It's a last try for approval of an Indian casino and an eight-story, 170-room hotel that Yuba County residents have voted against, says state Assemblyman Dan Logue — while the Marysville mayor sees the project as right for tough economic times.

"It made a lot of sense two years ago," Mayor Bill Harris said of the $150 million proposal. "It makes even more sense with the economy being so challenging."

Enterprise Rancheria of Maidu Indians in Butte County has applied to conduct off-reservation gaming activities on 40 acres outside Olivehurst near Forty Mile Road and Highway 65 close to the Sleep Train Amphitheatre, the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs said in a notice earlier this month asking local agencies to comment on the project.

Logue said the Oroville-based rancheria is "reservation shopping" — seeking a site away from the tribe's ancestral land in Oroville to instead locate a casino along the Highway 65 corridor.

But Glenda Nelson, tribal chair of the Enterprise Rancheria, said its lands were in the Feather River watershed — and that the river runs right past the proposed casino site.

"We had rivers as our dividing lines, not counties," Nelson said of the history of Native Americans. "Our people are all from this area."

The Bureau of Indian Affairs, in its notice sent to agencies — including Yuba and Sutter counties, Yuba City, Marysville and Wheatland — asks for information about anticipated cost impacts from the project and other matters. A finding of fact by the secretary of the Department of Interior will follow comments by agencies that are due by the middle of March.

Cheryl Schmit, director of the Placer County-based gambling watchdog group Stand Up for California, said she sees project approval by the government as a long shot.

"This tribe has a number of hurdles to meet," Schmit said of Enterprise Rancheria having to demonstrate to the federal Department of the Interior that the casino "Is an absolute necessity for the tribe."

John Maier, an attorney representing Enterprise Rancheria, said tribal members are confident the project will go forward — and that it's ironic opponents cite the casino location as an argument against its approval.

When Native Americans located casinos in remote rural areas, critics said that hurt the environment, he said. Now the Enterprise Rancheria seeks to locate in an area zoned for sports and entertainment and bring $150 million in private investment to the region.

"That's very valuable," the attorney said.

Doug Elmets, spokesman for the Thunder Valley casino outside Lincoln in Placer County, said that Butte County where Enterprise Rancheria is located is one of the poorest counties in the state. The proposed casino in Yuba County is next to "one of the wealthiest counties in the state — Placer," Elmets said.

"That's what they're banking on," he said of the Enterprise Rancheria.

Review of the project poses problems for the tribe, he said.

"Enterprise Rancheria has a very long, arduous road," Elmets said, "which will be filled with legal challenges at every turn."

In a 2005 advisory measure, Yuba County voted 51 percent against the project but Marysville mayor Harris cited the close results — and support for the casino within the county supervisorial district Logue then represented. The advisory measure carried no direct authority as far as approval or disapproval of the project, nor does the Board of Supervisors have such authority.

"To me its boils down to jobs," Harris said of supporting the project. "We just can't turn our back on hundreds of jobs."

Logue said Northern California already has many Indian casinos — and that a new facility in Yuba County won't be the economic bonus its backers forecast.

County Supervisor Mary Jane Griego, who represents the Olivehurst area and supports a casino, was attending a conference and could not be reached for comment Monday.