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NE NIGHT 35 YEARS ago, a stormhit the Alexander Valley, in rheheart of California wine country.It wasn't an especially notable del-uge-·no one seems to rememberhow long ir lasted or how manyinches of rain fell on the vineyardsthat carpet these hills. All anyoneknows is that by the time down-

pour turned to drizzle, a few dozen members of the impover-ished Porno Indian tribe found themselves stranded by 3 floodthat had destroyed rhe one road linking their 75"acre reserva-tion to Highway 128 and, by extension, the world beyond.

So Candace Cadd's grandmother did rhe sort of thing goodneighbors sometimes do. She sold the Pornos the right-of-wayon a country lane that WO\H1d up from the highway, throughher vineyard, and to their reservation, and she sold it to themfor all of one dollar. She didn't think to crOSS the t's and dotthe i's on the deal-s-to specify, for example, precisely who

could use the road, and when, and for what purpose. "Shedidn't think twice about it," says Caddo

Fast-forward to the present day. The Porno tribe is abcccto build a one-million-square-foor casino right next door toCadd and her acres of vines, They've partnered with developerMark Advent, besr known for erecting Las Vegas's exuberantlygarish New York-New York, andmake no mistake abour It,tribal officials predict big things for his latest endenvor-2,OOOemployees and as many as 5,000 customers showing up eachday at (he doors of a $100 million complex that, Adventboasts, will rival the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. Of course,for all these grand plans, there will still be only one way ro getin: through the oak-lined drive Cadd's grandmother deededthe tribe more than a generation ago.

"It's devastating," Cadd says. "If this were a Wal-lvlart or2 Costco, it would never happen. But we're dealing wirh anIndian nation here, and if they want to build a casino in ourbackyard, there's nothing we can do about it."

Nothing, that is, since lasr March, when California voters

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A few minutes from the Las Vegas "Strip" Is the newHyatt Reget1~y lake Las Veg~s,.Resort. $urrt;)~nded

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politicsscrabble existence. Three years ago, theyopened their first casino in a tent. Nowthey're building one casino complex inthe center of Palm Springs's historic dis-trict and a second OIl the highway intotown. They've bought a 45 percent in-rerest in R lOCG\ bank and plan to usesome of their gambling profits to restoretheir ancestral homeland in the hills."There's great pride in what we've donehere," he says. "Y'l./e've waited ;~longrime for it."

BI.:t California's honeymoon with ca-sino gambling is also proving to be thestart of a vast and largely uncontrolledexperiment with the Law of UnintendedConsequence". Although 41 Californiatribes have run gambling facilities for thepasr 10 years, these operations have beensmall and easily ignored. The Vegas-sizeresorts permitted by the ballot proposi-tion are a different animal. Statewide,about 20 of these casinos are planned;1l10 about 40 existing facilities are beingexpanded. And as this happens, prob-

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lerns have been cropping up that Indiansand non-Indiana alike have found them-sel yes powerless to fix,

"We're left with no remedies andno place ro go," fumes Robert Coffin, alawyer in Lakeside, San Diego County,where neighborhood wells have gonedry in the months since June, after theBarona Band of Mission Indians in-stalled a groundwater-fed golf courseas part of the $120 million expansion ofthe reso~ complex on their reservationhere. Tribal officials dismiss allegations

leveled by Coffin and his neighborthat it is their golf course that has cause,the local water table to plummet, bur iis also true, as in the: case of the Pornosthat the Barona tribe has been fr,'c' ,:pursue its ambitious plans withouthe community review other projects g'through as a matter of course, "Thtribes ale sovereign nations, and becausof that, they're immune from lawsuitsthey're lrr,I11I,U"IC from environmentallaw;they don't have co share information,Coffin says.

Local elected officials GIn be itlst ,)vexed by not only the impact these massive projects can have on local water rables and sanitation systems, on policand fire services, bur also their generainability ro do much a bout It. As "dependent sovereign nations," Indian tribeoccupv a special legal category thamakes them something Weestates, something like foreign countries, somerlnnquire unlike anything else on earthConsequently, they do not pay taxes aconventional businesses do, and whilthe law instructs them to make "goo'

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politicsfaith" efforts to observe local ordinances,it: cannot compel them to do so. On top ofall this, there arc tile great unknowables=-the social cost rhat will be incurred bycasino gambling on the scale presentlycontemplated, not to mention its impacton social. SCTVlCe budgets and the cultureand quality of life in the state.

"There will be addiction issues, andthe counties arc the ones that will have toaddress them," says Imperial County su-pervisor WaJ!y Leirngruber. "If 3 childis without clothing -Dr food or medicalcare because of sorneones gambling prob-lem, it's going to be up to ,he county (0step in.n

Yet the most insidious unmtcndedconseq uence of all rnay be an increasingtendency for tribes to wage CIVI! warover who is oificiaUy an Indian "It neverused to happen, bur now money's

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politicsand expected to increase considerablyonce the casino installs its full cornple-menr of slot machines; Proposition '1Aallows each tribe to install up to 2,000of them. Federal authorities recognizemany of the 100 as legitimate membersof the tribe but say they are powerless cointervene, asserting that tribes have thesovereign right to determine their own

INDIAN TRIBESoccupy a speciallegal category,and while the lawinstructs themto make "good faith"efforts to observelocal ordinances,it cannot compelthem to do so,

membership policies."This is just a continuation of the

genocide of the Indians by ether means, ,jsays \X/assof the refusal by the Bureau ofIndian Affairs to get involved in this dis-pute and others like ir. "There were nodisenrollmenrs before the gaming moneystarted rolling in. Now the governmenthas Indian versus Indian, and they don'thave to get their bands dirty."

The subrext of rhis friction is t'I harsh,

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central reality: Despite the explosion inIndian gaming, relatively few Indianswill ever see a dime from the casinos.Roughly 40,000 of the state's 300,000Native Americans are members of fed-erally recognized tribes. Only those whowere part of the tribes when they weregranted federal status-e-regardless ofwhether they currently live on a reser-vation-are in on the gambling money.The rest, quite simply, are out of luck."Which is why it's inevitable you're goingto have these conflicts," says HowardDickstein, a lawyer who represents sev-eral Indian tribes. "The United Statesgovernment's recognition policy towardthe Indian tribes in California is unfair,inconsistent", and stupid."

Words, too, that mighr be used to de-scribe the blunt tool voters wielded toadvance the cause of Indian self-suffi-ciency, Nor every Native American inCalifornia sees casino gambling as a sal-vation. In Jamul, in San Diego '~~ounty~a small grOlJP of Jamul Indians is suingto block its own tribe from putting up acasino On its six-acre reservation. "They'reisolated, cursed at," says one townsman."It's rough going for them." In the Alex-ander Valley, Cadd says acquaintanceson the reservation grumbled at the pros-pect of their rural way of Hie being up-rooted by a casino. One member of thereservation, speaking on the conditionof anonymity, agreed. "It's all about getrich quick," the member says. "But youdon't go around saying that. You're ex-pected to fall in line."

The pressures to do so arc> no doubt,considerable. The individual tribes arenot required to disclose how much moneytheir casinos make, in 1997 they esri-mated their collective statewide gross rev-enue at $1.4 billion, or $77,800 pergambling tribe member. bur the stateprojects that by 2003 the S9 tribes thathave or will have casinos in bperationwill gross $4.7 billion. Already, NativeAmerican gaming tribes have. emergedas the most formidable lobbying forcein Sacramento, and that is not goingto be any less true as casino revenuesincrease.

"Let's think about this=-two thousandslot machines per tribe, three hundred rofour hundred dollars per day," Lcimgr•...•bersighs. "We're going to enrich a few and im ..poverish so many." LA

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