In September of last year, a Native American tribe from Lake County announced its intention to build a casino that could host 54,000 people a day just outside Windsor, south of East Shiloh Road. But as the Koi Nation pursues taking the land into trust in Washington, D.C., neighbors are organizing against the plans, touting the risk congestion to a residential area with poor accessibility would pose to safe evacuation in the event of a fire, among other concerns including the potential disruption of way of life to nearby residents.
Our Community Matters, a group of Windsor and Santa Rosa citizens, born out of fire prevention neighborhood organizing efforts in the Oak Park and Esposti neighborhoods and surrounding areas, has been researching the fee-to-trust process, which through the Indian Gaming Regulation Act (IGRA), could allow the Koi to operate the proposed Shiloh Resort and Casino, federal process superseding local control.
“The imminent risk of urban wildfire has a long history in this area of Sonoma County, which has become more frequent with climate change. The residential neighborhoods in which this casino-resort is proposed has been hit with wildfire evacuations twice in the past four years for two of the most devastating urban wildfires in state history,” an Our Community Matters press release reads, alluding to the 2017 Tubbs Fire and the 2019 Kincade Fire.
During the Kincade Fire, which threatened Windsor and prompted townwide evacuations, organizers Lynda Williams and Don Ziskin, who live in nearby neighborhoods just north of Shiloh Road, Windsor’s city limit, said vineyards on the 68-acre parcel where the casino is proposed were used as a fire break where firefighters successful held the flames at bay, sparing their residences.
Williams, a retired public education worker and Ziskin, a retired tenants’ rights attorney, said the worry is that even if Shiloh Road is expanded, the area, which has been identified as an evacuation route and was subject to gridlock already during fire events, would leave some unable to evacuate when they needed to. It will be so congested with visitors fleeing, they said, that no one will be able to use the road.
“It’s the wrong thing in the wrong place. Why would anyone want to put a business that large into an urban wildlife area? It will change Windsor — the entire town — forever,” Williams said.
The pair said they believe the Koi Nation plans to capitalize on the beautiful rural surroundings — a major reason each on their own selected the area for their retirement — and the Windsor community itself to create a destination casino twice the size of Graton, which had 10 million visitors in 2016, they said.
Assuming the casino does draw twice as many guests as Graton did in 2016, with some simple math that could mean up to nearly 55,000 guests per day — almost double the population of the Town of Windsor itself.
“This is probably going to be the largest development in Sonoma County,” said Ziskin, who was shocked and experienced disbelief when he first heard about the Koi Nation’s plans.
Ziskin, Williams and their cohort, who are emphatic in their support of restoration of lands to Native American tribes, leaving the battle in Washington, D.C. over whether the tribe, which originated on an island in Clearlake and has reportedly tried to open other casinos in Bay Area locations even further from their native home.
In addition to the increased risk to safe fire evacuation routes and changes to the rural and residential nature of the area, Williams and Ziskin also identified poor access on Shiloh Road without a wildfire, as it’s currently a two-lane, country road and water concerns amid the historic drought in Sonoma and Mendocino counties. They also identified the increased carbon impact as a problem the casino presents.
“The road isn’t even capable of handling the capacity when people are going to work,” Ziskin said. He said he counts about 70 cars per hour when he walks the area, and said it can’t handle the thousands of cars and tour buses that would come.
Under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988, which established the statutory basis for operation and regulation of Indian tribal gaming, lands acquired in trust after 1988 are prohibited for use in gaming unless they are located within or contiguous to a prior reservation or the tribe had no reservation in the state at the time.
Through the fee-to-trust process, currently in the application process through the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in Washington, D.C., the Koi Nation, which lost its tribal status in the mid-20th Century and regained it in the early 2000s is arguing that the parcel is in their native lands and they have a right to it after purchasing it in a private land deal. Should it go through the fee-to-trust process, it would become sovereign land, subject, with some limitations, to independent tribal rule.
Ziskin and Williams were reluctant to comment on whether the Koi Nation has rights to the land as they claim, saying they’d leave the battle regarding legitimate tribal sovereignty to be settled among other local native tribes and to be fought in Washington.
Ziskin said that, under IGRA, negative impacts to a community are considered, so they are reaching out to representatives.
According to Williams, who said the group has spoken to all the members of the Windsor Town Council, “They all say that they agree the location is bad. (Mayor Sam Salmon) is kind of all over the place, though. He supports us in one way, but he gets confused about what the issues really are. What we’d like him to do is stop talking about making deals with landowners.”
Our Community Matters has also reached out to Fourth District Supervisor James Gore, their representative, has spoken with State Senator Mike McGuire and have been trying to get meetings with federal representatives, including Sen. Diane Feinstein.
Ziskin said he wished he had bought the land, now used as vineyards, fitting in with the nature of the area. Williams said the casino would completely change the quiet urban area and affect home prices.
“How would you feel if you had a four-story casino looking into your background, lights on 24 hours a day?” Williams said. “Right now we have all kinds of wildlife out there. Hawks, coyotes, owls. Plus the vineyards provide a fire break.”
Repeated requests to speak with representatives from Koi Nation about their plans have gone unanswered since a brief initial interview in September.
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