Editorial: County should oppose Cowlitz Tribe casino

Thursday, December 7, 2006  

$stalker "This afternoon at 2 o'clock, Clark County commissioners will meet behind closed doors to decide whether to spend more public money and employees' time defending something they should have stayed away from in the first place: county participation (real or perceived) in the Cowlitz Tribe's dream of building a casino near La Center.

At issue is the agreement commissioners made in 2004 with the tribe's leaders. This "Memorandum of Understanding" (MOU) describes how services, such as water and public safety, would be provided to a casino on Interstate 5 at 319th Street, and what the tribe would give the community in return.

But the MOU would be dependent on the federal government first approving trust status for the site, owned by Cowlitz leader David Barnett and the Mohegan Tribe, which operates a huge casino in Connecticut. In that event, the Cowlitz would put one of the state's largest casinos on those 152 pastoral acres. It turns out that the MOU took some liberties that county commissioners had no right to take. By promising to extend water services to the would-be casino, the MOU effectively, but inappropriately, changed the county's comprehensive land-use plan without going through the required procedures."

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