Tribes against casino bill

A House committee is looking at a plan to allow Indian gaming in urban areas

By Claire Vitucci

Washington Bureau

      WASHINGTON - Proposed federal legislation that would restrict Indian tribes from building urban casinos far from their ancestral lands wouldn't do enough to halt "reservation shopping," an Inland tribal chairman said Wednesday.

      Deron Marquez, chairman of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, which operates a casino near Highland in San Bernardino County, has written a letter to House Resources Chairman Richard Pombo.

      He said the lawmaker's proposed bill could allow more reservation shopping, in which landless tribes or tribes on isolated reservations try to put casinos on prime urban real estate.

      A hearing on the proposed legislation is scheduled for today in Washington before the House Resources Committee.

      A draft bill by Pombo, R-Tracy, would allow tribes to build casinos away from their reservations as long as they were put in designated "Indian Economic Opportunity Zones."

      Two such zones would be allowed per state, one on Indian land and one off tribal land. Their location of the zones would then be determined by the federal secretary of the Interior.

      Marquez said that goes against what Indians promised California voters when they approved ballot propositions legalizing Indian gambling in 1998 and 2000.

      At the time, opponents warned that casinos could pop up in suburban and urban areas, but tribes insisted those were scare tactics.

      "We campaigned over and over again as a unified tribal group that that's not going to happen," Marquez said.

      "A few short years later, you have developers leading tribes into a dangerous area."

      The San Manuel tribe and the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians near Temecula have announced their opposition to a bid by the Northern California-based Lytton Band of Pomo Indians to place a casino in San Pablo, a suburb of San Francisco.

      The Lytton deal would allow that tribe to build a 2,500-slot machine casino on nontraditional land in a heavily populated area.

      The tribe, which purchased the urban land in San Pablo, has roots in Sonoma County.