VISALIA - A letter to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, concerning a parcel of Tule River Indian Reservation trust land, won't be sent for two weeks.

The letter, county officials said, was to outline why they are against the Tule tribe converting at least one of two parcels of trust land into reservation land.

The county is also against the tribe then building a ”resort destination/casino.“

Sam Cohen, an attorney for the tribe, who was present at Tuesday's meeting with two female tribal council members, said county officials are ”terminally confused“ about the plans for the land.

First of all, Cohen said, the land in question does not consist of the 34.9 acre parcel, but the 40 acre parcel.

Cohen said the two tribal-owned plots of land off of Highway 190, near Lake Success, are about 4.2 miles away from the northwest tip of the reservation.

The smaller plot was purchased in 1998, Cohen said, and there is a fee to trust application process undergoing in which the tribe is transferring the land to the Bureau of Indian Affairs to hold for the tribe.

”That takes the land out of state law and puts it in federal law, subject to tribal jurisdiction,“ Cohen said. ”The 40 acres, bought in the late 1980s, went into trust already in 1994 and has been under the jurisdiction of the tribe.

”And, now the tribe wants to officially formalize this part of the 40 acres as part of its reservation. As a result of that, it would make the land eligible for certain grants and other federal benefits [such as] for housing money, guaranteed loans,“ etc.

The reason for the delay in sending the letter is so the county could add a paragraph that states as long as there is no casino on the land and the tribe deals with local impacts - traffic, public safety, etc. - it would not be opposed to the tribe converting the trust land to reservation land.

Eric Coyne, county spokesperson, said, historically, the tribe had made it known that it had wanted to build a destination/resort/casino.

”If you're going to game off the reservation - because trust land not on the reservation is kind of like an island - they would have to have an agreement signed by the governor and local government to deal with local impacts,“ Coyne said. ”Because that's not part of the former, it's been blocked because they have to deal with off-set impacts with the county and the governor.

”The property's project has changed several times in size and scale [throughout the years], so it's hard to calculate the true mitigations that there would be: If (the project) is large, there would be larger needs and if smaller, there will be smaller needs.“

Coyne said the whole issue is not about gaming, per se, but the county is concerned with the costs it would incur for proper possible traffic problems, public safety needs, etc.

For example, ”it's like if you were to locate a Disneyland at the end of a two-way road Š you would have traffic problems,“ Coyne said. ”You would have hundreds of thousands of people showing up, so you would have big impacts with a big commercial enterprise: Traffic, accidents, public safety needs, etc.

”So, if you have Indian gaming on land that should be held in trust, they don't have to pay - [being a sovereign nation] - property/sales taxes to help pay for outside services outside their walls and that's why the county's concerned.“

County officials said in the past talks with the tribe were stalemated in regard to relocating a casino. They then went to the governor's office and the governor wrote that he would not enter into an agreement with any Indian gaming tribe, in regard to gaming, without local government coming to agreement on any concerns it had.

Coyne said that when the tribe got nowhere with the county or the governor's office, it went directly to BIA, applying that the land be converted from trust land to reservation status.

”They county's attorneys advised the board that if [the trust land] is held as reservation status, the tribe won't need the sign-off on the governor or meet local issues,“ Coyne said. ”They can just do gaming without dealing with local impacts.

Supervisor Jim Maples, Dist. 5, brought up the idea of re-wording the county's already drafted letter of opposition.

”We're not opposed to building on the land,“ Maples said. ”Our concern is that this [transition of trust to reservation land] would allow a casino to be built without the state's or county's approval in regard to mitigating environmental, traffic and public safety concerns.

”If you're telling us you don't want gaming and stipulate to that, we can withdraw our opposition letter,“ Maples said.

Cohen said the tribe's plans really don't have anything to do with gaming.

”The gaming statute is the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act - which was enacted in 1988 - that (stipulates), under section 2719, that gaming can only occur within the boundaries of the reservation as it existed prior to Oct. 17, 1988,“ Cohen said. ”But, they believe they have hired some consultant who gave them an opinion that to put [this trust land] as reservation land, it makes it possible to have gaming on that land.

”That is clearly false and they should know that.“

Contact Kara M. Machado at 784-5000, Ext. 1043, or kmachado@portervillerecorder.com