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California Tribal Casino Plans Hit Obstacle

"However, the Soboba Band of Luiseno Indians' dreams of opening a second casino on land they won two years ago in a settlement of a decades-old water-rights dispute has run headlong into a swelling statewide backlash against proposals to build casinos away from reservations.

"A Temecula city councilman who is one of the leading local opponents suggests it would be a grave mistake if federal officials were to let the tribe open a gambling hall at Winchester Road and Domenigoni Parkway, a dozen miles from the Sobobas' 5,000-acre reservation west of Hemet.

"'It means a casino can go anywhere,' Councilman Mike Naggar said in an interview last week.

"…That scenario, Naggar said, is a far cry from the idea sold to California voters in 2000, when they overwhelmingly approved Proposition 1A and gave tribes the green light to build casinos on reservations. He suggested voters were led to believe gambling centers would go only in rural areas on existing reservations, for the purpose of boosting then-struggling reservation economies and partially making amends for past mistreatment at the hands of the U.S. government.

"…Karl Johnson, an Albuquerque, N.M., attorney who represents the Soboba Band, disagreed that opening a casino in Winchester would open the floodgates to off-reservation casinos. He said the Sobobas are in a 'special situation' that differs in several ways from the Northern California proposal.

"'One significant difference is that the area around Winchester is in the Soboba aboriginal territory,' Johnson said.

"…Johnson said another significant difference is that the Riverside County tribe is receiving land as compensation for damage to its reservation, satisfying another specific condition of a 1988 federal law…"

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