Lemoore
– Since The Palace Indian Gaming Center opened its doors to a
full-blown casino four years ago, residents of nearby Lemoore have
formed strong opinions.
Some people eagerly welcomed the casino and continue to support
it today, saying the Tachi Yokut tribe that runs the gaming center
deserves far more than the desolation they lived in for decades
prior to the casino.
Lemoore – Since The Palace Indian Gaming Center opened its doors to a full-blown casino four years ago, residents of nearby Lemoore have formed strong opinions.
Some people eagerly welcomed the casino and continue to support it today, saying the Tachi Yokut tribe that runs the gaming center deserves far more than the desolation they lived in for decades prior to the casino. Other residents remain icy and almost hostile to the impacts they think the casino has had on Lemoore’s social fabric.
From the outside looking in, The Palace seems much like any other casino. Purple and yellow neon lights line the walls in a never-ending pattern of diamonds. Gamblers sit and play and sit and play, some laughing lightly at their luck and others transfixed, locked in a dead stare with the spinning mirage of rainbow lights before them.
The casino sits a mere three miles outside the city limits of Lemoore, a sleepy but quickly growing community of 21,900. Hanford, about nine miles east of Lemoore, is much like Gilroy: a bustling, increasingly commercial and industrial city of about 46,000. The California Valley Miwok tribe is working with about two dozen local investors to build a casino in San Benito County just south of Gilroy. The group has said it expects the resort to compare to Yolo County’s casino, which is 66,000 square feet with 1,762 slots – about one-half the size of The Palace.
Meanwhile, downtown Lemoore hums quietly with a healthy mix of small businesses: seamstresses, photographers, gift shops, antique stores, cafes and nail salons. But just a few miles away, on either side of Highway 41, lie acres of land, with towering power poles almost the only passing sight.
Behind the glitz of The Palace and the pulse of Lemoore is a mosaic of rich, complex relationships.
History of The Palace
For 70 years, the Tachi tribe has lived on the sprawling Santa Rosa Rancheria just off Highway 198 in unincorporated Kings County. Long-time residents of Lemoore say the tribe lived at or below poverty level for years and years, surviving in old cars and tin huts on barren, fruitless land.
“Many people felt they deserved more than what they had out there,” said Rudy Estrada, a Lemoore resident for 67 years who owns a local barber shop. “The land they had was in horrible condition. (The casino) has restored dignity to a very poor, struggling group of people.”
In 1983, a group of East Coast investors built a moderately sized bingo palace on the rancheria. Management of the facility changed hands for about 10 years, until the tribe took over and renamed it The Palace Indian Gaming Center in 1994.
The bingo hall expanded to a full, 140,000-square-foot gaming facility in 2000, complete with 24 table games, 2,000 slots, a food court, a 10,000-seat events center and an outdoor amphitheater that hosts concerts, arena football games and cage fighting. Alcohol is served at special events and in the casino’s second-floor restaurant and buffet but not on the main gaming floor, said the casino’s general manager Adam Gonzales.
Development of the rancheria – once 40 acres, now 1,800 acres – has spread to include a number of tribal facilities: a government center, community housing, a health clinic, an education center and several recreational areas. Farming remains difficult because of high levels of alkaline in the ground, Gonzales said, but the tribe has established its own environmental protection agency to study the feasibility of farming in the future.
In April, a ceremonial ground-breaking celebration took place to mark a $107 million casino expansion, which will construct 177,000 additional square feet of gaming space, a 250-room hotel with two swimming pools, a day spa, a business conference center and a 2,000-seat amphitheater, Gonzales said. The expansion, expected to open late 2005, will create up to 400 jobs in addition to the casino’s current 1,300 employees.
In a city where unemployment hovers between 12 and 15 percent, the casino provides stable income and security for employees, 97 percent of which are full time and 95 percent of which come from the Lemoore/Hanford area, Gonzales said. Benefits include a full medical, dental and vision package, life insurance and a 401(k) plan and an incentive program.
Community relationship
The barber shop owner’s son, Eric Estrada, is a 30-year-old Lemoore native. He said jobs aren’t the only contribution tribe members have given Lemoore.
“Everyone in town knows about the tribe and who they are.” he said. “People here are pretty receptive to them because they’re so involved in the community.”
And examples of community involvement abound. The tribe supports little league teams in Lemoore and Hanford, sponsors an annual charity golf tournament and organizes a $15,000 sober graduation ceremony for Hanford High School students, Gonzales said. A Fourth of July show at the rancheria, put on by the tribe for the past 10 years, draws up to 15,000 people each year.
A few years ago, the tribe donated defibrillators and about $1 million to the Kings County Fire Department for a new fire truck. Sewer lines shared between the rancheria and Central Union Elementary – a mile from the gaming center – have been paid for by the tribe for the past 20 years, Gonzales said.
“Many of the tribal members’ children – even some of the tribal members themselves – attended that school,” Gonzales said. “It didn’t really make sense to the tribe to make the school pay for something the tribe was using. There’s a great relationship there.”
For some people, community contributions are nice – but the recreation the casino provides residents of a quiet little town is even better.
“It’s added a whole new source of entertainment to the area,” said Sharon Ganiron, a Hanford resident who visits the casino with her husband about twice a month.
But some Lemoore residents have cast a critical eye
on both The Palace casino and the tribe. A regular customer of
of Mr. Bill’s – a neighborhood bar on the outskirts of downtown Lemoore – said that over the years, she’s watched a handful of people slowly waste what little money they have at the casino, and while the gaming center may have benefited the tribe, the cost for the rest of society is hardly worth it. The woman, a local government employee, did not want to be identified.
“You come here to this bar on any Friday night, and you’ll see people drinking and talking about how much they’re going to go win that night. But they never do,” she said, clasping and unclasping a Bush/Cheney campaign button in her hands. “They’re not feeding their kids. They’re not paying their rent. I know too many people in this town who’ve thrown away their lives because of that casino.”
The woman said she thinks the relationship between the tribe and the community historically has been spotty and distant, and even now, the eagerness to be part of the community as advertised by the tribe is a clever masquerade.
“They try to make it look like they want the interaction, but in my opinion, they don’t,” she said, then paused to consider her words. “I think we owe them. As a Hawaiian-American, I do think we need to be fair. But I also think we went about it the wrong way.”
Public safety
The social impacts of The Palace on Lemoore and its surrounding areas extend beyond problem gambling and wavering community relationships. In 2003, 10 percent of all calls to the Kings County Sheriff’s Department were directly related to the casino, said county sheriff Allan McClain. While the most common calls are for medical aid, McClain said other prominent calls include alcohol- and drug-related incidents, prostitution and recovery of stolen vehicles. Even so, he said, the relationship between the county and the tribe remains generally positive.
“They’ve done a lot to give to the community and make the community a better place,” he said. “But the majority of the people who go to the casino aren’t local. They come in from the outside, and they don’t necessarily care about the community’s betterment.”
McClain said the sheriff’s department has been negotiating with the tribe since the casino opened to help with the costs of added manpower. He’ll soon hire four more deputies specifically to help handle calls from the casino, he said, and he also wants to hire one more member each for the county’s Narcotics Task Force and Gang Task Force – again, in direct correlation to The Palace.
Impacts on traffic and revenue
The most salient effect of the casino in the eyes of many Lemoore residents is not the drugs or crime; it’s the significantly heightened traffic they’ve had to put up with since The Palace opened. Located off Highway 198, the gaming center is set back about a mile from a two-lane country road – much like Highway 25 from Gilroy to Hollister – that has no turn lanes or shoulders.
“Those roads simply were not designed for that kind of traffic,” said Lemoore City Manager Jeff Briltz. “They can’t handle it, and that’s been sort of a battle for us with the tribe in the past.”
The relationship between the tribe and the city, though steady, has been fairly cool. In recent years, the city approached the tribe requesting $160,000 to help pay for a city roads improvement project, Briltz said. The tribe declined, and to this day the city has received no income from the casino or the tribe.
“That was tough to swallow,” said Kim Hogue, chief executive officer of Lemoore’s Chamber of Commerce, which the casino joined this year.
In December 2003, the tribe finalized a 17-year agreement with Kings County to help mitigate public safety and infrastructure impacts derived from the casino. Through the deal, the county receives a fixed total of $900,000 annually from state allocations and tribal contributions. The tribe – which approached the county to initiate its end of the deal – will contribute a total of $363,500 to the deal this fiscal year, said Mary Gallegos, the county’s deputy administrative officer.
The tribe’s seeming eager willingness to assist the county with impact mitigation leaves a bitter taste in Lemoore Mayor Ed Martin’s mouth. Although the tribal council meets with city officials as often as necessary, Martin said, communication between the city and the tribe isn’t always as clear as it could be. And just because The Palace technically is located in the county, there’s no denying it affects Lemoore.
“They could be more cooperative … Here I am, the mayor of the town, and it’s really hard to even get a phone call back (from the tribal council),” Martin said.
While he once considered himself a big supporter of Indian gaming, Martin said he now wonders if it’s “gotten out of hand.” Martin was quick to acknowledge the positive effects any casino could have on a city – creating jobs, for instance – but he said it’s crucial to address potential problems before they become realities.
“Any large gaming operation is going to have a huge impact on the community,” he said. “If I could give any piece of advice, it’s that any planning issues need to be settled and worked out in advance.”
For the most part, the casino’s close proximity to Lemoore has had little effect on the city’s economy, said a number of city officials. Briltz attributed a slight recent climb in city sales tax revenue – a $200,000 increase in 2003 – to Leprino Foods, the world’s largest producer of mozzarella cheese that opened its second Lemoore plant that year.
“People going to the casino pass through Lemoore – on the highway. They don’t really stop in,” he said. “In a way, the casino is just another location for them to spend their money, and that’s money they could be spending in the city.”
Ken Ludington, general manager of the Best Western in Lemoore, said occupancy has declined since the casino opened, mainly because of a recent expansion to a nearby Holiday Inn and a newly constructed Motel 6. But Ludington suspected most hotel business in Lemoore isn’t a result of the casino but rather of a close-by Naval Air Station.
“I’d say I see about 10 people a week – probably less than that – who are here because they’re gambling,” he said. “A lot of gamblers don’t want to spend their money on lodging. A lot of them spend their whole day at the casino and then drive home at night. Or if they’re true gamblers, they’ll gamble through the night and sleep in their cars.”
The most casino-driven business Ludington said he gets are the crews from entertainment gigs that play at the gaming center. An average crew is about 20 people, he said, and they usually stay for one or two nights about twice a month. But next year, when the casino’s hotel opens, it will largely be a self-contained facility.
Residents of Lemoore seem generally accepting of the Tachi tribe and its ever-evolving casino. But ask enough people, visit the hidden corners of the city, and opinions painted with strokes of doubt become evident. Some fear for the future of Lemoore’s historically quiet, content community; others think the damage already has been done.
“There’s so much involved in something like a casino,” Sheriff McClain said. “It’s an interesting mix – both good and bad.”
