While we're pleased that the federal government last week hammered what should be the final nail in the coffin of a proposal for Nevada-style urban gaming in Richmond, its continued silence on a similar plan just north of the city limits concerns us.

The first proposal, from the tiny Guidiville Band of Pomo Indians, called for building a massive shoreline resort and casino at Point Molate. The casino would have been bigger than two football fields with more slot machines than the largest gaming facility in Nevada.

Richmond residents, in a November advisory vote, resoundingly rejected the plan.

The City Council heard the message and blocked the development plan. And then on Friday, Larry Echo Hawk, Interior Department assistant secretary for Indian affairs, rejected the tribe's long-standing application to essentially turn the land into a reservation for gaming.

Not only was there little community support for the misguided plan, Echo Hawk correctly noted that the Guidiville Band lacked the required historical connection to the land.

The same can be said for the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians, which six years ago sought federal creation of a North Richmond reservation on which it could build a casino with 2,000 slot machines. The small Indian band is not historically connected to Contra Costa or the rest of the Bay Area. As Contra Costa County wrote to the Interior Department in 2006, this proposal "is more about economic opportunism than the restoration of the band's aboriginal land." The Interior Department has yet to rule on the application.

No one has formally asked Richmond residents, nor of West County for that matter, what they think of that proposal. We're confident that if they were asked, they would feel the same way as they did about the plan for Point Molate.
Unfortunately, the region's congressman, George Miller, has claimed he has no influence. This is troubling coming from the representative who in 2000 helped another Indian band turn the Casino San Pablo card room a few miles away into a tribal gaming facility.

Miller's tweak to a massive federal Indian bill paved the way for that casino. Now, it's time for him to start advocating for his constituents.

Fortunately, the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors has objected to the Scotts Valley Band's plan. And U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein has spoken out loudly against urban gaming. Unlike Miller, Feinstein has demonstrated she understands the legitimate concerns about societal effects of urban gaming, from crime and the disproportionate effect on poor households to the increased gambling addiction and increased social service costs.

Let's hope the Obama administration hears the message.