That’s according to Supervisor David Rabbitt of Petaluma who has become one of the state’s more knowledgeable local government officials on Indian gaming matters. And once that happens, local control over what may be built on the site disappears and all land use decision-making becomes the sole prerogative of the tribe. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs could one day approve an application by the Dry Creek Band to take the Petaluma property into federal trust. Given that the gaming operation located closest to the lucrative Bay Area gambling market is likely to earn the biggest revenues and profits, it was logical for the Dry Creek Band to want leap-frog down the highway. In 2005, when that Dry Creek Band learned about a competing tribe’s plans to open a large gaming complex in Rohnert Park (and dreading the certain drop in visitors and revenues that would ensue) it purchased 277 acres alongside Highway 101 just south of Petaluma with plans to build another casino there. Despite widespread public opposition, another casino could be operating there in just four years pending necessary federal and state approvals.įurther north, near Geyserville, the Dry Creek Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians operates the River Rock Casino. Or ask anyone living in Windsor where the Koi Nation, another federally recognized tribe, recently announced plans to turn a 68-acre vineyard near that community into a huge $600 million casino complex.

If you don’t think so, ask anyone living in Rohnert Park who, despite years of fierce public resistance, have lived alongside the Bay Area’s largest tribal gaming operation which the Federated Indians of the Graton Rancheria opened in 2013. The reality is that a massive gambling complex on the city’s southern gateway is still a very real possibility, threatening significant impacts on traffic, public safety, water supply, housing availability and the environment. But the advisory vote had only a negligible effect on the opaque decision-making process in Washington, D.C., where such casinos are quietly given birth. When 80% of Petaluma voters went to the polls in 2006 to express their strong opposition to a Las Vegas style gambling casino planned for property immediately south of town, they hoped to prevent the spread of tribal gaming operations from reaching their town. Congressman Jared Huffman, remarking on the Koi Nation’s announced plans to build a large casino near Windsor “I’m a little bit gobsmacked that something this big and this controversial would just be dropped like this.”

River rock casino burned down