KNOW AND GO:
WHAT: Town hall meeting about proposed Yuba County casino.
WHO: Stand Up for California!
WHEN: 7-9 p.m., Dec. 7.
WHERE: Wheatland Community Center.
Time and location are tentative.
A watchdog group lobbying Gov. Jerry Brown not to approve the Enterprise Rancheria Indian casino project in Yuba County is coming to Wheatland next month for a town hall on the topic.
Stand Up for California! will host the event Dec. 7 to express its opposition to the casino, which the group has decried as "reservation shopping" for a project far from the sponsoring tribe's native lands.
Keep Indian Gaming on Indian Lands, a group with similar concerns, will also make a presentation at the town hall, which will be less than 10 miles from the proposed casino/hotel near Sleep Train Amphitheatre.
Cheryl Schmit, Stand Up's founder and director, said the event is aimed at both registering opposition with the governor's office and encouraging others to do the same.
"What his consideration is going to have to consider is what is detrimental to the outside community," said Schmit, who said her group is funded by local sources across the state. "This is a matter of democracy."
Among the speakers, she said, will be Yuba County Supervisor Roger Abe and prominent community volunteer Lou Binninger. A panel will take written questions, but to minimize disruptions the meeting won't feature public comment, she said.
Brown has until next September to issue a decision on Enterprise Rancheria, which received federal government approval last summer. Both approvals are necessary for the project to move ahead, and Brown's office has not indicated how soon he'll issue a decision.
The tribe issued a statement Monday pointing out both the exhaustive reviews of the project and potential benefits for the region.
"With near record unemployment and other signs of local economic distress, we believe now is the time for action, yet we would certainly consider participating in any event genuinely intended to provide a fair, ba anced, and accurate platform for discussing the merits and impacts of the project," the tribe's statement reads.
An advisory ballot measure in 2005 had a majority of county residents opposed to the casino, while proponents have said the casino will bring both jobs and revenue for local governments.
Schmit said the federal Department of the Interior's decision appeared to have ignored the ballot measure.
Though the sponsoring tribe, the Estom Yumeka Maidu, has said its tribal lands are at the bottom of Lake Oroville, Schmit said, federal records show the tribe willingly sold the property in the 1960s, and later rewrote its tribal constitution to make the casino more acceptable.
"To me, there's a lot going on here with the tribe that people don't know about," she said.
Binninger said he's opposed the project since it was first proposed almost a decade ago, partly because he felt Yuba County supervisors didn't give the public enough chance to weigh in on the proposal.
"I think there could be a question if the zoning even allows for it," he said.
While gambling will happen regardless of whether the casino is built, he said, "The question in this situation is where the taxpayer picks up all the tab for the fallout."