Minutes Exposed - What Have We Learned?

An article in The Santa Ynez Valley Journal dated April 18, 2007, commented on potential casino expansion and possible misuse of off reservation properties. They also published the Tribal General Council Meeting Minutes of February 21, 2006.

At the very beginning the article states, “The Santa Ynez California Band of Chumash have made repeated claims in the media that they are not currently seeking to expand their casino gaming.” This is true and an email from Senator McClintock’s staff to me on March 20, 2007 confirmed it… “..nothing is in the works for the tribe to add 5000 more slots....or add any slots for that matter.” The article then claims that “anti expansion groups claim that the plans of expansion came to light due to comments by the tribal chairman himself in public meetings with Santa Barbara County Supervisors” This is all old news and has been gone over many, many times, and it boils down to the fact that, over and over again these groups take these few words, “Every tribe asked for 5000 or more machines as did ours” , these few words out of many, many words, then put the blinders on, put the earplugs in and cry wolf. The words spoken by Mr Armenta right before those words were, “All those tribes asked for similar things to see what the governor’s office would say.” I’m not a businessman but it would seem rather irresponsible for anyone operating a business not to always be looking ahead and planning for the future. Or is it because they are Chumash they don’t have that right? The rules for tribes to do business in California are set. They have no choice but to go through the governor. Did they expect to walk away with an agreement? No. Were they supporting other tribes who were seriously ready to negotiate? Yes. Were they going through the motions to set up possible future negotiations? Probably. Did not POLO/POSY sue the BIA even though they, according to Jon Bowen “never expected to win”? Why did they sue if they didn’t expect to win? Was it because they had to go through the motions to be allowed to get to the Federal level?Oh yeah, and there was also this in the Tribal Minutes, “There is no way we can accommodate 5,000 machines without some expansion but we may be able to within ten years”. MAYBE WITHIN TEN YEARS. Do we have “only a few weeks to speak up before 7000 slots become reality” as these groups claimed in full page ads? No.

Where would we be today if the tribal minutes had not somehow gotten in the hands of POLO/POSY. After all, those private, confidential documents (it would be VERY interesting to know how these groups obtained these documents) are why we are where we are today. It is the reason the Chumash have closed off all communication lines to the County Board of Supervisors. It is the reason for petition signatures gathered throughout the county to protest something that doesn’t exist. It is the reason for many full-page ads, articles, letters and press conferences. It is the reason this blog exists.

If these documents were never exposed to the public would we have woken up one morning later this year to discover that the Chumash had slipped in 5000 more slots behind our back. No. Would we wake up to find that the Chumash have added 3 more stories to their hotel and have added 5 more levels to their parking structures? No. Would we have slot machines in Buellton and Solvang? No. What we would have is open communication between the County Board of Supervisors and the Chumash. The County would have an invitation to sit in on negotiations between the governor’s office and the Chumash should they ever decide to seriously renegotiate their current compact. That invitation is now gone. The County is ultimately responsible for allowing to be pressured by these groups to jump through some, in my opinion, meaningless hoops and in the process alienate the tribe, but the trumped up alarmist propaganda generated by these minority groups led to this sad reality. Ironic that the very thing POLO and POSY and the others wanted was already in place, which was to have a voice in the process. Because of their antics that opportunity, for now anyway, is gone.

To me, having these minutes exposed to the public equates to corporate espionage, but these documents have been revealed and the damage has been done. The question I have is why is the Journal going through them and publishing parts of them. Its no secret that POLO/POSY and the Journal have strong ties, but what are we really learning from this? The minutes were published in full but were basically pictures of photocopies of the documents and unless you copied them and then enlarged them you couldn’t read them. I understand the space restraint the Journal has and I commend and thank them for publishing the photocopies.

The article states that the minutes “tell of plans that are being carried out today with the purchase of off reservation properties” and then they publish the average earnings of a weekend during 2005. Are these earnings an issue? It’s no secret that casinos generate millions and millions of dollars. What is the reason for publishing these numbers? Are they jealous? Do they think that it’s not fair that the Chumash are making a lot of money? Are they surprised at how much they are making? Is it any of their business to be concerned with these numbers? I don’t think it is. How many businesses open their books to the public?

The article then goes on to publish certain sections of the minutes where the tribe discusses additional hotel rooms, off-site parking as well as, off-reservation properties. Has the tribe ever said that they will never look to expand? Have they ever said that they will keep the casino and the reservation exactly the way it is now forever and that they would never purchase off-reservation properties? I don’t think so. Isn’t it their right, just as any other business in the valley has the right, to plan ahead to ensure financial security for their children and grandchildren? Anti-casino groups and their supporters are treating these minutes as a big exposé. As if the Chumash, for the last year and few months had secret plans to slip in behind our backs the acquisition of Fedricko’s and the Scandinavian Inn to use for expanding their gaming activities. It seems they believe that now that these minutes are revealed we can see the truth behind their secret plans. The Chumash announced in Nov, 2006 that they were purchasing the Royal Scandinavian Inn and a week before that they disclosed the details of the Federico’s acquisition saying it will “become the new Chumash Employee Resource Center”, where, “it will house the Chumash training university and the tribe's human resources and accounting departments” as well as “provide parking and bus pickup service for employees and casino visitors”. That is exactly what it is today. Were they hiding something from us?

My question to these groups is where were all of the letters, full-page ads and general media hype 5 months ago. Why all of a sudden do we have a crisis on our hands? There doesn’t seem to be any big secret agenda here by the Chumash. They even say in the minutes that “Some due diligence will need to be completed to be sure we are not in violation of any is restricted for the property in Buellton. There is no gaming violation involved as long as the records are not taken off site” Were they looking to slip illegal gaming activity into Buellton? No. As the article states, the California Gambling Control Commission addressed a letter to Tribal Chairman Vincent Armenta on March 21, 2007 requesting the Tribe to identify which sites and facilities on non-Indian lands, if any, are being used to train casino staff. We will see how this plays out but in any case the tribe was not trying to hide anything. Again I have to ask the question. Why are we publishing these minutes and why now? What are we really learning?

What I think we are learning is that about 15 months ago the Chumash, in a private General Council Meeting, determined that they had outgrown their space and were looking at on and off-site solutions which included, legally moving administration, human resources and accounting off the reservation. They discussed making non-gaming areas into gaming areas. This doesn’t mean adding more slots in place of office space or in Solvang or Buellton. Slots are classified as Class III. The Chumash also have Class I and Class II gaming where they can add as much of these as they want. They also determined they could use off-reservation hotel rooms and parking spaces and since then have acquired property for those purposes. All made public 5 months ago. They saw the wine industry in the valley as a major attraction calling the valley the “next Napa” and wanted to be able to accommodate these tourists as well. They discussed the possibility of adding 5000 more slots within ten years and said a study was being done. I understand that adding 5000 slots, when and if the Chumash decide to go down that road, will be a big issue. But they are very far away from that and, when and if the time comes, the "blueprint" for these renogotiated compacts will allow for the local communities and governments to have a major voice in the matter. The Chumash will have to prepare an environmental impact report to assess the potential environmental effects of new and expanded gaming facilities, and detail how environmental damages will be mitigated. The tribe will have to reach intergovernmental agreements with our county and any impacted cities to account for and mitigate the effect of gaming facilities on law enforcement, fire protection and public services. New construction must meet or exceed the building and safety codes of the county. And, again, this is all years away if it ever happens at all. These groups have tried to convince the valley that expansion of the casino is eminent and that we better speak up now. Why? Not enough controversy in the valley? Not enough drama in their lives. Andy Caldwell called them "the valley drama queens". Might be appropriate. Any way these minutes have not revealed any earth shattering news unless they think they have put a feather in their cap by exposing private minutes of their arch rival which these groups seem to see the Chumash as.

As long as we are examining these documents lets look at a little more. What the Journal did not publish along with the other excerpts in the main body of the article was this from page 5 paragraphs 3 and 8:“Mr. Brents said the reason for buying additional hotel space is the urgency of capturing the revenue and the need to take advantage of the opportunity. The Chairman added that acquiring the hotel is an additional source of revenue for the tribe. It is diversification and is an asset we could buy. Our compact is good through 2020. We don’t know what is going to happen after 2020. We have a museum going on and now the youth center that was just approved. After the compact is over, we are going to have additional expenses for all these facilities. As we go into this, we should look at what invest our money in that will give us a return in the future that is not based on gaming. David Dominguez commented that if we had a hotel such as what is being proposed, the tribe could focus on hosting Indian Health, housing, ICWA rather than just gaming.”

The gambling industry has given them the financial wealth to do a lot of things in the last decade and they have done a lot of good for not only themselves but for others. Seems it’s not all about gaming and money with them.

I don’t think people give them enough credit for this but look at what they did when they built the casino, hotel and parking structures. They did the right thing for the Valley and, I believe, for them-selves. They could have built a 5 -10 story hotel on top of the casino in the traditional casino style. They could have built the parking structures 4 or 5 times higher than they did. But because they didn’t, the casino, hotel and parking structures sit below the skyline and on Hwy 246 you do not see it until you are ¼ mile from it and then ¼ mile down the road it is out of view. Two blocks away in downtown Santa Ynez, you cannot see the casino. Driving around Santa Ynez, you cannot see it. There are no big lit up billboards or signs and the building itself is beautiful. Ironic that had they built the casino, hotel and parking structures in the “traditional” casino style, which they had every right to do, they probably would not be having these discussions about outgrowing their space today. After all the grief these groups have caused them they are probably wishing they had.

One of the things that motivated me to start this blog was to expose misinformation and to clarify foggy statements made by anyone making them. The Journal, in this article, is keeping me in business. The article stated,” Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is considering proposals to amend the states tribal compacts, which could help increase California’s revenue, initially by approximately 500 million dollars.” You would think that by April 18 of this year the staff of the Journal would know what is happening in Sacramento and what the process is. Clearly they have not done the research or they are just spreading more rumors. The governor has been signing compacts with tribes since 2004. http://gov.ca.gov/index.php?/press-release/2987/ The governor is the champion for these compacts but all he can do is sign agreements with the tribes then it is up to the state legislature and the BIA to put them into effect. To infer that it is all up to the Governor on whether tribes get more slots or not is irresponsible reporting.

Full page ads have asked us “Do we want to be a casino town?” Guess what? We already are and have been for awhile and as long as the State of California has a lottery and allows horse racing we will have a casino in our town. We are a casino town, just as we are a wine, horse, and Danish town.

http://www.hotel-online.com/News/PR2006_4th/Nov06_Chumash.html
lhttp://www.syvjournal.com/archive/5/5/86/