01/27/2009

- Voter-denied casino still in game

by Ryan McCarthy - Appeal Democrat

It's a last try for approval of an Indian casino and an eight-story, 170-room hotel that Yuba County residents have voted against, says state Assemblyman Dan Logue — while the Marysville mayor sees the project as right for tough economic times.

"It made a lot of sense two years ago," Mayor Bill Harris said of the $150 million proposal. "It makes even more sense with the economy being so challenging."

Enterprise Rancheria of Maidu Indians in Butte County has applied to conduct off-reservation gaming activities on 40 acres outside Olivehurst near Forty Mile Road and Highway 65 close to the Sleep Train Amphitheatre, the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs said in a notice earlier this month asking local agencies to comment on the project.

Logue said the Oroville-based rancheria is "reservation shopping" — seeking a site away from the tribe's ancestral land in Oroville to instead locate a casino along the Highway 65 corridor.

But Glenda Nelson, tribal chair of the Enterprise Rancheria, said its lands were in the Feather River watershed — and that the river runs right past the proposed casino site.