Bill to Protect Casino Is a Bad Bet

For the past six years, northern San Diego County’s Pala band of Mission Indians has tried and failed to prevent construction of the Gregory Canyon landfill near its tribal lands and Gregory Mountain, which the Palas hold sacred. County voters approved the landfill construction in 1994 by a vote of 68% to 32%, and the project has passed environmental muster and survived court challenges by the Palas up to the state Supreme Court. But today, the last day of this year’s legislative session, the band appears near success in muscling a bill through the Legislature to kill the landfill project.

Why are they so opposed to the landfill? One reason, it seems clear, is that the project would be about a mile from the proposed $100-million gambling casino and resort the tribe is building. And how is the tribe able to come within an inch of getting the Legislature to do its will? Because of the political clout of California Indian tribes, the result of contributing millions of dollars to state legislative campaigns. The Palas did not raise the religious issue until late in the game.

This is a pure power play and bad public policy. Lawmakers should kill the bill, AB 2752, sponsored by Assemblyman Dennis Cardoza (D-Merced) and supported by the Pala band and nearly every other tribe in the state. If the bill does pass, Gov. Gray Davis should veto it.

One provision of the Cardoza bill requires the state to reject any landfill within a mile of a tribal reservation and a sacred site. The developer owns Gregory Mountain itself but has offered to give the Palas the 500-acre mountain, along with 1,400 adjacent acres, as a cultural and wildlife preserve.

The immediate area, held sacred, is the site of two quarries, dairy farms and a major power line. Garbage trucks would use the same road as casino patrons.

California must respect legitimate Indian rights, sovereignty and sacred sites. In this case, however, the public good is on the side of San Diego County and the landfill developers.

The Legislature should reject this bill.