For more than a year, most of the public comments at San Jacinto City Council meetings have been against a proposed annexation to the Soboba Indian Reservation that would allow the tribe to move its casino and build a hotel complex.

But at Thursday's meeting, council members heard from people who favor of the project. The residents and Soboba Casino employees spoke about the economic benefits of bringing more business to the San Jacinto Valley.

They asked the council to reconsider an Aug. 5 vote opposing the reservation expansion.

Two members of the Soboba Tribal Council told the council that their efforts to meet with city officials about the project over the past year had been rebuffed.

The parade of speakers came after Mayor Dale Stubblefield requested that city staff prepare a chronology of events showing the city's involvement in the issue. The council took no action.

In recent months, tribal leaders have issued brief statements through a spokesman explaining that the tribe is following a legal process in which public comments on a draft environmental document must be submitted to the Bureau of Indian Affairs by Sept. 15.

While tribal representatives met twice with a council subcommittee last year, there have been no meetings since then despite the tribe's requests.

Stubblefield, who serves on the committee with Councilman Jim Ayres, said that last year the council agreed meet with tribal representatives only if Bureau of Indian Affairs, congressional and state representatives were present.

 Tribal council member Rose Salgado said the BIA had refused to participate in such meetings.

 "To me a lack of knowledge causes the fears that have been raised," said Rosemary Murillo, vice chairwoman of the tribal council. "We need to get together."

Referring to residents' concerns that the development would not be regulated, Murillo said four regulatory agencies have oversight of the tribe and its casino.

The tribe wants to annex land it owns along Soboba Road near Lake Park Drive into federal "fee to trust" status. The land would be held by the U.S. government on behalf of the tribe, which would control its use.

 If the annexation is approved, residents of a mobile home park and housing developments would have to travel through the reservation to get to their homes.

"It's really the location and creation of jurisdictional islands" that is the basis for council objections, Stubblefield said.

Some council members have supported expansion of the tribe's casino on the reservation.

Reach Gail Wesson at 951-763-3455 or gwesson@PE.com

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Comments (1)

The old guy 2 hours ago wrote:

I attended the San Jacinto City Council meeting and wonder if it was the same meeting written about by Ms Wesson. Ms Wesson omitted the fact that the SOC (Save our community) committee presented several accomplished speakers. This was the first public meeting that the tribe attended although this has been an on-going process for many months. The "fears"of the resident of the concerned area are about loss of their privacy, increase in traffic, crime associated with the gaming industry, and loss in property values. They will be residing in an area of 24/7 flood lights, noise pollution, and general mayhem. The SOC has worked diligently and compiled an impressive collection of data which would, in ordinary cases, have a project of this size legally stopped. Ms. Salgado presentation to the council emphasized the large amount of money that the tribe has donated to the Hemet/San Jacinto valley and appeared to some to be an implied threat. Basically, the draft environmental impact report is seriously flawed and, at a minimum, should be re-done addressing those very serious problems brought up and properly and publically presented to the city councils of San Jacinto and Hemet. Those individual neighborhoods which would become islands within a soverign nation are persuing, through proper public channels, their inalienable rights as citizens of the United States of America. One last thing should be noted. The SOC and a majority of the San Jacinto City Council have no objection to the tribe building this casino project on the current reservation. There is ample space to accomodate the project.