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Officials Eye Casino Moratorium Initiative By RICHARD BRENNEMAN

Tuesday January 18, 2005

Local city councilmembers and state Assemblymember Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa) gathered in Cotati Friday to discuss the impact of casinos on their communities and consider a proposed statewide initiative that would impose a moratorium on new gambling pal aces. 

Among those attending was newly elected Richmond City Councilmember Gayle McLaughlin. 

Friday’s meeting was called by Frank Egger of Fairfax—California’s longest serving councilmember, now serving his tenth four-year term—and Sebastopol Councilmemb er Linda Kelley. 

Egger plans to be in San Pablo Saturday to attend a four-hour casino meeting called by Assemblymember Loni Hancock. 

Friday’s meeting was attended by 14 people, most of them elected officials from the North Bay. The group has scheduled a second meeting on Feb. 11. 

“All of them were concerned that mega-urban casinos would overwhelm their communities,” said Egger. “They’re exempt from sales tax, from transient occupancy tax, from income tax and from gross receipts taxes. The only taxes they’r e legally obligated to pay are taxes on employee wages.” 

Egger took issues with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s compact with tribes requiring they pay a quarter of net revenues to the state, contrasting it with Nevada, which taxes a quarter of gross revenues. 

“So we’re only getting 25 percent of twenty percent,” he said 

Egger drafted the Casino Moratorium Initiative, dubbed the California Indian Gambling Casino Moratorium and Planning Act of 2005. 

Its two key provisions are a five-year moratorium on all new tribal casinos unless authorized by a statewide election, and the creation of a 21-member California Indian Gambling Casino and Planning Commission. 

The proposed commission would hold statewide hearings and prepare a California Indian Gambling Plan f or presentation to the Legislature and governor no later that Dec. 31, 2010. 

The commission would make recommendations for the creation of a state gambling regulatory agency to replace the current California Gambling Commission and which would have final say over forwarding casino applications to the governor. 

Egger said some local lawmakers have been anxious about acknowledging their opposition to casino because of the potential impact of gambling industry donations on elections. 

“When I ran for the A ssembly in 2000, I had no money but I did have the support of David Brower, the Sierra Club and others,” Egger said. “When I was approached by a tribe that expressed interest in supporting me, I figured it was about work I’d done in support of Indian fishing rights. But it turned out they wanted my support for a casino proposal.” 

Egger said the proposed Point Molate casino and resort complex in Richmond, with its major auditorium for leading bands and performers, could pose serious problems both for the East Bay and Marin County. 

“If you think traffic on the San Rafael Bridge is bad now, just wait until there’s a casino. There’ll be day and night traffic,” he said. 

The casino site is located at the last I-580 exit in Richmond at the base of the bridge. 

On Dec. 1, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that the state had conducted only one audit in the last two years of the 28 tribal casinos which have agreed to pay a portion of their profits to the state. All Native American casinos are required to send annual audits to the National Indian Gaming Commission, but that agency is barred from sharing the audits with states. 

While gambling experts told the paper that slot machines in successful casinos net between $300 and $600 daily, the money paid to the California Special Distribution Fund indicated an average take of $275. Skimming of casino winnings has been a favorite enterprise of organized crime, almost inevitable without rigorous auditing and enforcement, according to Joe Yablonsky, FBI Special Agent of Charge in Nevada in the early 1980s when the last of the old-line mobsters were evicted from the casinos.  

Hancock’s upcoming meeting, “Urban Casinos: Gambling with our Future?,” runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday in San Pablo at the Knox Center for Performing Arts at Contra Costa Community College [entrance at El Portal Drive and Castro Street]. 

Currently plans for four East Bay casinos are in the offing. The Sugar Bowl Casino planned for unincorporated North Richmond is furthest along, with Be rkeley developer James D. Levine’s plans for Point Molate close behind. 

Plans for a massive expansion of Casino San Pablo, a card room already owned by the Lytton Rancheria band of Pomos, have been temporarily stalled, due to the efforts of foes of a pro posed casino pact which Gov. Schwarzenegger signed. 

Members of the California Senate Governmental Organization Committee posed skeptical questions of tribe leaders when they held a hearing on the governor’s proposal on Jan. 12. 

Schwarzenegger’s proposal would give the state a fourth of the casino’s winnings, estimated at a $155 annual boost to state revenues. Last week’s hearing is the first of several that would be held before the proposal is presented to legislators for approval. 

A day before the Sac ramento hearings, Oakland City Councilmembers voted down a proposal by the Lower Lake Rancheria—Koi Nation tribe of Pomos to build a casino off Hegenberger near Oakland International Airport. 

Five councilmembers said they feared the traffic and social co nsequences of the casino, while two others, including one supporter, abstained from the vote.  

Egger said he became particularly alarmed when he mapped the development of casinos along a corridor along U.S. 101 from Laytonville in the north through Marin County and on through 580 over the San Rafael Bridge to San Pablo. 

“When you look at the map, you see a casino every 15 to 18 miles, with the exception of Marin County,” he said. “It’s like one long strip, except you have to drive from casino to casino.” 

In his newest budget plan, Schwarzenegger unveiled plans that would nearly double the staffing for the existing state gambling commission, and add more staff for the gambling division of the state Attorney General’s office, as well as significantly boo st the budgets for both.