Amador County – The Department of the Interior announced last week two rulings for California tribes seeking casino trust lands, including the affirmative decision for the Ione Band of Miwok Indians’ pursuit of a casino land trust in Plymouth.

Acting Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs, Donald “Del” Laverdure announced last week that the land was to be acquired in trust for gaming purposes under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act’s Equal Footing Exceptions.”

Laverdure said the Ione Miwoks’ “gaming application received a careful and thorough review, allowing us to determine that it met the stringent conditions set out” by the Act. He said the “Ione Band has demonstrated both a modern and historical connection to the lands it sought to have paced in federal trust, as well as reasonable temporal connection between the date the land is acquired and the date the tribe was restored to federal recognition status.”

He said the Ione Band has not held lands in trust by the U.S. government, but owns 40 acres of non-trrust land near Ione, used for residential purposes. Laverdure said in his decision announcement that the 750-member Ione Band “submitted an application in 2005 to have “228 acres of land acquired in trust for a Class 3 gaming operation near Plymouth.” He said in 2006, the Interior Department “determined that the Band constituted” a “restored tribe” and “that it’s application satisfied” the Gaming Act’s “restored lands exception” because it “had once been under federal jurisdiction but was effectively treated as a terminated tribe by the Department for many years.”

He noted that in 1994, the Interior Department “reaffirmed that the Ione Band of Miwok Indians was federally recognized, renewing the government-to-government relationship with the tribe.” The “action effectively restored the tribe for purposes under IGRA.” Laverdure said the Ione Miwoks’ decision “marks the first Indian gaming application completed under IGRA’s restored lands exception since September 2008.”

Laverdure also announced a decision to disqualify an application for the equal footing exception by the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians of Lake County, California seeking a gaming facility near Richmond, 80 miles from tribal headquarters in Lakeport. The denial was made because the Scotts Valley Band “could not demonstrate it had a significant historical connection to the site.”

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.