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Fans and foes of East Bay casino proposals have had reasons both to celebrate and to fret in recent days. 

Two Richmond casino projects took significant steps forward while another in San Pablo was dealt a major setback. 

Plans for the Sugar Bowl Casino advanced Friday when the Sacramento office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) sent federal, state, local and tribal officials a 12-page notice about the Scotts Valley Band of Pomos’ plans for building a major casino in unincorporated North Richmond. 

While the notice isn’t an approval, the information it generates can help the BIA negotiate the terms of an accord on the project, according to Kevin Bearquiver of the BIA’s Sacramento office. 

The final decision rests with Secretary of Interior Gale Norton, and the BIA request is designed to gauge the impact of removal of the project site from local tax rolls.  

Berkeley developer James D. Levine’s plans for a massive luxury casino resort at Point Molate also took another step forward when the BIA announced a date for a Richmond scoping session on the project’s environmental impacts. 

That session, open to the public, will occur on March 31 in the Richmond Memorial Auditorium, 403 Civic Center Plaza. 

The scoping session on the Sugar Bowl was held last Aug. 4, which would place the Scotts Valley Pomos about seven months ahead of the Guidiville Rancheria Pomos in the race to build the first Richmond casino. 

Meanwhile, the Lytton Band of Pomos’ plans to transform a San Pablo cardroom, a struggling casino just off Interstate 80 at San Pablo Boulevard, into a Las Vegas-sized casino were dealt a major setback Friday. Rep. George Miller, the House Democrat who inserted a clause granting the tribe rights to buy Casino San Pablo, notified two state legislators about his second thoughts on the project. 

The San Pablo casino project soared into the headlines last year when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a pact that would allow the tribe to build a 5,000-slot-machine operation at the site. 

When legislators in the state Senate and Assembly—who must give their approval to gambling compacts—rebelled, the tribe and governor came back with another proposal that halved the number of slots. 

Miller expressed his reservations in a two-page letter to California Senate President pro tem Don Perata and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez. 

“[S]omewhere between when Congress approved the land transfer and today, the project that was originally brought to me and to the Congress by the city and the tribe changed dramatically,” Miler wrote, “What was then described as a modest casino with 1,000 slot machines, to be developed within the context of the existing card room facility, instead was turned into a (5,000-slot machine) proposal. . .that would make Casino San Pablo one of the three largest casinos in the nation.” 

Miller said the process “has been grossly distorted by those who have sought to use the casino to achieve their own particular goals rather than the local goals of the community,” and blamed Schwarzenegger in particular for attempting to use casinos to solve the state budget crisis. 

Expressing reservation about the later 2,500-slot proposal, Miller noted that while federal law requires the state to negotiate in good faith with the tribe, it “does not guarantee the tribe a casino of any size nor does it obligate the governor to approve a casino of any size.” 

Miller’s letter drew an immediate rebuttal from Lytton Tribal Chair Margie Mejia, who praised the project’s ability to create 6,600 jobs and alleviate the fiscal crises of the city and Contra Costa County. 

San Pablo city officials said approval of the compact is a prerequisite to the poverty-ridden city’s continuing survival as a legal entity. Absent casino revenues, they say, their city would be forced to disincorporate. 

Schwarzenegger’s 2,500-slot proposal remains alive in the state legislature, where senators and assemblymembers have been busily writing up counter-proposals. 

East Bay Assemblymember Loni Hancock, who has been at the forefront of urban casino opposition, hailed Miller’s letter.›