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MAY 15, 2008
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Wceo examines impracticality of daily commute from Warm Springs to Cascade Locks
By Dean Rhodes
Smoke Signals editor
Opponents of the Warm Springs
Tribe's proposed Cascade Locks
casino have posted a video on
YouTube.com undermining one of
the main assertions made in sup
porting the Tribe's application for
an off-reservation casino that
the Warm Springs Reservation is
only 40 miles from the proposed
casino location.
The 5 minute, 27 second video
features a man in his late 20s who
leaves Warm Springs at 7 a.m.,
expecting to drive only 40 miles to
his new job at the proposed Bridge
of the Gods Casino site in Cascade
Locks in Hood River County in
the Gorge.
He arrives at work, however,
two hours later after having driv
en more than 100 miles, partially
over snowy and icy roads on state
Highway 35 east of Mount Hood.
The video was shot in April
and posted by the Coalition for
Oregon's Future, which includes
the Confederated Tribes of Grand
Ronde, Friends of the Columbia
Gorge, Parents Education As
sociation, Oregon Restaurant
Association, Oregon Center for
Environmental Health and Trout
Unlimited.
The video highlights the im
practicality of the Warm Springs
Tribe's claim that Tribal members
who live on the reservation will
commute daily to jobs in Cascade
Locks.
It shows how treacherous, time
consuming and costly the shortest
route to work would be for Warm
Springs Tribal members, who live
mostly in Warm Springs near Ma
dras 109 miles away and not at the
northwest corner of the 640,000
acre reservation.
It also points out that with esca
lating gas prices that 25 percent
of a Tribal employee's estimated
income from working at a Cascade
Locks casino would be spent on
gasoline driving more than four
hours daily to and from work.
Or, as the unnamed driver points
out, one out of every four weeks
worth of pay will go directly into
the gas tank.
The video argues that the pro
posed Cascade Locks casino does
not qualify under new Department
of Interior "commutable distance"
guidelines issued in January for
off-reservation casino requests.
Those guidelines state that the
department will increase scrutiny
of off-reservation casino proposals
the farther they are located from
Tribal residents who could poten
tially work at and benefit from the
new off-reservation casino.
The video was shown at the
May 8 Grand Ronde Community
Membership meeting in Eugene
and the May 9 meeting in Bend,
and received applause from Tribal
members after it was over.
The video had been watched by
almost 400 people as of May 13.
In other Gorge casino-related
news, the Coalition for Oregon's
Future announced May 12 that
support from Hood River County
residents for a casino in their coun
ty has dwindled to just 22 percent
while 56 percent of voters oppose
the casino proposal. Twenty-two
percent of those asked either didn't
know or declined to answer.
"Do you favor or oppose allowing
a casino to be built in Hood River
County?" was asked of 300 likely
voters in Hood River County on
April 21.
The Grand Ronde Tribe opposes
the Warm Springs effort to build
a casino in Cascade Locks because
it deviates from the long-standing
state policy of one casino per Tribe
on reservation land, is located
within the Tribe's historic and
ancestral homelands and would
adversely affect services the Tribe
can provide to its members by re
ducing the dividend Spirit Moun
tain Casino makes annually.
The video can be watched
at w w w . no gor g e c a s i n o .
com or www.youtube.com
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