By Peter Andersen

The people claiming to be the tribal leadership of the Jamul Indian Village want the world to think that a new casino in rural Jamul is a forgone conclusion. It is not.

The casino’s backer – Lakes Entertainment, a publicly traded, out-of-state company bankrolling the project – continues to ignore serious obstacles in the way of any proposed casino. State and federal lawsuits that challenge the ownership of the land, among other issues, must be resolved before any casino can be built. So must the question of driveway access to the proposed site.

The village’s steadfast refusal to acknowledge these obstacles is baffling and fuels the widely held theory that recent activities on the reservation have been staged, not for a casino, but to protect the share price of Lakes Entertainment stock.

Casino backers may have succeeded in forcibly removing Walter Rosales and Karen Toggery from their homes on their ancestral land last week, but the acting village leadership can do nothing about the Kumeyaay blood coursing through the veins of these two individuals who remain opposed to the casino.

Rosales, who was born on the proposed casino site, and Toggery, who has lived there most of her life, claim that they are the legitimate members of the tribe and say they have the documentation to prove it. Both are especially distraught because casino construction would unearth burial objects and desecrate the ashes of deceased family members. These acts fly in the face of Kumeyaay culture and tradition.

The two deserve their day in court. Their lawsuits challenge the takeover of the tribal membership by pro-casino individuals with little or no Jamul Kumeyaay blood, the rightful deeded ownership of the property and seek state and federal protection for the grave sites, funerary objects and artifacts.

Far deadlier than legal challenges is the unanswered question of road access to the casino site. The village has said it intends to build a casino driveway off state Route 94, an already deadly two-lane road with the lowest service level possible, an F. Fulfilling its obligation to prevent traffic accidents and deaths, Caltrans has rightfully said that the village cannot take casino access from Route 94. In fact, a development project directly across from the casino site has been barred by the state from using Route 94 as a primary access route.

If the village flaunts Caltrans’ advice and begins driveway construction anyway, the village will be knowingly and wittingly causing additional deaths on that roadway. You can bet that the governor, who remains opposed to the casino, is paying close attention and would direct the state to step in. It also must be noted that the road isn’t the only place where the project would threaten lives. At this moment, the project has no guaranteed fire protection. Unless that changes, patrons who enter the future casino would be gambling with their money and quite possibly their lives.

The longer the village continues to gloss over significant life-or-death matters like deadly Route 94, the more a long-standing conspiracy grows in the community. The highly published and photographed evictions happened five days before Lakes Entertainment was scheduled to brief investors on the company’s 2006 financial report. The timing has led to speculation that the company may have orchestrated the episode to reassure investors that the project was moving forward.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time the village has attempted to display progress with the Jamul casino in advance of a Lakes Entertainment public filing. In December 2005, the village held a casino “ground breaking” ceremony which happened to coincide with the end of a Wall Street financial quarter. The pattern continues.

Village members continue to claim that the Jamul casino will be creating financial freedom and self-sufficiency for village families. However, village families already receive $1.1 million annually from the state by taking part in revenue sharing as a non-gaming tribe.

Sadly, the casino proposal is about greed. It is about money for Lakes Entertainment, a company that continues to show it could care less about tiny Jamul, its honest, law-abiding people, its rural way of life, its open spaces and its dangerous two-lane highway. It is a crying shame that the leaders of the Jamul Indian Village are so blinded by the lure of easy money that they are willing to sell out their ancestors, their blood relatives, their neighbors and the town.

Andersen is president of Jamul Action Committee and Jamulians Against the Casino.

© Copyright 2007 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.

Posted on April 22nd, 2007 by admin
Filed under: Gaming