Gift Horses

Not long ago the Santa Barbara News Press ran a very romantic tale on wonderful community deeds by the Chumah Casino. The letter reprinted below was sent in to the News Press to give a different perspective on their delightful little puff piece on their number one advertiser, the Chumash Casino. The News Press refused to print it. Here it is in its entirety for your reading pleasure, thanks to BadaBing, who sent it in. It rather clarifies which end of the horse the SY Valley really is dealing with when it deals with the Chumash Casino.

LOOKING A GIFT HORSE IN THE MOUTH

We have all grown up hearing old adages, one of which was "you should never look a gift horse in the mouth." It undoubtedly had its origin in a day when checking horses carefully before purchase included checking its mouth and teeth. (Unless of course it was a gift).

Recently a few local newspapers, one in particular, chose to promote the Chumash tribe and its gambling casino, by putting a story implying great tribal "generosity" on the front page above the fold. This was apparently done because an editor of that paper has ties to an Indian gambling casino in the Midwest. It hasn't been disclosed how much, if anything, he gets in profits from the losses of the gamblers at his family's casino.

That 1.4 million dollars distributed by the Chumash tribal government to some local agencies, with great fanfare, was a distribution of moneys that had been paid into the mandatory Special Distribution Fund. That fund was required by the tribal-state compacts ostensibly to mitigate the many off-site negative impacts as a condition to have the exclusive right to operate highly profitable gambling casinos on Indian Lands in California. The amount the Indian gambling tribes are required to pay into that fund is at best, a pittance. Most political sages conclude the give-away compacts the gambling tribe received in 1999 were a reward from now deposed Governor Gray Davis, who was elected governor because of an even greater generosity of the gambling tribes who had been operating modest, but illegal casinos prior to 1998.

The first question the community should ask, is how much in taxes does the Chumash casino pay while they are taking in tens of millions of dollars from the pockets of gamblers, mostly hypnotized by the play of the unregulated Indian slot machines; many who, sadly, are losing money they cannot afford to lose. Eighty-five percent of the casino's 280 million a year in revenue comes from these slot machines.

Any non-Indian business of that size that took in nearly 25 million dollars every month would be paying at least 20 million a year in real property taxes, personal property and sales taxes, and probably corporate income taxes and other taxes needed to fund all the public services and infrastructure.

These kind of taxes are the kinds of taxes needed to fund the many public services and infrastructure used by everyone, like the police, fire, schools, roads, bridges, sewer and water systems, public works, welfare and social services, libraries, hospitals, airports, etc.

The Chumash casino doesn't pay any of these taxes because the federal courts long ago created a tribal immunity doctrine. That common law doctrine was intended to protect dependent, nascent Indian tribes from outside non-Indian interference in their strictly internal tribal business matters. It was never intended to allow modern-day Indian tribes, with only fractional connections to historic California Native peoples, to own and operate huge, profitable gambling casinos, hotels, restaurants, shopping malls and other businesses, without paying taxes and complying with all the laws every other business must comply with. These are laws that have been enacted over the decades to protect the patrons, the public and workers, and to protect the environment and quality of life for everyone in the community, including Indian descendants.

In addition to avoiding these business taxes, tribal members pay only federal income taxes on the $40,000 each member receives every month in a per capita profit distribution, paid out quarterly from the profits that are accumulated from the massive losses of gamblers. If your math is weak, that's about five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000) paid to each tribal member, per year, or a total of about seventy-six million ($76,000,000) a year to the 153 tribal members. This tax immunity largesse also extends to state income taxes which then costs the state nearly another six million dollars ($6,000,000) a year in lost state income taxes. These same wealthy tribal members often purchase personal property like expensive cars, boats, furniture and appliances then claim exemption from the state sales taxes everyone else has to pay.

Finally, believe it or not, this now extremely wealthy tribe still collects nearly two million dollars ($2,000,000.00) a year in federal welfare and grant moneys.

So when the tribe agrees to "share" a tiny piece of these profits from gambling losses by making a $1,400,00 grant, from a fund the were required to pay into to mitigate the demand placed on public services and infrastructure by their tax exempt gambling monopoly, how grateful should the community be?

Three million for a high school field spread over three years is one million a year. That is not even 4% of the taxes the casino and its businesses should be paying every single year.

The gambling casino has been operating for years and the tribe, its customers and workers have been using the local hospital for years. How grateful should the community be when, with great Public Relations fanfare, it is announce the tribe is finally going to give $1,000,000 from these massive gambling profits to the Santa Ynez Valley Cottage Hospital? This is a facility where many elderly gambling patrons are routinely taken by ambulance from the tribe's casino floor.

Perhaps the most often overlooked fact is that this massive newfound wealth of these Indian descendants is money amassed largely at the expense of the losses from gamblers, many of whom are addicted, and who lose money they cannot afford to lose while playing the unregulated slot machines at the Chumash casino.

The customers and workers in all Indian gambling casinos and businesses, like the Chumash casino, have no legal protections if they are injured, cheated, harassed or discriminated against because the vast majority of these laws have been created over the decades by state and local governments and can be evade by Indian tribal businesses. under current law, indian gambling tribes are able to avoid the application of these laws by claiming a common law immunity. Even in cases where outside contractors and vendors have made contracts in good faith with these Indian tribes and their businesses, these tribes can and do often use that immunity doctrine to evade paying their bills knowing the victims have no recourse. If the victim of these damages and injuries tries to sue them in local, state or federal courts, the gambling tribes and their businesses come into court to have the cases thrown out immediately, not after a trial or hearing on the merits, but on the claim these courts have no jurisdiction because of Indian tribal immunity (sometimes erroneously called "sovereign immunity").

So the bottom line is just how grateful should the community be when an Indian gambling casino, making hundreds of millions in tax free dollars, decides its is good public relations to make a few token contributions to specific service providers and public facilities? Particularly if the spate of these gifts is just because they want to expand their gambling operations even more at the community's expense and figure it's good public relations to seem generous with the help of a biased media.

How grateful should the community be when an already problematic gambling casino wants to expand, and further diminish the quality of Valley life? Should the community be grateful because the casino provides mostly low-paying "jobs" while the tribe and its businesses can openly evade the taxes needed to provide housing, public services and infrastructure, and the usual work protections required for those workers?

Should the community be grateful when crime, traffic, pollution, family neglect, divorce, gambling addiction, drug use, bankruptcy, and even suicide are all increased because many gamblers driving here or riding the busses (ironically called a "ride to riches") from the nearby communities to the Chumash casino in order to lose the money they need to live on?

In reality the "Chumash success" is based on the hundreds of millions of dollars being siphoned out of community members, other non-Indian businesses, entertainment and sports venues, even charities which will not get the money that is being lost by these gamblers.

A recent editorial in the Santa Maria Times, printed above the signature of the Chumash tribal chairman infers, that somehow this unsightly gambling casino, capitalizing on the weaknesses of gamblers who don't understand the psychology of these unregulated slot machines, or the extent of the repressive tribal government, is actually some kind of savior to the community and the poor, doling out free turkeys. Maybe if the poor were not enticed by the expensive million dollar media blitz in virtually every media outlet in the community urging them to ride the free buses "to casino riches" they could afford to buy their own turkeys at Thanksgiving. That "ride to riches" is obviously a ride to losses, to the tune of $280,000,000 million every year.

Maybe if the casino didn't attract the meth addicts and thieves and reckless drivers, the community wouldn't have to have more police, at greater taxpayer expense. Maybe if these gamblers didn't run off the road coming to or from the casino, there would be fewer deaths. Maybe if the Chumash had to pay the tens of millions to improve and maintain the roads and mitigate the negative impacts all over the Valley from traffic like any non-Indian business would have to pay as a condition of doing business, the residents would have some true gratitude.

The ultimate question to be answered is, "Does it matter where the moneys for these token gifts, made by the Chumash casino, come from? Is it really true we should never look a gift horse in the mouth no matter where the "gift" comes from and no matter what a pittance it is compared to the taxes that should be paid by the casino and that everyone else has to pay because the casino doesn't?

When the Alisal Ranch, the Gainey Winery or the Bacarra Resort make their regular tax payments, does it ever appear on the front page above the fold of any newspaper? Maybe we should be asking why not and what entitles a tax exempt gambling casino, operating above the laws protecting all of us, to such favorable publicity just because they choose to throw someone a little piece of those gambling losses once in a while in order to keep up public appearances and silence any criticism.