The Voice of San Diego — a refreshing change from the Pulitzer Prize winning San Diego Union-Buffoon — has an informative, well-written article today on the Jamul Casino. In this one article, they’ve got more information than the Union-Buffoon has managed to get into the sum of all their articles on the subject. A sample:
At the same time, for Toggery and Rosales, it is an intensely personal quest. They are reluctant dissidents, convinced of their cause but hesitant to embrace the hero label bestowed by fellow, non-tribal opponents. The two protest that the casino would destroy burial sites they consider sacred.
But they also worry that their battle may end soon. Eviction notices were taped to their doors Feb. 24, promising they’d be removed from their homes within five days. The Jamul tribal chairman says the two dissidents will be gone in 90 days. The casino, he says, will be built by 2009, the latest promised construction date.
This is why Toggery and Rosales talk about human fences and their plans to stand in front of bulldozers. This is why a neighbor hired security so the two could sleep soundly at night. This is why Toggery says she is afraid to leave her home for more than an hour, fearful she won’t have a house when she returns.
Still, they have fought the casino, despite the alienation, the threats, the severance of longstanding familial relations.
"What we have here, and what’s in the ground, it should stay,” Toggery says. “As long as you have one person who believes, that’s all that really matters."
As they say, go read the whole thing.
One very useful thing I discovered while reading this article is that the Jamul Indian Casino web site has finally put the environmental impact report (EIR) online. They did it in a quite awkward fashion however, so I’ve downloaded all the individual Word document files they provided and put them in a single ZIP file, which you can download and save yourself.
I haven’t had a chance to read the entire report myself yet (but I will, as it’s not that long). However, a quick sampling of a couple of sections shows that (as usual for such things) it’s more a public relations piece than it is an objective, factual report. It’s what I was expecting, but not what I was hoping for. The EIR was commissioned by the tribe and Lakes Entertainment (their backers), and it sounds like it. If Jamulians Against the Casino were to make an EIR, I suspect that darned near every issue listed would have a completely different conclusion. An awful lot of time and money is spent on EIRs, which are required by law in many circumstances, but I really can’t see the point when the result is so obviously biased…
In the old blog, Anonymous said:
ReplyDeleteRob Davis wrote an article that touched the heart of the subject. I ask how can Walter Rosales, born on that land, not be a prevailing tribal member?Greed has taken over sanity!
In the old blog, Anonymous said:
ReplyDeleteWe received a phone call alerting us that the casino faction was forcibly taking Walter and Karen out of their houses this morning about 7:40 a.m.. It was a very sad state of events, thugs hired by the casino proponets took them out of their houses and then started throwing all their belongingss into U Haul vans. Walter called 911 but it took awhile for deputies to respond and actually sheriff deputies did nothing…did absolutely nothing to protect Walter or Karen and their homes and property. And later when many residents and Walter and Karen’s attorney Patrick Webb accompanied Walter to his house the thugs beat and pushed and maced people with the sheriff deputies still doing nothing. Everyone felt so helpless because we could not help Walter and Karen protect their homes. Walter is such a kind, gentle man. When someone told him not to give up, he likened it to being in a difficult situation in Vietnam with the Marines and things worked out. I hope this does. I hope all of San Diego County sees the type of people the greed of casinos have turned these criminals into that call themselves casino proponets. Unfortunately it ended with their belongings being hauled off to a storage facility. Robby and I took Walter’s two roosters and two pet conures. Walter had his dog and Karen’s cat was brought out to her in a carboard box. They were not allowed to go back to their homes. Jamul residents that were hurt filed complaints against the so called “Jamul Indian Police”. Greviances will be filed against the Sheiff’s Department. Diane Jacob arrived to try and intervene but with little success other that a written promise from the lying Leon Acevedo, so called tribal chief promising not to level the homes until after the close of business next Friday. It actually did not seem like something like this could happen in America.