Politician Wants to End 'Reservation Shopping'

Saturday, May 06, 2006

May 6, 2006 -- A North Valley congressman could soon change the game for Indian casinos with his plan to end reservation shopping.

Reservation shopping is the term used when Indian tribes try to build casinos in locations off their reservations.

Eighty-year-old Ruby Pomona and 77-year-old Dorothy Keller Mason are elders in the North Fork band of Mono Indians. They grew up in the Madera County foothills northeast of Fresno, when living off the land was still possible.

"My uncles would hunt for deer and of course we had the acorn," said Pomona.

Tribal leaders say these days a lot more is needed, and they have improved the welfare of their 1,800-member tribe with programs, services and a new community hall. But now they want to build their own casino-hotel complex.

"We're gona have to find some economic development to sustain this tribe for years to come," said Patrick Beihn, Tribal Council Vice-Chair.

The problem is they have no tribal land they can build it on. Their last reservation doesn't belong to the tribe.

"We were a recognized tribe with no land base," said tribal council member Jacquie Davis-Van Huss.

So they looked southwest to property adjacent to busy Highway 99, where tribal research indicates there is ancestral land.

"It's well documented; we have a very strong historical tie to that area as well as we do in Madera County as a whole," said Davis-Van Huss.

Madera County supervisors support the project, but there is vocal opposition, including the Indians who operate the Chukchansi Gold Casino, and some are calling it "reservation shopping." The North Fork Mono tribe says it's "reservation restoration."

This debate isn't unique to them or to California. It's happening all over the country. From California to New York, dozens of Indian tribes are testing the limits of the Federal Indian Gaming Act of 1988, and it has the attention of the United States Congress.

"We're not talking about projects on existing reservations, on existing trust lands, we're talking about land that is currently private," said Richard Pombo, (R) Tracy.

North Valley congressman and Tracy cattle rancher Richard Pombo chairs the powerful House Resources Committee. He's introduced a bill to end all "reservation shopping" for Indian casinos.

"We don't want to take an opportunity away from anybody, but we at the same time we do believe that the spirit of the original law was for Indian gaming to occur on land that was currently in trust," said Pombo.

Pombo's bill would end reservation shopping, period, but allow Indian "gaming zones" where several tribes can build casinos where Indian gaming already exists, and increase city and state input and safeguards when tribes propose casinos.

Pombo says tribes already in the pipeline, like the Mono of North Fork, may still get to gamble on meeting the letter and the spirit of the current rules.

There are a lot of people concerned about grandfathering in those existing tribes," said Pombo.

In 18 years of Indian gaming, only three Indian tribes qualified to purchase non-Indian land for a casino, but the North Fork Mono tribe is determined to stand pat with its plan and play the hand it was dealt.

The next step for the Madera casino is the completion of an environmental impact statement by the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. A first draft is expected later this year.

Congressman Pombo meantime expects to get a bill out of the House before Congress recesses for the summer, and the North Fork tribe is hoping it includes an exception for them.

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