addition. It can't go back and check the books that math is based on.

And here's an irony. These wealthy tribes, which already make hundreds of millions of dollars a year, squeeze still more money out of their own lowest-paid employees. A study of the Agua Caliente casino found that its minimum-wage workers (and there are plenty - in the kitchen and the bars) make less money now than they did in 2002, when you adjust the numbers for inflation.

And at that same casino, many of the families of those workers have to get their health care through taxpayer-funded public health programs, because the casino's health insurance isn't affordable.

Here's another irony. Most tribes in California have no gaming at all, or else they only have small operations. Even though the Big 4 tribes would make billions of dollars in profits if they get these new slot machines, they didn't offer to share a dime of those new profits with even the poorest tribes (and poor tribes are very poor). In fact, under these deals, the existing revenue-sharing with those tribes will end up being cut. And small tribes near the Big 4, with small gaming operations, are liable to be swept away by these massive new casino operations. Also, if you happen to live near one of those casinos - whether you're a person, a plant or an animal - you're affected by the weakening of environmental protections in these deals.

The only good news is that we get a chance to turn down these deals. A ", no" vote tells Sacramento and the tribes they need to go back and negotiate better deals. Instead of a windfall for just four wealthy, powerful tribes, we can get a fairer deal for all tribes, more money for the state, more protection for the areas around these casinos and more protection for the men and women who work in them. We can and should do better. But to do that, we have to first vote "no" on Propositions 94 through 97, the unfair gambling deals.

Pechanga Update

Yesterday dis-enrolled members of the Pechanga tribe held a protest against the referendums in front of the Pechanga casino. TribalWatch staffers were in attendance and have photo art which we will be posting later today. Below is a brief story from O. Pechanga's blog about a confrontation during the protest from one of the millionaire tribal members. What a classy guy eh? The implication of the sheriff being bought to defend the casino is not new at all . One of the first things the tribe does when it opens a casino is dump money on the local sheriffs dept. to ensure their loyalty. It happens in Santa Barbara County at the Chumash casino, in San Bernardino and San Diego, and just about anywhere you have an Indian Casino.


Pechanga Member Threatens Demonstrators at No on 94-97 Protest.

As discussed below we had a successful gathering in front of Pechanga Casino in Temecula. An interesting start to our demonstration.

Raymond Basquez Jr. son of Raymond Basquez Sr., one of those involved in eliminating 25% of the tribe, who can be seen in Pechanga's commercials, long hair, saying he just "wanted to give back" threatened us yesterday. He drove his shiny Escalade west on Pechanga Parkway, yelling at us, "Get a JOB!" and flipping us off. He sped west and made a quick left to make a u-turn. Aggressive driving in his huge vehicle, we knew he was coming back. A little disconcerting, because we knew he had been on parole. Ray Jr. stopped his Escalade about 7 car lenghts from the limit line, with a green light and GETS OUT of his vehicle. He circles to the back and my brother and I head back to meet him. When he sees my brother coming, he opens his back door (not a good sign in CA) but we advance anyway. He pulls out....... a Yes on 94-97 STICKER to put on his car! ROFL! He's taunting us: "you're out on the street, man!" Guess he was in women's prison. Raymond Jr. YOU ARE A PUSSY. Pechanga, great job as having Raymond Basquez Jr. as your defender.

Luckily for Pechanga, they had the Riverside County Sheriffs on Indian Land to protect them. OH yeah, thank RCS. We had a bottle thrown at us and you know what? We picked it up so you couldn't complain that we left trash in the area.

Rights Protest at Pechanga

The Pechanga Tribe is one of the most notorious of the gambling casino tribes when it comes to the treatment of their own people. They have disenrolled hundreds of tribal members, targeting dissenters who had the audacity to question the leadership. On Saturday February 2, 2008 at the Pechanga Casino in Temecula people will gather to protest this self-styled dictatorial regime and its policies - and its plans to add thousands of slot machines. From Original Pechanga's Blog:

"No Rights, No Compact!"
Saturday, February 2, 2008 @ 10 am
Pechanga Resort & Casino
Temecula, CA

Pechanga tribal officials have signed a compact with the State of California that would authorize the largest expansion of casino gambling in U.S. history. Yet Pechanga tribal officials have tried continuously to keep California voters from exercising their Constitutional right to participate in the referendum process. First, they tried to block voters from signing petitions. This failed as nearly 3 million signatures were gathered to put the deals on the ballot. Next, Pechanga filed a lawsuit to keep the Prop 94 from going to the voters- this also failed.

Why are Pechanga officials so eager to deny California voters their right to decide this issue when it was California voters who approved gaming on Indian lands in the first place? Could it be that the Pechanga officials know that its "sweetheart deals" may not hold up to voter scrutiny?

No Rights, No Compact!

It should come as no surprise that a tribe that has denied its own members basic rights guaranteed by tribal laws and the Constitution would work so hard and spend so much money to deny other Californians their rights as well. Should you really expect Pechanga officials to value and respect the rights of others when they have not done the same for their own citizens?

Due process and equal protection of the law are hard to come by at Pechanga. Throw in blatant disregard for the Constitution and lack of protection of basic rights, and you will begin to understand why nearly 300 Pechanga members have been stripped of their citizenship- and many hundreds more denied membership- since California voters approved tribal gaming and Pechanga became one of the wealthiest tribes in the State.

Please join us on February 2nd to protest the rights violations committed by Pechanga tribal officials, and please vote No on Prop 94.

Pete Wilson says Vote NO on 94, 96, 95 & 97

Pete Wilson is a gentleman, when he calls the tribes' advertising 'misleading'. The ads are downright falsehoods and lies - but when you are a tribe with a casino you can say anything you want and you have enough money to get your deceitful words out there. If your lies become evident who is going to take you to task? No one will because you can hide behind sovereignty.

Former governor opposes Indian casino gambling

Former California Gov. Pete Wilson reasserted his opposition to Indian casino gambling during a speech in Thousand Oaks on Wednesday, and he predicted the state won't receive significant new revenue as a result of the four gaming propositions on the ballot next Tuesday.

Wilson's stance puts him at odds with a fellow Republican, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has endorsed Propositions 94-97.

"I don't think it will lead to increased revenues for the state," said Wilson, in response to a question from an audience member at the luncheon on the campus of California Lutheran University. He was speaking only a few hours before the Republican presidential candidates were scheduled to debate nearby at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.

Schwarzenegger and other supporters of the four initiatives say they will give a measurable boost to state revenue by increasing the number of slot machines allowed at four Indian reservations in Southern California.

Wilson, who was governor from 1991 to 1999, described the advertising campaign in favor of the initiatives as "misleading" and the promise of more money for the state as "hypothetical."

Breaking News.... Warrant for Sammy Sockpuppet issued

This just in from Chumashland in Santa Barbara County. Mr. Sammy Cohen, counsel for the Chumash Casino (and Vincent Armenta's sockpuppet) was supposed to appear in court today on charges of domestic violence. Basically, as we reported in December, he was beating his wife in front of the Chumash Casino and was arrested. Mr. Cohen FAILED TO APPEAR, and a bench warrant has been issued for his arrest. Stay tuned...

Previously on TribalWatch:

This time it was the "wine" not the "whine"..

Once it was about the need, now it's only about the greed

Searching the web for information on 94, 95, 96 & 97 one finds a plethora of editorials covering the issues. What becomes blatantly clear is how shallow the claims are on the "vote yes" side. If it was such a good deal why is it necessary to spend so many millions to convince voters it is what the tribes are claiming? If it was the win-win deal they are touting there would be no argument. It is no longer about tribes living in poverty, it is about unfettered expansion of the worlds largest casinos, might as well leave the word "Indian" out of it. Indeed, many tribes have been taken over by people who have little or no Indian heritage, and have ousted the real tribal descendants.

Editorial: It's simple: No on 94, 95, 96, 97
Chico Enterprise-Record
Article Launched: 01/28/2008 12:00:00 AM PST

Deciding how to vote on the four Indian casino measures on the Feb. 5 ballot is a lot like choosing the best hog in a wallow.

The common characteristic of the three main players in this debate is greed, and the thin self-righteous arguments each offers just leave us shaking our head. Does anyone really believe the hooey they're offering up?

On the one hand are the four tribes themselves, which each operate a casino with 2,000 slot machines and many other devices for separating gamblers from their cash. The four tribes are quite small numerically, and have already advanced beyond the legitimate "lifting themselves up from poverty" pitch Californians agreed to when they first approved Indian gambling.

The four tribes have grown from desert slums to shimmering moneymaking palaces. They spend as much on manipulating state government through campaign contributions and other means as is spent on the welfare of their members. And that political spending is largely exempt from most state and federal regulation as the tribes are sovereign states.

Then there's the state, which eagerly accepted the compacts with the four tribes as a way to increase revenue to its overdrawn general fund. At the time the compacts were moving through the Capitol in 2006, they were sold as adding more than a billion bucks to state coffers each year. The estimate is now down to below $200 million over the next few years, maybe rising to a half-billion dollars annually by 2030 when the deals expire.

The increase comes at the expense of local government, by the way. Currently the four tribes pay into what's called the special distributions fund, most of which is used to offset impacts to local government.

For example, the two Oroville casinos kick about a million dollars a year into that same fund, and that money has been spent on upgrading fire and police protection and fixing roads in Oroville and southern Butte County.

The four south state tribes are paying about $28 million into that same fund, which is being spent on the same kinds of benefits for the Riverside and San Diego County jurisdictions near the casinos. That $28 million payment vanishes under the four compacts covered by Propositions 94, 95, 96 and 97. It's replaced with a requirement that the tribes negotiate with the local jurisdictions to cover any impacts. And we wish those two counties luck in dealing with the sovereign states within their boundaries.

Finally, there are the opponents to the four propositions. Gambling interests. Go figure. Why would horse track operators and Las Vegas casino operators oppose these compacts, since they're brothers in arms?

Oh yeah, they're competitors. More money spent at the casino means less money spent at the track or Vegas.

That points to one of the reasons we oppose all four measures. They aren't boosting the economy of the state. Expanding these four casinos just channels spending from one venue to another. And the venue the spending is being diverted to doesn't pay sales or property taxes, another hit on local government.

If these four propositions pass, state government gains slightly, the economy is largely unaffected, and the local governments that have to haul the freight get whacked. And four wealthy tribes that have shown themselves to have an agenda beyond aiding their people get their coffers stuffed.

We suppose those of us in Northern California could say, "So what, two south state counties take a hit and state government's a little better off." But there should be no question that other tribes will seek similar deals if these four stand. And at some point, the hurt's going to hit home.

In any case, these four propositions deserve a no vote.

A marriage made in hell

Rob Walter summarizes the issues on props 94-97 quite clearly. Our 'popular' governor has decided to consummate the states' marriage to various Indian casinos by allowing them almost 20,000 more slots. Slots that take money from the population who would have otherwise spent it on things less harmful than gambling. As Mr. Walter shows below- Californians must LOSE 60 BILLION at those very slot machines to get a measly 9 billion back. The rest? Down the toilet. Add 25-40 billion in social costs directly related to gambling and you have the perfect recipe for financial disaster for the state. From The SYV Journal:

CALIFORNIA & GAMBLING
By Rob Walter, Contributing Writer

Calif. sells soul to gambling

In 1820, Congress passed the Missouri Compromise. In an agreement between pro-slavery and anti-slavery states, Missouri would be admitted to the Union as a slave state in return for designating other territories of the U.S. to be off limits to slavery. The convoluted thinking was that by agreeing to the limited expansion of the evil of slavery, we would be able to control the evil of slavery. And, by the way, the addition of Missouri to the Union would be beneficial to our national economy.

Now our Governor, who tries desperately to be well liked above all else, along with our Assembly and Senate, who try desperately to be reëlected above all else, have determined that we have been engaged to the gambling interests long enough. It’s time to get married. With an “it’s the economy stupid” mentality, the California Compromise is considered a way by which with the spread of an evil, we could gain control of the evil and, more importantly, benefit the state economy. The sad fact is that they don’t see the evil for what it is.

California has a $100 billion budget. Propositions 94-97 will create the biggest casinos in the U.S. For this payoff to the gambling lobbyists and tribes, the State will receive an estimated $200 million a year extra, only 0.2 percent of our budget, allegedly growing to a projected total revenue for the state of $9 billion over the 23-year life of the tribal compacts. But now it’s official. California will have gone into the gambling business, as our Governor has become a co-conspirator with the gambling industry to fleece the public.

Now, you would think that some groups would oppose this 17,000 slot machine expansion, and they do. Reading the State Voter Guide, you will find that the unions don’t feel adequately protected or represented in this deal, and neither do the teachers, who are upset that the extra funds aren’t earmarked for education. In other words, the opposition is coming from those who weren’t invited to the party, those whose only real complaint is that they won’t be able to get their fingers in the pie.

The fact is that these propositions are bad for California because gambling is bad for California. Why is it that neither the legislature nor the Governor mentions the fact that before California can receive $9 billion in gambling revenue the hard-working people of California must first lose $60 billion at the slots. That’s right — $60 billion of paychecks, depleted IRA’s and social security checks are required to produce $9 billion in revenue, and we’re being told this is a good deal.

This is $60 billion that won’t be spent on braces, utility bills, mortgage payments or washing machines. This is $60 billion that won’t be used for starting new businesses, invested in equipment or placed into retirement accounts. This is $60 billion that goes down the toilet to a septic tank of gambling operators so that they are assured of having enough funds to purchase new legislators after their minions are termed out of office. I thought prostitution was only legal in Nevada. I must have been on vacation the week they decided to legalize it in Sacramento. (ed~ heh)

The fact is that every study of gambling has shown that three things occur, not sometimes, but every single time gambling comes into a community: there is an increase in crime (from burglary to embezzlement), an increase in divorce, and an increase in bankruptcy. Conservative estimates have placed the “cost” of gambling at $3-5 of social cost for every dollar of gambling revenue. Now, let’s go back and do the math. It turns out that our $9 billion “windfall” is really a $27-$45 billion plunge to death on top of the $60 billion amputation. For the first time, revenue in California will be tied directly to how much of your savings and paychecks you throw away at the casinos. The more we lose, the more politicians have to spend. If the Governor wanted to rape, pillage and plunder the hard-working people of California, he could not have devised a better plan. Who needs Attila the Hun to do it when you have a legislature at your disposal?

That Missouri Compromise? Politicians thought that it was the way by which to avert a civil war. Little did they realize that it only ensured a national bloodbath. In similar fashion, the “cure” for our financial woes will become part of the disease. That which is thought to be a way by which to avert economic devastation will only ensure our demise. Like the old medical treatment of bloodletting, by which, it was believed, the disease could be removed by removing the blood, these propositions will be the bloodletting of California. Actually those doctors had some success. They did in fact get rid of the disease — when the patient died from the cure.

Imperial Tribes quash U.S. Citizens Rights

As we approach a vote on giving four tribes 17,000 more slot machines, it is a good idea to review some older articles to gain a wider perspective of where we have been and where we seem to be going. I cannot imagine WHY we should give these tribes any additional sort of income when we have United States citizens having THEIR RIGHTS trampled by the tribes. To those who keep crying about "how wronged these tribes have been" I say, donate YOUR property or house and the let them put a casino in it. Let them build next door to YOU and see how YOU like it. As far as tribes go with their sovereign immunity - perhaps it is time for the US taxpayer to quit subsidizing them and we should start treating them like the foreign entities that they are and so badly want to be. From the Sacramento Bee in 2003, yet as timely today as it was then:

On their land, tribes' law is the last word
With court rulings that affirm their sovereignty, Indians are fighting off a variety of challenges

SAN DIEGO COUNTY -- Bob Bowling jokes that he drinks beer all day because he can't afford water -- the Barona Indian tribe down the road has sucked it all up for its world-class golf course and 400-room casino resort.

Two dozen of Bowling's fellow homeowners in the Old Barona Road Association have watched their wells -- and their property values -- dry up while their Indian neighbors consume nearly a million gallons a day. The association has pleaded with the tribe and complained to elected officials, only to run into a wall of sovereignty that protects Indian tribes from state and local laws.

"You can't even believe what it is to be the little person going up against a sovereign nation -- they blow us off," said Bowling, a water delivery specialist for the city of San Diego.

Clifford LaChappa, chairman of the 500-member Barona Band of Mission Indians, claims the water belongs to his people, and that sovereignty -- like water -- is a birthright, a matter of economic and cultural survival. He remembers his dirt-poor childhood spent on the 6,000-acre reservation, where jobs were as scarce as cars. Today, instead of welfare checks, tribal members collect $5,000 monthly casino checks.

Throughout California, a growing number of people are battling tribes over land, water, traffic and a wide range of civil claims, including auto accidents, personal injuries, firings and broken contracts.

And these days, the Indians have the legal firepower. Armed with a series of federal laws and U.S. Supreme Court rulings that have affirmed their sovereignty -- their status as autonomous nations -- and backed by the best lawyers and lobbyists gambling revenues can buy, California Indians are racking up most of the victories.

California, with 107 federally recognized reservations and rancherias, has become the front line in the struggle over sovereignty. More Indians, more casinos and more tribes are here than anywhere else, including some of the richest, most politically savvy Indian nations in America. Two once-destitute California bands, Cabazon and Morongo, won the landmark legal decisions affirming Indians' sovereign right to operate gambling nationwide.

Those who feel they've been wronged by tribes are turning to their usual remedies -- the courts and government regulators -- and coming up empty.

"It's like trying to sue Bulgaria," said one frustrated attorney, Victor Moheno, who sued on behalf of a Visalia woman who was crushed when a 350-pound man accidentally fell on her at an Indian casino. The case was kicked out because the tribe has sovereign immunity.

'Not just another minority'
Although criminal matters in California Indian country are supposed to be handled through the usual law enforcement channels, this state has little civil jurisdiction over the Indian nations in its midst. The state's top gaming cop, Harlan Goodson, likens himself to a diplomat whose job is to promote positive relationships with sovereign Indian nations. Goodson inspects casinos at the tribes' convenience.

Some Indians say it's payback time for the land, culture, resources and human rights robbed from them at gunpoint, or stolen with broken treaties. Tribes' status as sovereign nations independent from states is spelled out in the U.S. Constitution, and affirmed in U.S. Supreme Court rulings dating back 170 years.

Now, whether they have one member or thousands, tribes expect to be treated as governments answerable only to the U.S. government, not the state of California or the cities and counties that increasingly are affected by Indian casinos and other businesses.

"We're not just another minority," said Cindy LaMarr, a California Paiute and Pit River Indian who is president of the National Indian Education Association. "We were the original people of this land. And since the land was taken from us basically by the federal government, we have treaty rights in exchange for the land, which include health, education, welfare and self-governance."

Dottie Smith learned what sovereignty means firsthand. "It's the most powerful word in the English language," said Smith, a resident of Lake Havasu Landing in east San Bernardino County.

Smith said she was evicted from her lakeside trailer in 1999 and banned for life from the Chemehuevi Indian Reservation for challenging the tribe's sovereign right to the land.

Tribal attorney Les Marston said Smith was evicted for trespassing on tribal land, "and her mobile home was attached by lawful order of the (federal) court and sold to satisfy her outstanding back rent that she refused to pay the tribe."

The dispute landed Smith in federal court, where she became one of hundreds of Californians who have fought tribes and lost.

"You're not on equal footing with them," she said. "You can sue the president of the United States -- it's been done -- but try and sue the chairman of an Indian tribe. You can't. The federal court system was set up to protect them, not you."

Charity, campaign donations
Conflicts over sovereignty have escalated since 1999, when nearly two-thirds of California voters approved gambling on Indian lands and millions of them began driving to reservations and rancherias they had barely known existed.

More than 100,000 people a day now pull slots, play cards or enjoy shows and meals at California's 51 Indian casinos. Another 40,000 people, most of them non-Indians, work at those casinos.

California Indian gaming generates between $3 billion and $5 billion a year in revenues. With that money, the so-called "gaming tribes" have built hotels, museums, bowling alleys, malls, health clinics, schools and homes for tribal members. They are reviving dying languages and long-dormant customs, and providing full college scholarships to Indians whose ancestors had the nation's highest high school dropout rate.

Some of California's richest tribes have donated millions to the arts and charities. They've also become kingmakers, plowing more than $120 million into political campaigns in the last five years.

Two tribes, testing the limits of sovereignty, have claimed that as sovereign nations they're exempt from the state's campaign contribution disclosure laws. A Sacramento Superior Court judge recently ruled against one of the tribes. Just how far the tribes can fly above state laws has yet to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Not all the tribes are flexing their sovereign muscle in the face of local residents. A growing number are working with neighboring cities and counties to widen once-lonely country roads now jammed with casino traffic, and to pay for extra police, ambulances and fire response.

Yet even those tribes kick in because they want to -- not because they have to. (ed~and its still not a fraction of what they would pay if it were a normal business)

This epic power shift has gone beyond what the voters, the governor and even the Supreme Court originally envisioned. Indians have long had the sovereign right to develop their land and water supplies as they see fit, they just didn't have the means to do so, said UCLA law professor Carole Goldberg. "So non-Indians filled the vacuum and pretended the Indian rights didn't exist," she said. "Now they're shocked -- it's understandable."

'Not a level playing field'
Skirmishes over Indian sovereignty have ignited grass-roots citizens groups throughout the West who believe their rights are being trampled.

Cheryl Schmit, director of the most influential group -- Stand Up For California -- says Californians are paying the price for sovereignty run amok. "It's not a level playing field," she said. "As tribal governments expand their gaming opportunities and land base, local governments have been robbed of their political power to protect their citizens."

The Indians are exempt from local laws as long as they meet safety standards set by the state or federal government.

Schmit, called "the most powerful soccer mom in California" by one county fire marshal, runs Stand Up for California from her Penryn home in Placer County, peppers friends and foes with e-mails and news articles, and travels the nation defending citizens' rights.

She's become the champion of the anti-sovereignty forces -- and a target of Indian outrage. The Pechanga tribe's Web site recently ran a cartoon portraying her as the Wicked Witch of the West and her followers as monkeys. Deron Marquez, chairman of the newly rich San Manuel Band of Indians in San Bernardino, says those who challenge sovereignty are trying to wipe out the Indian way of life.

Schmit says she isn't anti-Indian -- she isn't even against Indian sovereignty, as long as tribal governments recognize her rights as a California citizen.

"All the problems occur because of the lack of a relationship between the tribes and the state, and the unwillingness of the state's constitutional officers to defend the state's sovereignty," she said. "Sovereignty was supposed to be a shield to protect Indians from settlers. It was never meant to be a sword against anyone."

That sword has sliced the property values of Bob Bowling and his neighbors in the granite hills northeast of San Diego.

When the Barona Indians announced plans four years ago to build a golf course, the neighbors wondered where all the water was going to come from. "The tribe invited us down for a free lunch and said they were sitting on approximately 50 years' worth of water," Bowling said -- citing an estimate from an environmental impact report commissioned by the tribe. The tribe refused to let the county hydrologist on its land, hiring its own hydrologist instead.

Then, two weeks after the golf course sprinklers went on in January 2001, 11 of the neighbors' wells went dry. All have had their homes devalued by the county assessor, said Bowling, who got a letter from a bank saying no bank would loan money on his property because of the lack of water supply.

LaChappa, Barona's chairman, has often spoken publicly about sovereignty but declined numerous requests for interviews for this story. The tribe has repeatedly maintained that it has nothing to do with the neighbors' water woes because they're tapping into a different water source. "If you're not on the same (water) basin you're not on the same planet, hydrologically speaking," tribal attorney Art Bunce told a San Diego television station.

The homeowners found themselves faced with two choices: truck water six miles up a twisting canyon road or keep digging deeper wells. "My neighbors and I have spent $250,000 just chasing water," Bowling said. "We've had people who spent $15,000 to drill down to 1,300 feet and got nothing."

Then, last summer, the Baronas' wells began running out, too.

The tribe urged the city of San Diego to declare a water emergency, saying it didn't have enough water to fight fires.

The city advised the tribe to just turn off its golf course sprinklers, so the Baronas took matters into their own hands and began laying a pipeline from the reservation to the city's San Vicente Reservoir. They were illegally grading a road through off-reservation creek beds until the county found out about it, issued a "stop work" notice and charged the tribe with illegal discharge, grading without a permit, inadequate erosion controls and causing a public nuisance.

The homeowners thought they'd won a round last November when county hydrologist John Peterson concluded, after examining water levels just outside the reservation because the Baronas wouldn't allow him on their land, that "a very strong time correlation exists" between the Baronas' water use and their neighbors' dry wells.

Today, the Baronas are negotiating with the city of San Diego to tap into the reservoir legally, perhaps in exchange for water rights Congress promised them when they were forced off their original reservation 71 years ago.

Even if the tribe gets permission to run a pipeline from the city reservoir, San Diego County Supervisor Dianne Jacob said the tribe has no plans to give Bowling and his neighbors any water.

Spreading the blame
Attorney Bunce refused to discuss the tribe's parched neighbors. He told The Bee that outsiders have been stealing the Baronas' water for more than 150 years. In 1932 the tribe was moved off its reservation along the banks of the San Diego River to make way for San Diego's El Capitan Reservoir.

"The Indians had lived there for at least 2,000 years," Bunce said. "They were forced to dig up the bones of their ancestors and move them to the current reservation."

Frances Gesiakowski, a social worker who lives a quarter-mile from that reservation, now pays $800 a month to truck in water for herself and her horses. Her home is worth a third of what she's put into it, and she blames the tribe for mismanaging the environment and the county for "doing nothing to protect us."

County officials say they're helpless. "We have no legal recourse or standing," Jacob said. The bitter irony, she added, is that if the county approved a water-gobbling golf course next to the reservation, the Baronas could sue the county and the golf course owner -- as long as they waived their sovereignty immunity.

Others involved aim their blame higher: at Gov. Gray Davis, who negotiated the state's compact with the gambling tribes, and the U.S. government.

The compact "has absolutely no provisions to protect people who bear the brunt of these off-reservation impacts," said Bob Coffin, attorney for Barona's neighbors. "They can defame you, they can dry up your wells, they can fire you without good cause, as long as they're acting as tribal officers."

Coffin said that Congress, by giving the Indians a monopoly on casino gambling, along with sovereign immunity and full access to state and federal courts, has "given them more power and influence than anyone else enjoys in America."

Tribal leaders fire back that for years, local governments failed to consult them about the residential and commercial developments that sprouted around their reservations.

"They never came up here and said, 'Here's what we're doing, what do you think?' " said Anthony Pico, chairman of the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians, who like the Baronas were forced off the El Capitan Grande reservation in 1932. The Viejas now operate an outlet mall, a bank and a highly lucrative casino in east San Diego.

"Now they bitterly complain when Indians want to do something on our own land," Pico said. "They don't like having a double standard when they're on the wrong end."

Fight over river's bank
From the Russian River to the Colorado River, disgruntled residents have attacked sovereignty by challenging the Indians' ownership of the land -- only to meet with defeat.

For years, Indians and local residents have been fighting over the desolate yet beautiful west bank of the Colorado River.

The residents, mostly vacationers from Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego, have set up their mobile homes there and pay California taxes. The Indians say they've lived along the river since creation.

In 1969, U.S. Interior Secretary Stewart Udall decided that because the Colorado River had shifted eastward, 44,000 acres in California actually belonged to the Colorado River Indian Tribes (Mohave, Chemehuevi, Hopi and Navajo), whose reservation had previously bordered the east bank of the Colorado around Parker, Arizona.

The Indians gradually began taking over resorts on the California side of the river. When they raised the rents, some tenants refused to pay.

Two years ago, the Colorado River Indian Tribes -- CRIT for short -- took over Red Rooster, a mobile home park between Blythe and Needles run for 40 years by a crusty maverick named Bill Booth. The Red Rooster park's mascot was an 8-foot-tall fiberglass rooster.

Booth, 79, said he developed the resort in 1959 from a patch of cactus and sagebrush he leased from the federal Bureau of Land Management. When the Indians gained the land in 1969, Booth said they wanted him out and kept raising his rent. Resenting the rent increase, Booth claimed the land didn't belong to the Indians and stopped paying rent. The Indians began calling Booth and anyone else who withheld rent "squatters."

Normally such disputes end up in county courts, with one side seeking an eviction order and the other defending its right to stay. Tribes, however, are immune from state civil courts and fight most of their legal battles in federal court.

In 1993 and again in 1995, the Indians got a federal judge to order Booth off their property. Booth, a decorated veteran of Iwo Jima, wouldn't budge, telling friends, "They'll have to drag me out."

Trailer owners evicted
In November 2000, the Indians gave Booth and 40 other trailer owners at Red Rooster tribal eviction notices, even though they didn't have a California court order to evict anybody except Booth. "The tribe showed up with four carloads of CRIT tribal police, four carloads of Riverside County sheriff's deputies and a federal BIA investigator who told me, 'You're out of here'," Booth said.

Riverside County Assistant Sheriff Gayle Janes said his officers were at Red Rooster in November 2000 to keep the peace -- not enforce the tribe's evictions. "Tensions were very high on both sides," he said. "I don't believe a tribal appeals process was ever offered to these people at all." Janes added: "It's like being in a separate country: If the tribal court evicts people, that's none of our business."

Then, on a rainy day the following January, about 20 trailers that hadn't been towed out or were cemented down -- including Booth's -- were bulldozed and set on fire, Booth said. The fiberglass rooster was found dangling upside down over the river.

Today, all that's left of Red Rooster is a row of rusting metal trailer beds and a massive mound of concrete, broken glass and debris: vacuum cleaner parts, a sneaker, a recliner, a rusty bike, a water heater.

"That was my income, my livelihood, my only home," said Booth, touring the wreckage. "It tore a lot of people apart. They were firemen, electricians, truck drivers. ... They'd water ski, fish, do their barbecuing, drink a little beer, relax. No dopers, no prison people, just good solid American people."

The Indians had lived on the river for centuries before the white man came and built the series of dams that ruined it, said Russell Welsh, the 70-year-old vice chairman of the 3,500-member reservation.

"Before the taming of the Colorado this reservation was a utopia, a paradise where you could gather herbs and basket-making material, fish and game," he said. "The river's been like a mother to us, and it's been abused, it's been polluted, everybody's fighting for it."

The Mohaves, largest of the four CRIT tribes, call themselves Aha Makavi, "People of the River," Welsh said. The west bank includes several of their sacred sites, he said.

Priscilla Eswonia, a Mohave elder, remembers swimming in the river alongside giant salmon when she was a girl. Her uncle, a Mohave deer singer, told her the Indians originally came from the Pacific Ocean. "Our creator put the river down here for us to live," Eswonia said. "That's how all our songs begin."

The tribe gets along fine with the many west bank tenants who abide by their leases, according to Welsh. But, he said, "There's some radicals that don't want to cooperate. I think we have every right to say 'yah-hey, get off my land.' "

"We don't want to fight those people, but they're trying to make us losers," he added.

Judge's ruling stuns residents
The west bank residents feel CRIT has an unfair monetary edge over them: The tribe gets $1 million a year from California casino tribes for being a "non-gaming tribe" in this state, yet operates the Blue Water Casino Resort on the east bank of the river, in Parker, Ariz. That may change soon, however. CRIT plans to build a casino on the California side of the river.

Some 400 west bank tenants joined forces and raised more than $300,000 to fight the Indians in court. Last fall, U.S. District Judge John Walter ruled that because the Indians have sovereign immunity he wouldn't even consider the legality of the evictions, or the tenants' claim that the Indians don't own the land.

The ruling stunned the residents. "It's unfair for the tribe to hide behind sovereign immunity to maintain control of property they don't own," said weekender Tim Moore, noting that a judge appointed by the U.S. Supreme Court had found in 1993 that the land belonged to California, not the tribe.

"If you took the (2002) federal ruling to its absurd extreme, the Colorado River Indian Tribes could erect a toll booth on the Golden Gate Bridge and could not be removed because they have sovereign immunity," said attorney Dennis Whittlesey, who represents the tenants. "If they can go one mile beyond reservation land claiming sovereignty, can't they go 500 miles? Where does it stop?"

Where sovereignty stops is being debated not just on the west bank, but in Congress. Sen. Dan Inouye, D-Hawaii, recently said Indian tribes at the least "should be as sovereign as any state in the union" and said he will push for a bill giving them control of all law enforcement on tribal lands.

Jacob Coin, a Hopi Indian who is director of the California Nations Indian Gaming Association, argues that tribes already are more sovereign than states, and always have been. "If you allowed even one state law to govern tribal lands, a huge chunk of tribal sovereignty would be destroyed. Our founding fathers said the United States didn't give them sovereignty, the Creator gave it to them." (ed~but it is the United States that ensures your sovereignty and the safety of the rest of us, and has provided for your so-called people for decades)

More fuel on the Vote NO 94-97 fire

A lucid editorial in the Sacramento Bee lays out the negative impacts of props 94-97. Ambiguous deals leave too much wiggle room for casino tribes to meddle with payment amounts by toying with the number of machines that actually operate. With little to no regulation of Indian casinos, it is doubtful that these compacts can even be enforced. Even if they were enforceable and the money collectible, 9 billion over 20 years is a small fraction of what they would pay if they were like any other business in California.

Editorials: Voters should reject Propositions 94, 95, 96, 97
Think gambling is good for California's future? You're making a very bad bet

A staggering amount of money is being spent to persuade state voters to ratify four Indian gambling deals. If approved, Propositions 94, 95, 96 and 97 would authorize 17,000 more slot machines for four of the state's wealthiest gambling tribes. The deals would catapult California into the gambling big leagues, well beyond the modest increase voters were promised when they first authorized Nevada-style gambling for tribes in 1998.

This page has consistently opposed the expansion of gambling, beginning with the state lottery. We oppose the new gambling deals contained in these referendum initiatives, too. Gambling is the wrong way to grow the state's economy. It doesn't create new economic activity. It simply substitutes one form of entertainment spending for another. More money spent gambling means less money spent to go to the movies, eat out, play golf – all activities that don't create gambling addiction or prey on the poor. (ed~ not to mention much of the non-gambling activities - portions of the money paid for them goes to feed our tax system. Not so with money spent in an Indian casino.)

The growing political clout of wealthy gambling tribes that are not accountable to the wider public is worrisome, too. In a few short years, gambling tribes have become the biggest political contributors in the state. Legislators and the governor, too, rush to do their bidding.

Voters should know that the principal opponents of the new compacts have suspect motives. They include rival gambling tribes that fear competition, as well as racetrack and cardroom operators who hope to end the tribes' casino monopoly in California so they can get in on the action.

Supporters of the new compacts, including most prominently Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, have suggested that the gambling deals will provide $9 billion to help ease the state's fiscal crisis. A clearer picture comes from the nonpartisan legislative analyst, who says of their likely fiscal impact, "Even assuming that all the 2006 compacts are ratified and a few more similar compacts are ratified in the future, we expect that compact related sources will provide the general fund with less than 0.5 percent of its annual revenues for the foreseeable future."

There is a real question as to whether California has the ability to adequately police these deals. The California Gaming Control Commission, the state's principal gambling regulator, has been notoriously ineffective in the past.

The legislative analyst says regulators have complained that they have limited access to tribal financial reports and information related to internal controls over slot machines. They lack casino financial reports prepared by independent accountants. They are unable to conduct interim walk-through audits (as Nevada regulators do). They can't station audit personnel at each casino 24 hours a day (as in New Jersey) to test devices.

Finally, the ambiguous language of the compacts is troublesome. Payments to the state are based in part on "the average number of gaming devices operated" during a quarter. Opponents say that by roping off machines during slow periods and thus reducing the average number of slots "operated," the tribes can substantially reduce any payout to the state. Compact supporters claim no such manipulation is intended or allowed. Maybe not, but the ambiguity gives voters another reason to vote No on Propositions 94, 95, 96 and 97.

"That's none of the public's business; that's our reservation"

The above wise-crack-seeming header is not one of mine - it is an actual statement from a San Manuel Indian, and in the context of the story below - NOT funny.

And in accordance with that statement what is happening in San Bernardino is not at all surprising. Nor is San Bernardino unique. A little digging will turn up similar stories at any Indian Casino. Drugs and gang banging... what's not to like? You must be some kind of hater. Lets gives these guys another 20,000 slot machines so they can continue to enrich themselves.
From the Press-Enterprise:

Errant members, gangster friends give San Manuel casino headaches, ex-employees say
By MICHELLE DeARMOND
The Press-Enterprise

One of Southern California's busiest Indian casinos is plagued by criminal tribal members and Inland gangsters.

According to former tribal employees, a source close to the tribe, court documents and internal tribal documents, criminal elements have started brawls, assaulted people, brought in guns and used drugs inside the facility.

Those sources say the members of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, some with connections to criminal gangs such as the Mexican Mafia, aren't governed by the same rules as other patrons.

"They can do whatever they want and go wherever they want," said one former tribal employee, who spent more than a decade working for San Manuel. "They are above the law."

A source close to the tribe, whose casino near San Bernardino draws many customers from the Los Angeles area, said the tribe is failing to properly regulate itself. Leaders are too fearful of gangs to crack down on their errant members or other criminals, the source said.

The result, insiders say, is a poorly regulated casino and a reservation of tribal members paralyzed by fear. The tribe doesn't have its own police force to enforce laws, and its regulatory and security staff -- most of whom are not tribal members -- are not allowed to crack down on San Manuel Indians, former employees say.

The tribe says the casino is well-regulated, pointing to a "myriad of laws and regulations" the facility is subjected to, including tribal, state and federal rules. Tribal members are not exempt from those rules, and some have been banned from the casino in the past, said Jacob Coin, director of communications.

"We feel like it's been a very good system in that it guards against the type of criminal element that appears to be on the minds of people," Coin said. "I'm convinced that our gaming commission does a good job at making sure we're in good compliance."

The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department has at least one deputy dedicated at all times to patrol the reservation, but the deputy usually goes inside the casino only when a tribal public-safety officer requests it, said Jodi Miller, a San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman.

"They don't necessarily go inside the casino," she said, adding that the deputies patrol the parking lots and surrounding areas. "They respond in the event that ... there's a criminal activity that they need to respond to."

Critics say the tribe is failing to quash serious criminal risks -- such as drugs and violence -- brought on the reservation and inside the casino by its own members.

"The biggest issue they have up there is public safety," said one former San Manuel employee, who declined to be identified for fear of retaliation from the tribe. "It's actually nothing but a playground for them."

Most of those interviewed for this story requested anonymity, saying they feared for their safety or that speaking out would hurt them professionally.

The criticisms come as the tribe prepares to expand its gleaming 2,000-slot-machine casino. The tribe got state approval last year to add 5,500 more slot machines to its Las Vegas-style casino and is expected to expand soon.

Opponents of similar gambling agreements signed with four other Southern California tribes have challenged those agreements, and voters will get to consider them on the Feb. 5 ballot. However, the San Manuel Band's agreement has not been challenged.

The San Manuel tribe opened a bingo hall in 1986, but it wasn't until the January 2005 opening of its current casino that the place became the hot spot it's known as today. With restaurants, a lounge and popular music concerts, business has boomed in the past several years, but critics say the casino has grown and prospered beyond the 200-member tribe's ability to manage it.

"The San Manuel gaming is so amateuristic, it's like running a billion-dollar organization out of the back of a pickup truck," said Robert Bollong, a former lieutenant with the San Manuel Department of Public Safety. "These people have no expertise."

Tribal Misdeeds

Former employees and a source close to the tribe describe the crime problem and the fear among tribal members as pervasive, not limited to just an isolated few members. Further fueling the problem, the critics say, are the $100,000-a-month casino-profit checks that each adult tribal member receives.

There are some tribal members whose names crop up in tribal public-safety documents and court cases. Most are young adults.

Among those is Stacy Barajas-Nunez, 25, who is awaiting trial on murder conspiracy charges in a case with her brother, Erik Barajas, 35, and two men identified by federal authorities as Mexican Mafia members.

The four were arrested when authorities raided multiple houses on the reservation and in other San Bernardino County communities in December 2006. The raids were part of a massive Drug Enforcement Administration investigation targeting the Mexican Mafia and its methamphetamine trafficking and street crime.

In court documents, law enforcement officials say Barajas-Nunez has served as a financial backer for gang members' families and has paid rent and provided vehicles for gang members. She and Salvador Hernandez, described in the court documents as a top Mexican Mafia member in Southern California, are charged in the same counts of transporting and possessing methamphetamine.

Barajas-Nunez, her brother, Hernandez and his brother Alfred Hernandez are due back in court next month in connection with the December 2006 bust and murder conspiracy case.

Her alleged criminal connections and activities have extended into the casino, according to law enforcement sources and tribal and court documents.

In June 2006, Barajas-Nunez assaulted a 110-pound woman who was sitting on a bench at the casino, according to a report by the San Manuel Department of Public Safety, which handles security for the tribe. The woman responded by attempting to hit Barajas-Nunez, who weighs 250 pounds, until public-safety officers stepped in and restrained the smaller woman, according to the documents. The smaller woman, who did not return phone calls seeking comment for this article, was banned from the casino; Barajas-Nunez spoke to her parents on the phone, then declined to make a statement to security officers and walked away, according to the report. She was never arrested or prosecuted, although surveillance tape of the episode showed she initiated the fight, according to the department's report.

In April 2005, Barajas-Nunez and acquaintances were at the casino on the night of a concert, when public-safety officers were on a heightened state of alert because they had heard rival tribal members and their gang associates would be there, former employees say. The surveillance staff saw Barajas-Nunez's friends hand her guns outside the casino, but didn't tell public-safety employees at the time, the former employees said. Public-safety officers later saw images from the surveillance tape and learned that she had taken guns into the casino and never was punished, sources said.

"The weight (of the guns) is pulling her pants down. She keeps pulling them up and pulling them up," one former employee said of the surveillance video he later saw.

Reached by cell phone Thursday, Barajas-Nunez denied both accounts.

Of the June 2006 fight, Barajas-Nunez said she was the victim and the other woman attacked her first. She said the Department of Public Safety report's description of the surveillance tape was "false."

Of the April 2005 account of guns, Barajas-Nunez said she wasn't at the casino that night and doesn't gamble. She denied accusations that she brings a criminal element to the casino.

"I don't even like going there," she said, adding that she goes to the reservation about once a week but not to the casino. "I live at my parents', but I've got my vacation places. That's usually where I am. I'm a kid; I'm trying to enjoy life."

In another incident in June 2006, multiple tribal members got into a brawl in the casino, threatening one another and pushing and shoving public-safety officers, said one former tribal employee.

Feuding tribal members and their friends, including a local gang member who later was arrested in the December 2006 DEA bust, started fighting in the casino and yelling at one another, the former employee said.

Some casino patrons who saw the fight asked why the tribal members weren't being arrested.

"This is typical -- you always had to take this. We knew who could push us around," said a former casino public-safety officer.

And on at least one occasion, employees witnessed a tribal member in his mid-20s smoking marijuana in a casino room reserved for tribal members, but they did not take criminal action against him, former employees said.

Instead, the tribal member's mother, a prominent member of the tribe, was called to take him home, the sources said.

'Flawed' System

Critics of the problems at San Manuel say there are several reasons for the security breakdowns and most can be traced to tribal politics and gaps in federal and state laws.

One problem, they say, stems from how the tribe selects its gambling commission chairman, a key regulatory job that involves many areas of expertise. Instead of hiring a skilled person from the gambling industry, as some other Indian casinos do, San Manuel members voted several years ago to make the job an elected position.

The decision injected tribal electoral politics and family feuds into regulation of a bustling Southern California casino.

"This is where culture and tradition collide with modern life," a source close to the tribe said.

A former employee of the tribe's Public Safety Department said the tribe should hire a top regulator from Las Vegas or Atlantic City, N.J., instead of expecting a San Manuel Indian to run for office and then regulate family members.

The only way to properly run the casino is for the tribe to hire a gambling commission chairman who is not related to any tribal members, as is done for the other commission positions, said Bollong, who oversaw the San Manuel security force's training and professional standards.

Bollong said he spent 2 ½ years working for the tribe until early last year and lost faith in the tribe's ability to regulate the casino.

Bollong died last week in Riverside.

The source close to the San Manuel Band said the tribe has tried to crack down on problems over the years but it is hampered by inadequate federal regulations, limited state involvement and its own tribal government.

"The system is flawed," the source said, acknowledging that crime involving tribal members has been a problem for the tribal government. "It's not capable of dealing with those types of incidents."

Another problem that public safety and tribal leaders have had to work around is the tribe's own governing body, known as the business committee. The committee is made up of elected members, including the mother of a 28-year-old convicted felon, Robert Vincent Martinez Jr.

The home of his mother, Audrey Martinez, was one of those raided when the DEA conducted its sweep through the reservation and surrounding areas in December 2006, according to Department of Public Safety documents. Neither Martinez was charged in connection with that raid, according to court records.

That family link and other similar relationships, former employees and another source say, has made people uncertain of the business committee's ability to put policing the reservation above family ties.

Audrey Martinez did not return a phone message left at her home.

Coin, the tribe's director of communications, said those concerns are unfounded. The business committee members are elected by the tribe, work as a collective and deal with problems "fairly, openly and honestly," he said.

The tribe's seven-member business committee has "worked well as a government system for us for a very long time," he said. "No one individual has authority over the six other."

The tribe has tried to address the problem of tribal criminal activity inside the casino, according to one recent court document, although it's unclear if any action has actually been taken.

James Ramos, the tribe's unity and cultural awareness director, was granted a two-year restraining order against Barajas-Nunez's father, Kenneth Barajas, last month in San Bernardino County Superior Court after an argument between Ramos and Barajas at a tribal meeting.

According to the restraining order, the tribe held a meeting in November 2007 that included an agenda item on possibly fining Barajas-Nunez for "her conduct at the casino on an earlier date and time."

The report did not offer specifics or clarify whether fines were levied against Barajas-Nunez. Ramos and Barajas apparently got into an argument when Barajas-Nunez and Barajas "became very agitated during the meeting."

Ramos originally sought a restraining order against both Barajas and Barajas-Nunez, saying he was afraid for his life and that Barajas-Nunez had ties to the Mexican Mafia. Ramos later dropped Barajas-Nunez from his request.

Barajas-Nunez refused to comment about the possibility of being fined by her own tribe.

"That's none of the public's business; that's our reservation," she said.