Small and Large Circles of Misinformation

As I’ve said before, POLO and friends keep disseminating the same circle of misinformation over and over again. Well, as Ronald Reagan used to say,” There you go again”.

There was an article by Peter Hecht in the Sacramento Bee yesterday about the gaming agreements that passed on Tuesday. In that article M Hecht said “Passage of the referendums boosts Schwarzenegger's hopes to continue to negotiate casino deals to generate more revenues for the state's cash-strapped general fund.

The Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, which operates a casino in Santa Barbara County with 2,000 slot machines, has expressed interest in adding up to 5,000 more.”

POLO immediately issued a press release stating “Since January 2007, P.O.L.O. and POSY have tried to explain to our county government and the community that the Santa Ynez Band would attempt to significantly expand their gambling operation.

Today, the Sacamento Bee published the Santa Ynez Band's intent to add 5,000 more slot machines to their current 2,000 slot gambling operation.

It is now more important than ever for host communities like our Valley to have legal "standing" in the process of tribal gambling and land expansion.

So, POLO sees the Sac Bee article and immediately lights a fire under it as if it's some kind of hot scoop or breaking news and that we should all jump up out of our chairs and walk in circles and be worried. Alarmist propaganda – Part II.

This is still the same circle of misinformation, but not so small. This one took a year to come back around to us.

I emailed Mr. Hecht to ask him about his comment about the Chumash expressing interest in adding 5000 more slots ( Notice that POLO used the word “intent” rather than “ interest”… sounds more alarming that way)

He emailed me back with this:
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From: "Hecht, Peter - Sacramento"
To:
Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2008 4:34 PM
Subject: RE: Chumash...


This is not new information. The "has expressed interest" sentence
refers to the tribal chairman's comments at the Feb. 13, 2007 Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors meeting.

http://www.nomoreslots.com/images/BoardofSupervisorsStatementFeb13,07.pdf

The tribe says it has backed off and isn't pursuing an expansion.
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Notice the link he provided. It is from the NOMORESLOTS (same tree as POLO/POSY) web site from a year ago when Alarmist Propaganda – Part I was in it’s hey day and Vince Armenta was before the County Board of Supervisors explaining the context of the Chumash’s conversation with the Gov. back in 2006. Why was Mr. Armenta there? Because of POLO and the written minutes of a Sept. 19 meeting of the Santa Ynez tribe's General Council that they had obtained. The ONLY reason that meeting before the BOS took place a year ago was because of the pressure applied to Firestone by POLO and Co.

POLO > NOMORESLOTS > BOS MEETING > SAC BEE ARTICLE > POLO AGAIN

So there we have it. It took a round about way and took a year, but it is still the continuation of the same circle of misinformation perpetuated by POLO and friends.

Link:
http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/691243.html