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.

Connect the dots

Who's job is it anyway, to schedule and meet with CALTRANS to determine matters of public access on private property? About my LAST guess would be the the County Sheriffs Department. But in Santa Barbara County that is exactly what is going on. A certain unnamed lieutenant of the sheriffs department called a meeting with the road people (CALTRANS) "to provide public access to the river through their easement". I would call this a huge WTF moment. Can someone enlighten me as to how this falls on the shoulders of the SB County Sheriff? An organization which up until now, like all local constabulary, had my deepest respect. Under whos orders did this lieutenant undertake this 'assignment'. One may immediately wonder why this would be of any concern to begin with. Read on, gentle readers, and connect the dots for yourselves. From the SYV Journal:

ON THE RANCH
By Nancy Crawford-Hall


Ranch happenings

Life is never boring on a ranch. There is always something happening somewhere; sometimes good, sometimes bad. We had a little of both last week. First, I got a call that we had trespassers down by Lower Windmill Field near our bridge that crosses the river, a bridge that was given to us by CALTRANS when they built the new one a number of years ago. Instead of destroying the old bridge, they gave it to us, which is very helpful in getting cattle across the river bed, which is treacherous even when dry — which it is most of the time. A couple of ranch employees went down to see who these folks were and why they thought it was OK to trespass. It turns out that it was three Audubon Society members doing a winter bird count who left when they were told the sheriff had already been called to cite them.

Before the ranch employees left, however, an odd thing happened. Across Highway 154, at Lower Armour Ranch Road, two CALTRANS vehicles appeared with another unmarked sheriff’s car. Apparently a meeting had been called, and when I inquired of the one CALTRANS official who didn’t speed off upon seeing my car just what the meeting was about, since I was the property owner there, I was told that it had to do with fences and property lines. We had a cordial conversation, introducing ourselves and exchanging pertinent contact information, and we each went on about the rest of our day.

What I found out later that day rocked me to my very soul. Apparently, a lieutenant of the sheriff’s department in Solvang had called the meeting to ask CALTRANS to provide public access to the river through their easement. CALTRANS properly declined, stating that their easement was with a private property owner and that they could not make it public. This officer had also been in contact, from what I hear, with someone in the County Counsel’s office who opined that the river was public property, which it is not. None of these people had ever contacted me or any of my employees on this topic, and I am wondering what this secret effort to open my property to the public is all about.

I cannot for the life of me figure out why this would be happening, although it has been suggested that a possible reason could be the recent citations for Raul Armenta Jr. and two friends for hunter trespass and hunting after hours for ducks which could only be ‘nol-prossed’ – the charges dropped – if it occurred on public property. According to witnesses, the young men protested being cited and said they would talk to Sacramento to see if it was ‘legal’ to cite them. (ed~Sacramento? or perhaps just a favorite uncle with good 'ole buddies at the Sheriff's Dept.??) This could only be deemed public property if the county entered into a condemnation process on the entire Santa Ynez River properties, owned by hundreds of residents, and paid for it, which it can’t begin to afford; it would take many years in court to settle on prices with each owner.

So, be aware, fences keep animals in, but are also meant to keep the public out. You may ask for permission to enter private property from the owner or a representative, but you may not enter until after you have received permission. Otherwise, you risk being cited for trespass and you risk possible injury from objects or animals.

(ed.~ Raul Armenta is the nephew of Vincent Armenta, Chumash Tribal Chairman. Vincent is a longtime NON fan of the Valley Journal and Nancy Crawford-Hall, because the Journal prints the real story of all things casino and it's real effects in the the once lovely SY Valley.)

Loopholes R Us

It becomes increasingly clear that legislation affecting tribal gaming and casinos is some of the worst ever written. The story below is from the Boston Globe, and details how the tribal gaming lobby keeps these gaping holes wide open. (Click here to see Globe Graphic Distribution of Mohegan Sun Profits)

Casino jackpot went to investors
By Sean P. Murphy
Globe Staff / December 16, 2007

A coterie of casino executives who helped the Mohegan of Connecticut build one of the most successful tribal casinos in the world has been paid $369 million in resort and casino proceeds during the last six years - slightly more than has been received by the entire 1,700-member tribe.

It is the kind of bonanza that was supposed to be prohibited by the federal Indian Gaming Act when it was passed 20 years ago, say some US senators and federal regulators.

But the Mohegan Sun investors - led by Sol Kerzner and Len Wolman - found legal ways around provisions intended to make sure most casino benefits went primarily to tribes. And those loopholes remain open after a massive lobbying blitz by the $25 billion Indian gaming industry.

Since 2001, the industry and its lobbyists have repeatedly defeated efforts to tighten rules and increase transparency. In the industry's latest victory, it crushed an Indian Gaming Act amendment championed in 2006 by Senator John McCain, a Republican of Arizona. McCain's bill would have prevented huge payouts like those received by Kerzner and Wolman. McCain has said the defeat of his bill was a triumph for special interests.

"Their lobbyists are very powerful, and they're pretty hard to fight," McCain said in an interview last month. "I was very disappointed."

That lobbying success now is reverberating in Massachusetts, where Kerzner and Wolman have most recently set their sights on a tract of land in Middleborough. Just six months after McCain's bill was defeated, Kerzner and Wolman signed a deal with the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe to build a $1 billion casino on the rural site.

That contract is subject to the same rules that allowed Kerzner and Wolman to make more money than the Mohegan tribe in recent years. Even Governor Deval Patrick has been unable to find out - despite requests for information - how much Kerzner, Wolman, and other investors in the Middleborough casino negotiations would get in the deal.

"We believe strongly that the financial deal between the tribe and their backers should be made public," said Joseph Landolfi, a spokesman for Patrick, who is interested in courting the developers and tribe if he wins legislative approval of his plan for three state-licensed casinos.

Kerzner and Wolman declined to be interviewed. A lawyer for their partnership - known as Trading Cove - in response to written questions from the Globe, said that the developers took "significant risks" in its investments in the Mohegan casino that justified the returns Trading Cove received. The Mohegan tribe owns all the equity in the casino, said Philip C. Korologos, the lawyer, so the financial benefit to the tribe will "be multiples of any amounts that Trading Cove has received.

But some Mohegan tribal members are resentful of the Trading Cove deal.

"It was supposed to be for the tribe, not outsiders," Carlisle Fowler, the Mohegan former tribal treasurer, said of Mohegan Sun in an interview last week.

And some Mashpee Wampanoag tribal members say they are suspicious about the deal their leaders have struck with the same investors in Middleborough - a deal they have not been shown. Documents filed with the tribe's pending federal application for reservation status at the site do not disclose financial terms.

"They don't let us see anything," said Michelle Fernandes, a member of the tribe. "It's a big secret."

Frank Sinatra once described Kerzner as "the world's best saloon keeper." The occasion was the opening of Sun City, the casino and resort developed by Kerzner in South Africa. One of the world's most successful casino moguls, Kerzner also developed the Atlantis resort in The Bahamas.

He landed in Montville, Conn., in 1994, enticed there by Wolman, a fellow South African then managing a Days Inn hotel in nearby Mystic. Wolman had pieced together a deal that he hoped would rival the already up-and-running Foxwoods casino, owned by the Mashantucket Pequot Indians and an instant success when it opened in 1992.

At the time, investors in Indian casinos received compensation by managing the facilities until tribes gained enough experience to do so themselves. Under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, passed by Congress in 1988, the maximum pay the investors could receive was 30 percent of gambling profits annually for five years. After that, investors could get no further payments.

Mohegan Sun opened in 1996, the second casino in New England. In its first full year of operation, Mohegan Sun had $611 million in gross revenues. Its immediate success spurred a vast expansion, including development of a 1,200-room luxury hotel, overseen by Trading Cove and completed in 2002.

By then, Trading Cove had negotiated an expanded contract. The new agreement was based on gross revenue, rather than net revenue: It not only gave Trading Cove a nickel of every dollar spent at Mohegan Sun's multiple casinos, but also on all spending by patrons at the hotel, restaurants, shops, and auditorium. The contract spans 2000 to 2015.

The National Indian Gaming Commission called the amount of money the Mohegan tribe was promising to pay Trading Cove "egregious," and clearly above the legal limit, but concluded in 1998 it lacked the authority to stop the new contract.

That's because, under a loophole in the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, investors could avoid caps on their returns by calling their deals anything other than a management contract, usually a consulting contract.

Currently, the annual payment to Trading Cove from the Mohegan Sun is about $75 million. Over the last six fiscal years, Trading Cove received $368.9 million, compared with $367.5 million in casino profits distributed to the tribe.


By the time the agreement expires in 2015, total receipts for Trading Cove may exceed $1 billion, according to financial projections.

Mohegan tribal chairman Bruce "Two Dogs" Bozsum last week said he was not familiar with the deal made by his predecessors, one in which - according to public documents - Trading Cove put about $10 million into the original venture and provided a guarantee for about $90 million in bonds sold on Wall Street. Bozsum did, however, say that Trading Cove took a risk in backing the tribe in the 1990s.

In the late 1990s, there were 297 Indian tribes in the casino or bingo business nationally, taking in $8.4 billion a year. But the industry exploded, fueled in part by investors growing confidence they could outflank federal regulators to reap big profits. Today there are 419 tribes, doing more $26 billion a year in business.

And the vast majority of deals between investors and tribe are now made as something other than management contracts and therefore outside of regulatory review, according to the US Department of Interior's Inspector General.

As the industry grew, so have the sums that it spends on lobbyists in Washington, especially lobbyists who are former staffers for key regulatory agencies, and, in the case of Trading Cove, at least one lobbyist connected to Massachusetts politicians.

The Indian casino industry has spent $100 million for lobbying since 2001, according to the Center for Responsible Politics, a public interest group that compiles lobbying and campaign contribution data.

Trading Cove has spent almost $1 million since 2002 for lobbyists, including $495,000 since 2003 for lobbyist A. Bradford Card, managing partner of Dutko Worldwide. Card is the brother of Andrew Card, the former Bush administration White House chief of staff who in the 1980s served in the Massachusetts Legislature before running unsuccessfully for governor. When asked about his role, Card asked for written questions, but never responded to them.

Trading Cove is also represented by lobbyist Virginia Boylan, a former counsel to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and now a partner at Drinker Biddle, another powerful firm. Trading Cove fees to Boylan's firm have totaled $460,000 since 2002.

In the last three years, the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe spent $520,000 for Washington lobbyists. Among them is Steven C. Schwadron, former chief of staff to US Representative William D. Delahunt, Democrat of Massachusetts. Most of the lobbying was connected to winning federal recognition for the tribe, but now includes "legislation and policies relevant to newly recognized tribes," Senate records say.

Trading Cove, through its lawyer, Korologos, said its goal is to "continue to oppose in lawful and legitimate ways any legislation in Congress" that interfere with tribal rights.

Len Wolman and and his brother Mark receive about $10 million a year from Mohegan Sun, according to publicly available records.

By 2015, the Wolman brothers' receipts are projected to exceed $100 million each from the Mohegan deal, out of the projected $1 billion. Kerzner's company is expected to receive about $500 million.

Meanwhile, divided among its 1,700 members, the Mohegan tribe's current share of profits works out to about $38,000 a year each. The tribe declined to say how it distributes its earnings.

When the details of the Trading Cove's 15-year contract first emerged in 2001 in the Globe, McCain vowed changes.

A bill he introduced in 2005 would have made sure that outside investors be firmly subject to the 30 percent cap.

Dennis J. Whittlesey, a longtime Indian casino lawyer based in Washington, said McCain's bill was not well-received by casino executives.

"A number of major developers were extremely concerned and made substantial moves to oppose it," he said.

The McCain bill was voted out of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in March 2006 with a unanimous recommendation for passage by the full Senate.

But it died two months later, with no further discussion.

Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper, reported that seven senators had put anonymous holds on the bill, meaning a vote of 60 senators was required to release it.

Some federal regulators continue to press for reforms. Earl E. Devaney, the US Department of Interior's inspector general, said in an interview in Washington that an overhaul of the Indian Gaming Act is still needed.

Without reforms, he said, "investors are going to have the leverage to demand and get higher and higher amounts of casino profits.

"The return they get on their investment now is huge."

Lakotaland! Coming to a state near you...

...if you live in Nebraska, The Dakota, Wyoming or Montana. Apparently a break-away group of Lakotas have decided they are no longer a part of the United States. The story from Fox News.

Hat tip: Hawgamon

Lakota Indians Withdraw Treaties Signed With U.S. 150 Years Ago
Thursday, December 20, 2007

WASHINGTON — The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States.

"We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us,'' long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means said.

A delegation of Lakota leaders has delivered a message to the State Department, and said they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of the U.S., some of them more than 150 years old.

The group also visited the Bolivian, Chilean, South African and Venezuelan embassies, and would continue on their diplomatic mission and take it overseas in the coming weeks and months.

Lakota country includes parts of the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming.

The new country would issue its own passports and driving licences, and living there would be tax-free - provided residents renounce their U.S. citizenship, Mr Means said.

The treaties signed with the U.S. were merely "worthless words on worthless paper," the Lakota freedom activists said.

Withdrawing from the treaties was entirely legal, Means said.

"This is according to the laws of the United States, specifically article six of the constitution,'' which states that treaties are the supreme law of the land, he said.

"It is also within the laws on treaties passed at the Vienna Convention and put into effect by the US and the rest of the international community in 1980. We are legally within our rights to be free and independent,'' said Means.

The Lakota relaunched their journey to freedom in 1974, when they drafted a declaration of continuing independence — an overt play on the title of the United States' Declaration of Independence from England.

Thirty-three years have elapsed since then because "it takes critical mass to combat colonialism and we wanted to make sure that all our ducks were in a row,'' Means said.

One duck moved into place in September, when the United Nations adopted a non-binding declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples — despite opposition from the United States, which said it clashed with its own laws. (ed - the US out of the UN and the UN out of the US... NOW.)

"We have 33 treaties with the United States that they have not lived by. They continue to take our land, our water, our children,'' Phyllis Young, who helped organize the first international conference on indigenous rights in Geneva in 1977, told the news conference.

The U.S. "annexation'' of native American land has resulted in once proud tribes such as the Lakota becoming mere "facsimiles of white people,'' said Means.

Oppression at the hands of the U.S. government has taken its toll on the Lakota, whose men have one of the shortest life expectancies - less than 44 years - in the world.

Lakota teen suicides are 150 per cent above the norm for the U.S.; infant mortality is five times higher than the U.S. average; and unemployment is rife, according to the Lakota freedom movement's website.

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

...for Mr. Sammy Sockpuppet, Sam Cohen. Maybe he just wanted to join the club and acquire a criminal record? Maybe it's a status thing on the reservation? After all, how many people can say they have an attorney that beat his wife out in front of the Chumash Casino. There was also ex-Chumash Chairman - Gilbert Cash, who tried to strangle his wife, so maybe it is the water? What a great group of role models these folks are for youngsters in the Santa Ynez Valley eh? These are the people the governor of California chooses to do business with. And Sam Cohen is the guy that shook his finger and lectured James Lynch about the Chumash, and attempted to lampoon Lynch's credentials. From the Santa Ynez Valley Journal:

Chumash attorney arrested for domestic violence
Archive » December 14, 2007

The Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians’ attorney, Sam Cohen, and his wife were arrested at the Chumash Casino Dec. 12 after police responded to a domestic disturbance call. According to the county Sheriff’s department, Trina Cohen was arrested for being drunk in public, while Sam was arrested for domestic violence. Trina was taken to the Santa Barbara County Jail and Sam to an alternate holding facility. The couple was believed to have been attending an anniversary party for Chumash Magazine when they clashed over a social issue. Witnesses said they believed at least one of the Cohens was taken to a hospital for examination before being transported to jail.

(ed. - Bet you don't see THAT little tidbit of news in the Santa Barbara News Press)

Arnold Schwarzenegger? More like Benedict Arnold..

Two letters to the editor in Capitol Weekly, seem to summarize public sentiment (and frustration) about the state of affairs in government, from the local level to the governor himself.

Schwarzenegger’s statement in the letter to the editor below:

“the voters do not have jurisdiction over the agreement, because it was not legislation but a deal between two sovereign governments"

So because they are two sovereign governments - I guess the Governor is not in violation of the Brown Act. There is a word for what he is doing though. Treason.

"In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more serious acts of disloyalty to one's sovereign or nation."

Letters to the editor (of Capitol Weekly)
By Capitol Readers (published Thursday, November 29, 2007)

Dear Editor,

It is high time for elected officials to brush up on their oaths of office, take a U.S. Constitution refresher course and be reminded who they work for. Special interests seem to be garnering all the attention these days, but what about the People of California?

Governor Schwarzenegger’s recent filing in federal court, as reported in Capitol Weekly on Nov. 22, supporting the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians’ claims that “the voters do not have jurisdiction over the agreement, because it was not legislation but a deal between two sovereign governments,” is a stunning example of the arrogance of our governor.

Why would our governor subvert a vote by the people?

The backroom nature of these deals might have something to do with it. Agua Caliente Chairman Richard Milanovich finalized his compact with our governor at a Napa resort and had this to say about cutting his deal: “Governor Schwarzenegger, number one, is a businessman, and what we did was a business deal. He was smoking a cigar when we reached an agreement.”

Local and state governments are increasingly using government-to-government “privilege” to elude public involvement. This practice is an outright abuse of the intent of a federal directive that was given to federal branch agencies only, and growing legal opinion would argue that it violates the 14th Amendment securing equal protection of the law. Gambling compacts are not treaties. They are contracts between casino tribes and the People of California.

Here’s the refresher course for our elected officials. The first three words of the Constitution are “We the People.” There is no royalty claimed here. More concretely, the basic principle of government is that it derives its power from the consent of the governed. Don’t you need our vote to have our consent?

The governor’s attempt to keep these referendums from the voters only further erodes the ability to enforce our Constitutional contract with our government — the ultimate in political accountability.

Kathryn Bowen,
Santa Ynez

AND

Dear Editor,

On Nov. 22, James Lynch wrote a commentary challenging the legitimacy of the Santa Ynez Band of Mission Indians as a “federally recognized tribe” and its “reservation” as a properly recognized “federal reservation” (Capitol Weekly, Commentary).

Lynch’s article discusses one “tribe,” but in all probability many, if not most, of the casino “tribes” fall into this same category. They have been fabricated and engineered by greedy politicians and crafty attorneys. These politicians, our representative government, ignore the tremendous negative impact and prostitute the casino-hosting community for favors by the casino “tribes.”

In Santa Barbara County, they grovel. Just look at the recent resolutions by Assemblyman Pay-dro Nava and Third District Supervisor Crooks Firestone, passed without any opportunity for public comment, to get a taste for the backroom deals going on to cleverly market the Chumash Casino.

As our Legislature sells out its constituents for gambling dollars, it is also empowering these fabricated casino “tribes” to become more and more brazen in their demands to be treated as “sovereign nations” and “sovereign governments.” Politicians are loving this government-to-government deal-making with these tribal governments, as it is a means to circumvent public knowledge and participation.

This is happening all over the country. The few non-politicians in the public who believe there should be some accountability by our representative government watch this scam with dumbfounded amazement and fight with private lawsuits, petition signings and fund-raisers to protect the Constitution and the communities that they love so much.

And what do they get for their efforts? They are called racists for not agreeing with the expansion of these fabricated tribal governments functioning outside the U.S. Constitution and destroying their communities with their self-regulated gambling operations and unenforceable tribal-state gaming compacts.

Will the real representative please stand up and do something?

Kathy Cleary,
Los Olivos

How bout a little cheese with that whine... Mr. Cohen Sock-Puppet?

When an attorney publishes a statement like...

"Let’s get one thing straight: The Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians is a federally recognized tribe that is listed in the Federal Register of the U.S. Department of the Interior. There’s no arguing that fact, and that should have been the end of it"

... I scratch my head. Anything can be argued and I thought attorneys do (and know) that best. Besides, there's this little thing called the First Amendment. Unlike Indian aristocracies, we here in the United States value our free speech, and our right to question anything we damn well please.

Hmmm.. then i read a little further. Is "Mr. Cohen" REALLY a member of the tribe?:

"we were surprised by Lynch’s ridiculous accusations regarding the validity of our tribe"

Sounds to me like Vincent Armenta has a little Sammy Sockpuppet.

The "author" also claims Mr. Lynch was paid. I would like to see the receipt for that. Again I doubt a real attorney would say this kind of thing without proof.

The "author" makes a big deal out of Mr. Lynch having worked with heating equipment and attempts to quip:

"Is their next step hiring Larry the Cable Guy to provide his insights on the economic impact of Indian gaming? "

Well, if thats silly, how about hiring a welder to run a Las Vegas style casino Mr. Arementa? errr... Mr. Sammy Sockpuppet?

If the "author" really wanted to prove their point why not dispense with this pithy rebuttal and just link to scans of the 'proof' documents themselves?

Here it is from Capitol Weekly:

Historical record confirms legitimacy of Santa Ynez Chumash
By Sam Cohen (published Thursday, November 29, 2007)

To read James Lynch’s op-ed (“The Santa Ynez Chumash: A Question of Legitimacy”) in last week’s Capitol Weekly, one would think that there are questions surrounding the Santa Ynez Chumash tribe. There aren’t.

Let’s get one thing straight: The Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians is a federally recognized tribe that is listed in the Federal Register of the U.S. Department of the Interior. There’s no arguing that fact, and that should have been the end of it. But for the tribal opponents in the Santa Ynez Valley, facts have never gotten in the way of creating their own version of the truth.

Lynch’s op-ed represents only the latest in a long history of attacks against the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians by a small group of tribal opponents in the Santa Ynez Valley.

Unfortunately, it has become commonplace to pick up a newspaper and read ludicrous claims from our tribal opponents. The vast majority of their ridiculous assertions are not even worthy of a response, including Lynch’s op-ed. It was riddled with so many factual inaccuracies that we wondered if we were reading an excerpt from a fictional novel.

While our first inclination was to ignore Lynch’s op-ed, we were bothered by the fact that an individual could make such outlandish claims and pass them off as the truth. We wondered how such preposterous allegations would make it past Capitol Weekly’s editorial standards.

Lynch mentions an 1899 court case (which was actually first filed in 1897), but he apparently failed to read the decision and order of the Court from March 31, 1906 (The Roman Catholic Bishop of Monterey vs. Salamon Cota, et al), both recognizing the Santa Ynez Indians and finding that the tribe’s existence predates the acquisition of the California territory by the United States in 1846. It also identifies the Zanja De Cota Creek reservation of the tribe.

Because there is such a wealth of well-researched historical documentation about the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians and about the Santa Ynez Reservation, we were surprised by Lynch’s ridiculous accusations regarding the validity of our tribe.

In addition, his personal attacks on Chairman Armenta and his family were completely unnecessary. Frankly, we questioned the decision of Capitol Weekly’s editors to allow such statements to remain in Lynch’s op-ed.

Unfortunately, what Capitol Weekly editors may not know is that an entirely new cottage industry has surfaced within the tribal gaming industry. It’s an industry in which tribal opponents create their own experts and make up their own facts. Want to question a tribe’s very existence? Contact an individual who will make whatever disparaging comments you want against a tribe — for a fee.

Many of the so-called experts who travel the circuit are not recognized as legitimate in the real world. Take Lynch, for example. He has worked on a handful of fee-for-service projects that have consistently resulted in anti-tribal opinions. In a court document under sworn testimony, Lynch admitted that he has never concluded that any Indian tribe he investigated met the standards for federal acknowledgement.

With his anti-tribal track record and hired gun status, he was engaged by POLO/POSY, a tribal opposition group in Santa Ynez Valley that has fought everything from the tribe’s liquor license application (in the middle of wine country where more than 60 wineries reside) to the tribe’s plans to build a Chumash cultural museum.

For us, Lynch’s credibility is at the core of this latest attack from these tribal opponents. Under sworn testimony in 2006 (pages 481 and 483 of State of New York vs. Shinnecock Indian Nation), Lynch admits that he has no training in land titles or surveying and has spent the majority of his career as a heating equipment salesperson.

We certainly have no beef with heating equipment salespeople. But it’s highly doubtful that they possess the historical background and formal training required to research a topic as complex as colonial history. We have reviewed court documents in which Lynch provided so-called expert testimony, and he withered under cross-examination on questions pertaining to his credibility.

In his op-ed, Lynch claims that all POLO/POSY are asking for are accurate and honest answers to fair, legitimate questions. If that’s the case, why did they feel the need to employ a hired gun to spew out information that is not based on reality?

We have, in fact, answered any number of questions from POLO/POSY over the years, but they continue to search for answers that only fit their own distorted illusions. Truth, apparently, is not a requirement for them.

After all the shenanigans that these tribal opponents have been involved with lately, we have to wonder what’s next on their agenda. They hired a heating equipment salesperson to research the tribe’s history. Is their next step hiring Larry the Cable Guy to provide his insights on the economic impact of Indian gaming?