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Les Miller, a tribal member and former Scotts Valley chairman, said the group will gather at the Courthouse Museum on Main Street from noon to 1:30 p.m.
Their goal is to gather backing for a proposal to purchase Konocti Harbor Resort & Spa – which closed last November – and open a casino there, said Miller.
The resort was reported to be under a sales contract late last year, but resort officials have not returned repeated calls seeking an update on the situation.
For several years the Scotts Valley tribe – which has no trust land – has been working to get approval for its Sugar Bowl Casino plan in north Richmond, where tribal officials say they have ancestral ties.
The plan calls for a 225,000-square-foot facility with 2,000 gaming machines and 50 gaming tables, which the tribe's Web site said will create thousands of jobs.
But some tribal members, like Miller, would rather see the casino here, in the tribe's home area.
They're also hoping to see jobs created in Lake County, where Miller said the community is hurting. He said so far they're receiving broad-based support from community and business leaders who have heard about their plans.
“This is not just a tribal issue anymore, it's a community issue,” Miller said.
However, the current tribal government isn't supporting the plan.
“We're not going to be able to respond immediately,” said Bennett Wright, tribal administrator for the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians, adding that the tribal government would issue a full response next week.
Wright said that certain members of the tribe like Miller have opposed the tribal government before, and that there is nothing factual about their statements.
In turn, Miller said he and other tribal members who have disagreed with the tribal leadership have been intimidated and threatened with disenrollment, and that internal disagreements have deepened over the last 10 years, as the casino plans have been under way.
Miller and his family also have attempted in recent years to vote out Tribal Chair Don Arnold from office and have disputed the results of recent elections.
At the rally Miller said community members will be able to sign a letter asking US Sen. Dianne Feinstein to take action to limit off-reservation casinos. Miller said it would “open up the floodgates” if Scotts Valley's goal for a Richmond casino were allowed to move forward.
However, those plans appear to have hit some significant obstacles.
Last September, the National Indian Gaming Commission issued a decision disapproving a gaming management contract between the tribe and Richmond Gaming Ltd. – which is the group of investors backing the project and the entity which also owns the land for the proposed casino facility.
The reasons for the decision included the commission's finding that Richmond Gaming provided false information about the partners and their financial interests.
“The actions of Richmond are quite serious,” stated then-National Indian Gaming Commission Chairman Philip N. Hogen in a September letter, a copy of which was obtained by Lake County News.
Hogen explained that the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act – or IGRA – “specifically identifies protecting tribes from organized crime and corrupting influences and ensuring that tribes are the primary beneficiary of the gaming as the objectives of IGRA.”
Hogen also faulted Richmond for not answering his questions. He had requested a list of all persons and entities with a financial interest in, or management responsibility for, the contract, which Richmond failed to provide. Many of those names are redacted in the letter available through public records sources.
Miller alleged that the tribal council “were just basically selling the farm to these investors,” and that the plan unraveled.
Richmond Gaming later appealed, and in December the National Indian Gaming Commission and Richmond Gaming – represented by Florida investor Alan H. Ginsburg, a real estate mogul who a San Francisco Weekly article from 2004 identified as also being involved in the Lower Lake Rancheria-Koi Nation's plans for a Bay Area casino – signed a settlement agreement.
In that agreement, Richmond Gaming agreed that it wasn't in compliance with National Indian Gaming Commission regulations regarding submission of management agreements, and as part of the settlement Richmond Gaming withdrew its appeal and the commission withdrew its letter disapproving the management agreement.
Richmond must form a new entity to take over its responsibilities. That company must then resubmit the previous management agreement or submit a new one by the end of May.
If Richmond fails to follow the terms of the settlement, Scotts Valley will have the chance to purchase from the company the casino land at the appraised value, the agreement states. If the company fails to sell the land in that circumstance, Hogen's previous letter voiding the contract will become the agency's final action.
Miller said members of the tribe who want a casino in Lake County know that they're in for a battle.
He said Lake County is where he was raised, and that's where the tribe's efforts should be focused.
“I'm not going to sell my history,” Miller said.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf .
