The First Appellate District Court last Wednesday released a 19-page opinion overturning a trial court decision that ruled that the city of Richmond had violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) when it had entered into a municipal services agreement with the tribe for its proposed Sugar Bowl Casino.
The 225,000-square-foot casino, proposed to be located on nearly 30 acres in north Richmond adjacent to the city, would have 2,000 gaming machines and 50 gaming tables, as Lake County News has reported.
The tribe, which has offices in both Lakeport and Contra Costa County, had its federal status terminated in 1965, and as a result lost its tribal lands in Lake County. The tribe's status was reinstated by the secretary of the federal Department of the Interior in 1992, according to court records.
Scotts Valley submitted an application to the Department of the Interior in January 2005 seeking to have the land in Richmond placed in trust, court records noted.
In April 2006, the tribe and Richmond officials began meeting on the municipal services agreement, which would pay millions of dollars to the city for police and fire services. In the beginning the annual payments would be more than $13 million, and would be annually adjusted over the agreement's 20-year term.
The Parchester Village Neighborhood Council, the Citizens of East Shore Parks, Sustainability, Parks, Recycling and Wildlife Defense Fund and Whitney Dotson filed a lawsuit in July 2007 alleging that the agreement violated CEQA. The trial court issued a final ruling in September 2008, court records explain.
However, the appellate court found that CEQA's requirements weren't triggered because the casino isn't a city project and the city “has no legal authority over the property upon which the casino will be situated.”
The city's pledge to support the tribe's land acquisition efforts also didn't trigger a need for the city to perform an environmental impact report, the justices found.
In addition, the city successfully argued CEQA doesn't apply to city actions “that simply provide a mechanism for funding possible improvements and do not commit the public agency to approve any specific project.”
Although the agreement had mentioned firehouse improvement and funding, “The three firehouse options at this point are simply too vague to trigger CEQA review,” the justices wrote in their opinion.
The agreement comes at a time when local members of the Scotts Valley tribe have begun to publicly oppose the Richmond casino plan.
Les Miller, a former tribal chair, led a rally in downtown Lakeport on Feb. 19, asking community members for support for an alternative plan to purchase Konocti Harbor Resort & Spa and place a casino there.
Miller pointed to the decision issued last September by the National Indian Gaming Commission disapproving a gaming management contract between the tribe and Richmond Gaming Ltd., its investors group, which allegedly provided false information about the partners and their financial interests to the commission, as Lake County news has reported.
The commission and Richmond Gaming have since signed a settlement agreement requiring Richmond Gaming to form a new entity to take over its responsibilities and resubmit the previous management agreement or submit a new one by the end of May. If it fails to do so, the contract will be voided.
Current Tribal Chair Don Arnold responded that Miller's comments about the Sugar Bowl project have been “incorrect, misleading and inappropriate,” adding that Miller was recalled in 2000 and that he doesn't speak for the tribe.
Arnold said in a written statement that the tribe continues to “actively pursue” approvals for its Sugar Bowl Casino from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
“We continue to be extremely optimistic that our project will be approved this year and that the land in north Richmond will be taken into trust by the federal government for the purposes of our tribe's economic independence,” Arnold said.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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