East of Napa and roughly 10 miles past the Yolo County line, the small town of Brooks sits nestled among the rolling green hills of the Capay Valley.
Here — in one of Yolo County’s agricultural hubs — Anne MacDonald has spent more than a decade making her living off the land — rearing almonds, walnuts and other crops from Capay’s fertile soil.

While Capay was once known for its tranquil environment and rural charm, MacDonald said she has watched the dynamics of this valley change dramatically in the past few years.

Just a few miles north on Highway 16, Cache Creek Resort and Casino — a roughly 75,000-square-foot, Las Vegas–style gaming facility — has etched out a home among the hills, forcing bright lights and tour buses to exist alongside fruit orchards and almond blossoms.

“It hardly fits,” said MacDonald, ticking off a host of concerns including crime, traffic and drug use. “It’s like having a little Las Vegas dropped in your rural community.”

Yolo County’s Capay Valley isn’t alone in its struggle to balance an area’s rural character with the presence of a large-scale tribal casino.
Due north of Calistoga — just outside the town of Middletown in Lake County — sits the Twin Pine Casino & Hotel. In Sonoma County’s Alexander Valley, River Rock Casino has set up shop in one of California’s premier wine growing regions.
At both locations, law enforcement records and state transportation surveys tell a similar story — with a casino comes increased traffic and a higher level of reported crime. Tribal casinos, however, aren’t without their benefits, as regional examples have resulted in thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in mitigation payments to local governments.

In Napa County, where gaming consists of bingo games and a cardroom in American Canyon, the threat of a having a sovereign tribe operating outside of county regulations has never felt more real.

“It could totally throw off everything we’ve done in our very conservative land-use planning,” said Supervisor Brad Wagenknecht, noting that a tribal casino is only one concern. If a tribe gained a toehold in the Napa Valley, “it could be all sorts of things. It could be a Walmart just above Yountville.”

Wagenknecht’s concern is rooted in a high-stakes legal tussle that could be decided in the coming months.
In 2009, the roughly 350-person Mishewal Wappo Tribe of Alexander Valley sued the federal government, asking that they have federal recognition and ancestral lands restored.

Formal recognition, the tribe claims, was illegally terminated in 1959, leaving the group landless and without access to federal services in education, resource protection and health care.

Nine months after the case began, Napa and Sonoma counties joined on, fearing that federal recognition of the Wappo would translate to a new Indian casino taking root in the North Bay.

Larry Florin, the county’s housing and intergovernmental affairs director, said that, within their complaint, the Wappo identified Napa, Lake and Sonoma counties as their ancestral territories. Along with recognition, the tribe’s original complaint asks for lands somewhere within these three counties to be taken into trust by the federal government, Florin said.

Trust lands could be used by the tribe in a variety of purposes, including tribal gaming.

Beyond trust lands, a recognized tribe could potentially purchase land anywhere within the county and be exempt from local regulation, Florin said.
Wappo Chairman Scott Gabaldon has said that the tribe has no plans for a casino and was purely focused on regaining federal recognition. He noted, however, that the casino option would be available to a tribe with recognition, and has said that settlement talks with the federal government are on the table.
For local officials, a recognition deal — and potential casino — remain a troubling thought.

“There could be transportation issues. There could be police issues or fire issues,” Wagenknecht said. “These are things that just aren’t taken into account.”

Based on the experiences of neighboring counties, these concerns have merit.
According to records from the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, River Rock Casino —  just outside Geyserville — has been responsible for a significant increase in calls for service since it opened.

In 2003 — the first full year that River Rock was open — the sheriff’s department received roughly 220 calls for service, records show. By 2010, that figure had jumped to nearly 740.

In the first four months of 2011, River Rock had already received 317 calls for service.

The Lake County Sheriff’s Office also saw increasing numbers at the Twin Pine Casino, receiving more than 260 calls in 2010.

In Yolo County, Cache Creek Casino and Resort’s effects on public safety throughout the Capay Valley were enough to warrant an investigation by the 2010 Yolo County grand jury.

According to its report — which examined the period from 2002 to 2006 — criminal activity was on the rise.

In 2002, the Yolo County district attorney’s office identified only two people charged with driving under the influence in connection with a casino visit. By 2006, that number was up to 23. Charges of assault leapt from only one count in 2002 to 30 in 2006, while felony burglary charges went from two in 2002 to 20 in 2006, according to the grand jury’s report.

For MacDonald, the figures come as no surprise. “When you get a casino, you draw an interesting crowd of people,” she said.
While crime continues to be a concern, even the well-behaved casino guests are difficult to ignore.

According to Caltrans traffic counts, caravanning casinogoers are hitting state highways by the thousands, creating congestion for locals who use these rural stretches of asphalt for their daily commute.

In 2002, the stretch of Highway 128 that serves the River Rock Casino had an average daily traffic flow of 4,450. By 2009, that number had climbed by roughly 3,000 vehicles, according to Caltrans counts.

In the Anderson Valley, rancher Ralph Seals said that traffic was one of his initial concerns when he first opposed the River Rock Casino throughout the early 2000s.

With the battle now lost, Seals — whose property is less than a mile and half from River Rock — says life will go on.
“We were definitely against it, but it’s here now and it’s not going anywhere,” he said.

At Yolo’s Cache Creek, more than 14,300 cars were counted each day on Highway 16 at the casino’s entrance — titled Winner’s Way — in 2009. Seven years earlier, that figure was roughly half as many: 7,700 vehicles.

Tom Frederick, whose Capay Valley Vineyards abuts the Cache Creek property, said that the casino’s around-the-clock operations make traffic a chronic problem.
In the casino business, there’s little difference between 3 a.m. and 3 p.m., he said.

While crime and traffic are certainly cause for concern, Frederick said they are trumped by the sovereign status of the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation — which operates the casino — and the unique challenges that presents.
“The biggest problem that you run into is that they’re not legally accountable,” he said. “We don’t have a level playing field as neighbors.”

Frederick said that a tribal-owned septic tank recently began leaking onto his property, and that — while the problem has since been fixed — he had little legal recourse when it came to dealing with a sovereign tribe.

“When you take away that legal redress, people tend to get pretty lax,” he said.
Chris Lee, Yolo’s county-tribe coordinator, said that while relations between a county and tribe are subject to their intergovernmental agreement, only federal law, tribal law and certain elements of criminal law are valid on tribal trust lands.
“The county’s land-use authority is the thing that’s clearly diminished,” Lee said.
Florin agreed, noting that local zoning restrictions — including those relevant to the Agricultural Preserve — wouldn’t apply on trust lands.
Some of the challenges of dealing with a sovereign tribe came to light in the Yolo County Grand Jury’s report.

During the investigation, tribal representatives refused to participate in the process or respond to the grand jury’s findings, citing their status as “a sovereign governmental entity that is immune to the jurisdiction and process of state and local authorities.”

Representatives from the Yocha Dehe tribe also refused to provide up-to-date membership figures when requested for this story, but the grand jury report estimated adult membership at fewer than 25 people.

While tribal casinos present challenges to rural counties, some believe their value as an economic engine can’t be denied.

Steve Smith, the human resources director for the Dry Creek Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians — the Sonoma tribe operating River Rock —said that the casino employs roughly 600 people, making it one of the top 20 employers in the county.

Cache Creek employs more than 2,300 people, said Mike Traum, the casino’s communications manager. The figure makes the casino the second largest employer in Yolo County, behind only the University of California, Davis.
Noting the effects that such large-scale gaming operations can have on rural areas, the tribes operating  Cache Creek and River Rock have entered into intergovernmental agreements with Yolo and Sonoma counties, respectively.
Both agreements resulted in multimillion-dollar windfalls of mitigation payments for the two counties.

In Yolo County, the Yocha Dehe tribe has shelled out more than $32 million in mitigation between 2002 and 2010, with healthy portions going toward the sheriff’s department and the district attorney’s office.

In 2008, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors reached a $100 million deal with the Dry Creek Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians as part of the tribe’s plan to replace River Rock’s temporary tent casino with a $300 million resort and casino.
The money is expected to be paid out over 12 years and reimburse the cost of additional public services stemming from the expansion, the agreement states.
Using mitigation dollars, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department has been able to staff an additional deputy in the River Rock area, a move officials say has helped deal with the increased demand for service.

With the added deputy, the casino’s overall impact has been “minimal,” said Lt. Tim Duke. “It’s been a great relationship so far,” he added.
Even MacDonald — who as president of the Capay Valley Coalition has raised concern about Cache Creek for years — said that despite the adverse effects on the Capay Valley, she holds no grudges against the tribe.

“They’re not bad people; you can’t say they’re bad people,” she said. “They just have an interest that’s in conflict with the farming community.”

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Posted in Local on Sunday, May 1, 2011 12:00 am