Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Hey let's get drunk and go to the Casino!

Living here in western Yolo County means many things, the beauty of the Blue Ridge in the spring, bringing the family to a picnic at one of the neighbor's ranches, the 4-H spring show at the fairgrounds and trying not to be killed by the Casino traffic.

Friday night it happened again, one of the locals that lived in Capay was struck and killed by a casino patron as he walked to his house. So what you might say, people get killed all the time and this is no different. No, this is different. When I was in my twenties living here, you could set up a poker game on Highway 16 after 10:00 pm on any weeknight and not get disturbed until 4:30 or 5:00 am when the farmers and ranchers started their day. Not anymore, now it's bumper to bumper on weekends and during the week its still 24 hours a day of speeding casino players. What has changed? Ten thousand new residences built in a small farming community? Nope. I know that has happened all to often in other places, but Yolo County is very agriculture friendly and does not allow much new building at all, especially in the rural, western part of the County.

What happened is the Rumsey band of Wintun Indians built a small bingo parlor on their land. I understand it's their land and they have the right to do what they want with it. I also know that before the bingo parlor went in, there were only a handful of Indians living there. As bingo grew more popular, the traffic increased. In the 90's the tribe, flush with money, opened a large casino. Cache Creek Casino was much larger and their patrons were coming from farther away to spend their paychecks.

The Casino is about 15 miles from Interstate 505, so when you take this exit you must drive through three small towns before you can start loosing your money in Brooks. The towns of Madison, Esparto and Capay are just obstacles for these people. Think of having a casino at the far end of your street in a residential neighborhood. Do you think people will slow down because you live there, your kids are playing and this is a residential area? Nope, hammer down, I've got to play those slots!

In 2004 the tribe opened the new Cache Creek Resort Hotel and Casino. The locals were not thrilled. The promise of no alcohol at the Casino was disregarded and now we have drunken casino players speeding through the valley. The tribe has built new luxury homes for their members and the handful of Wintuns has grown to close to a hundred. The tribe, to get approval on the new resort, is giving millions of dollars to the County over the next 10 years to help mitigate some of problems that the new resort is causing. Who replaces the lives of the people killed?

I don't want to get into the Ward Churchill debate of we screwed them first and now we are getting payback. My wife is a Pottawattamie Indian. I am an avid reader of US and western history, I know what happened.

I guess what really gets me, is they are beating us at our game. They have taken capitalism and greed to its highest form. The tribe may be good business people, they are just lousy neighbors. Their new motto should be "Yea for us, sucks to be you".

I geuss I can sell out move to Montana with all the other Californians.

2 comments:

KarbonKountyMoos said...

Now cut that out!

Walt Lucas said...

Hey Moos, I hear there is a great place for sale in Red Lodge. Do you want new and exiting neighbors?

I bet you want to enforce the border.
The Montana border!

What's the state motto?

Welcome to Montana, keep your BMW rollin until you get to North Dakota?