Post-Election Press Statement
Our efforts have been supported by majorities on the Richmond City Council for the past 6 years, and more recently, by the leading business, labor, and environmental groups in the region. And, when we have had the opportunity to present the facts to community groups throughout Richmond, we have been received with overwhelming support.
During the past year, as our project has proceeded towards the required approvals, greedy gambling competitors from around the area, in an attempt to simply reinforce their own profits, undertook a slanderous campaign of lies and innuendos to scare the Richmond public into turning against our project. The card clubs’ glossy mailers claimed the project would not result in huge numbers of local, good-paying jobs despite independent analyses from the City’s own Environmental Impact Statement to the contrary. They also alleged the project would create an environmental disaster along the shoreline; statements now contradicted by the Sierra Club, Audubon Society, and Citizens for East Shore Parks.
From the beginning, we had said that an Advisory Vote should not be held until all of the facts about the project are on the table, so the people of Richmond could make an informed decision. Instead, Richmond politicians forced Measure U onto the November 2010 ballot ahead of the final Environmental Impact Report and ahead of the City’s own report on possible alternatives to the proposed Guidiville project.
When the Measure U Advisory Vote was scheduled, and given the City’s delay of the EIR and the project alternatives evaluation until later this year, we had implored the City of Richmond to provide an objective analysis of the project, and the agreements already reached between the City, and the Tribe and our development partner Upstream, so the people of Richmond would have a basis of information to rely upon in voting this November. Instead, the people of Richmond had to wade through false propaganda from the card clubs which directly contradicted the spirit and language of the enforceable agreements on revenues, jobs and environmental protections already agreed between us and the City. In the end, this proved that in the absence of reliable information, voters will generally vote “no” and this is what we have seen here today. Although more people voted “Yes” on Measure U (6,680) than voted for the now-re-elected Mayor (6,282), today’s vote on the project is not an accurate pulse of the people of Richmond, and such a pulse can only be taken when the facts about the project are made available for professional analysis and public review. Given the lies and misinformation that dominated the No on U campaign, it will be up to the Richmond City Council and federal authorities to wade through the reams of analyses on the project and realistic alternatives, and determine the best course of action.
We are convinced that absent the deliberately false propaganda from the card clubs, public support for the project, which includes hotels, a convention center, performing arts center, housing, shopping and restaurants, public plazas, parks and open space, and ferry service to San Francisco, much more than the “casino” referenced in the advisory ballot and the anti-project propaganda, would be much greater, as will occur when the facts are on the table later this year. We look forward to continuing our collaboration with the people of Richmond, and the many business, environmental, church, labor, and community groups to find ways of achieving much needed economic, environmental, and social rehabilitation of the Tribe, Richmond, and Contra Costa County.
We congratulate the newly elected council members and Mayor on their victory. While some campaigned against the “casino”, governing requires a deeper reflection than campaigning and we know that they will have to now read and debate the specifics of this comprehensive redevelopment proposal and others that may surface.
