Opinion - Columns - Bob Cuddy

Saturday, Jul. 11, 2009

Bob Cuddy: Long odds in short term for casino

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The rumor scurries into town every few years, old-timers say, and it’s back again, lurking this time in that cauldron of get-rich-quick schemes so expertly stirred by our impressive local army of scam artists and swindlers.

Sorry, I mean alleged swindlers.

The rumor: An Indian casino is headed for the currently casino-less San Luis Obispo County.

The cauldron: An allegation in the bankruptcy case of Kelly Gearhart that mentions such an effort by the Salinan tribe.

I’m not going to get into the allegations. I leave that to my colleague Melanie Cleveland, whose reporting over the past year about Gearhart, Hurst Financial and other “entrepreneurs” has peeled the skin off a hair-raising series of putrid economic enterprises.

My purpose here is to explore what my chances are of winning some money at the tables in this county.

The answer: Not very good.

Even if the Salinans had had a reliable sugar daddy to back their efforts, as they erroneously believed they had with Gearhart, a casino might never have come to pass.

Not to discourage folks whose right arms are twitching with the desire to pull down on a slot machine, but starting a casino is no easy matter.

If you doubt that, Google the various online combinations of Bureau of Indian Affairs, casino, tribes and regulations.

You won’t come up for air for three weeks. You’ll be dizzy with details and contradictions, and convinced that you somehow fell into a vat containing the Lost Ark of the Bureaucrats.

Here is what it takes — and this is way oversimplified, but it will give you an idea — to get a casino on the ground.

First, the tribe must petition to be recognized by the federal government. That is the real hurdle.

To achieve federal recognition, a tribe must basically prove that it has existed continuously since 1900. That includes cultural and political continuity.

Try doing that after your ancestors were mostly wiped out, their land taken and the survivors scattered. At one time there was a bounty on Salinan scalps, which is not a strong incentive to stick around and maintain tribal cohesiveness.

You can understand why the feds are so rigorous. They don’t want Joe-Bob and Harley Doakes claiming to be members of the Slopahog Tribe and getting recognition so they can build a bingo palace.

But proving this kind of continuity seems almost impossible, even for those with legitimate claims.

One thing is certain: It’s expensive. Gary Pierce and Chris Molina of the Salinan tribe told The Tribune that they have had to hire all manner of experts to prove the things the feds want proven.

They have hired genealogists, ethno-historians, anthropologists and attorneys, most of them high-priced specialists. They have had to cull birth and death records, and search for all manner of obscure documents.

That’s expensive, although John Johnson, curator for the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum, says the $900,000 the Salinan tribe has spent is reasonable.

A landless tribe must also buy land.

This is where investors come in. Sometimes they offer to bankroll a tribe’s efforts at federal recognition or land purchase, hoping in the long run to be cut in on a casino deal.

Pierce and Molina acknowledge the necessity of money in this tangled process, but they say the end goal is not a casino — it is control of their ancestors and culture, and the tribe’s history and future. The casino, they say, is merely a means to that end.

All of the gathered information must get the stamp of approval from the Office of Federal Acknowledgment. (I’m not making that up; I only wish I were that witty.)

Then there are various other federal and state hoops to lurch through, and even if they don’t stumble there, tribal leaders must deal with local agencies. You can’t build a casino, or housing, if the county or city doesn’t make nice with water, sewage and the like.

So, the Salinans have a high mountain to climb. Because of the problems with Gearhart and the attendant drying up of money, Molina says Salinan efforts at federal recognition are stalled for now.

But he and the tribe are not giving up. They are still fighting for recognition, and engaging the bureaucracy.

At best, their effort will take years to succeed, perhaps as many as 10 or 20.

So if you’re itching to gamble hereabouts, you’ll just have to buy a lottery ticket. It’ll save those arm muscles.