Four days remain to comment on casino
Tuesday, August 22, 2006 10:22 AM PDT
By Michael Andersen
Printable version
E-mail this articleWith four days left for the public to comment on the Cowlitz Indian tribe's application for a reservation and casino, tribal spokesman David Barnett said there is "no chance" that anti-casino forces will overturn the process.
"It's a federal process," Barnett said. "The processes have all been laid out by Congress."
The extended comment period on the tribe's 135,000-square-foot casino complex ends Friday, Aug. 25.
The law requires the Bureau of Indian Affairs to assess the effect of a casino on its surroundings. The BIA will base its assessment in part on public comments.
A corporation co-owned by Barnett and the Mohegan Tribe own the proposed reservation site, along Interstate 5 near La Center. Barnett's father, John, chairs the tribal council.
[Correction: a previous version of this paragraph said that Barnett's family owned the site. The family transferred its option to the corporation before the sale.]
The comment period has been extended twice, first to 90 days, then to 135, both times at the request of U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, D-Vancouver.
Baird spokeswoman Meghan O'Shaughnessy said Monday that Baird sought the latest extension after "dozens" of phone calls from constituents.
"We're trying to keep the process as open as possible," she said.
Barnett called the second extension "delay tactics by the opposition."
Any comments will be published along with the final environmental impact statement, which is funded by the tribe for federal review.
"We're in the process of writing a final EIS," Gerold Henrikson, who is handling public comments on the Cowlitz application for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. "That will take several months."
"I think it's just sit around and wait until the end of the year," said Barnett.
Barnett and tribal leaders say a casino would give the tribe, federally recognized in 2000, a homeland and enough income to offer services such as health care to its members.
Foes say the project will increase crime and gambling addiction and threaten other local businesses.
"How do you compete," Woodland Chamber of Commerce member Darlene Johnson told The Daily News in June, "if when you go [to the casino], you get free meals? How do you compete with the hotel they're going to build if it's going to be subsidized by not having to pay the taxes that we pay?"
Several casino opponents did not return calls for comment Monday.
For descriptions of the $510 million project, see the tribe's site at www.cowlitzcasino.com/ and an opposition group's site, www.nothereplease.com/.
To comment, write Henrickson at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 911 NE 11th Ave., Portland, OR 97232.
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