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North Oakland and South Berkeley residents got their first glimpse Saturday of a little-known tribe’s plans to build a major casino next to an environmentally sensitive stretch of shoreline near Oakland International Airport. 

The morning meeting, called by casino foes and Oakland Vice Mayor Jane Brunner, filled the meeting room at Peralta Elementary School at 460 63rd St.  

At the meeting, environmentalist Robert Cheasty vowed to file a lawsuit if the Bureau of Indian Affairs transferred the land to the Koi Rancheria of Pomo tribespeople, which plans a 2,000-slot machine casino on the site. 

“Last summer Jerry Brown asked me to meet with the casino people,” Brunner said, opening the session. “They made two promises. One was that they would never build a casino unless we wanted it, and the other was that it would happen very slowly.” 

Brunner said she was taken by surprise when she learned at Christmas that the Kois were going ahead with the federal environmental impact statement process, with a deadline for all public and official comment of Jan. 22. 

Brunner and four other councilmembers voted on Jan. 11 to oppose the plans of the Koi Rancheria band of Pomos to build their resort complex. Two councilmembers abstained and one was absent. 

The cities of Berkeley, Alameda and San Leandro have joined with Oakland in adopting resolutions against the project, which have no binding force. 

“The major problem is that there is no local jurisdiction or control of the process. Once the land is handed to the tribe, they can do pretty much what they want with it,” Brunner said. 

Tribal chair Daniel Beltran said tribal representatives had met with all members of the City Council to assure them that “your concerns are our concerns. We want to have a positive effect on the community. 

While the tribe has heard from city officials, Beltran said, “we haven’t heard from the community people.” 

The Koi official said the tribe is offering the city an average of $30 million a year, including $5 million for social programs. “This is our sincere offer,” he said. 

Rod Wilson, the tribe’s publicist, offered a Power Point presentation highlighting promises of 2,200 direct jobs with an $80 million annual payroll, purchases of $80 million in goods and services and a $30 million municipal services agreement to reimburse the city for police, fire and other services and to compensate for lost property taxes. 

He also promised mitigations to minimize the impacts of the 2,000-slot machine casino, the 1,000 seat entertainment venue and the four or five restaurants and accompanying luxury hotel which would be built on the protected clapper rail habitat. 

None of these promised seemed to impress Assemblymember Loni Hancock, who has emerged as a leading opponent of urban gambling and recently held her own forum on plans for a 2,500-slot casino at the site of the present San Pablo Casino cardroom. 

“Former Lieutenant Gov. Leo McCarthy led the opposition to Proposition 1A, the ballot measure that allowed Indian gambling in California on the basis that it would open up urban gambling with Las Vegas style casinos. This is precisely what is happening now,” she said. 

Hancock urged Oakland officials to get every promise made by the tribe written in contractual form. She cited the example of the changed plans at San Pablo Casino, which is run by the Lytton Pomo Band. 

She said the Lytton Pomo Band had originally promised that they would only remove the card tables in San Pablo and replace them with slot machines. Then the tribe negotiated a pact with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last year calling for a 5,000-slot casino which outraged legislators then stalled. That pact didn’t spell out any obligations to the city or to Contra Costa County that couldn’t be eliminated by the State Director of Finance. 

The new proposal, calling for a 2,500-slot casino includes county benefits, but none for hospitals or schools—the latter not mentioned in any California gambling compact. 

Hancock also noted that the Lyttons had promised 6,000 jobs with the 5,000-slot proposal and are promising the same with the new version, even though it has only half the slots. 

In addition, she said, tribal casinos give about 30 percent of casino earnings to the Nevada firms that operate the gaming floors. 

Cheasty, representing Citizens for East Shore Parks (CESP, formerly Citizens for the Eastshore State Park), the Audubon Society and the Sierra Club, said the lights, traffic and noise generated by the casino and the rats drawn by garbage pose an extraordinary threat to the shoreline park directly adjacent to the casino site. 

Martin Luther King Jr. Shoreline Park, he said, is the most successful habitat for the clapper rail, a bird that once ranged along the whole California coastline and is now confined to the San Francisco Bay and Suisun Marsh. 

The casino would amount to the end of the habitat, Cheasty said.  

“Do you think Martin Luther King Jr. would’ve wanted this kind of development? This is exactly the kind of impact we don’t want if we’re to preserve this endangered bird,” Cheasty said. 

“CESP has sued Harrah’s over the proposed Point Molate casino in Richmond, and if this casino is approved, we will sue to protect the clapper rail,” he continued. “They’re the ones that will disappear when we bring in this kind of development.” 

Richard Elgin of the Oakland City Attorney’s office questioned whether the Kois had had historical connection with the shoreline at all. “The Ohlones claim that they should be the proper tribe,” he said. 

Elgin also voiced his concern that the casino would fall under the jurisdiction of the federal environmental process, which lacks the California Environmental Quality Act’s (CEQA) ability to force a developer to mitigate adverse impacts resulting from a project. 

In addition, he mused, “The tribe says they are willing to give $30 million, but how much money will be going out of Oakland that might otherwise go to other jobs and business. Would it be draining hundreds of millions from our community?” 

The public comment period that followed revealed strong opposition and very little support from those who had come to watch. 

“Now I get to say ‘I told you so,’” said playwright Judith Offer, who wrote a musical three years ago about a casino coming to Oakland. 

George Logan, a retired UC Berkeley economist, said that the promised jobs weren’t likely to offset the loss of local funds that would flow to Nevada casino operators. 

San Francisco Director of Environmental Health Rajiv Bhatia said that casinos produce lingering health impacts on the community and urged Brunner and the council to try to bring the project under CEQA to authorize a social impact study.