Absolved by a regional growth board of any obligation -- real or imagined -- to honor the MOU, our leaders opted instead to appeal the ruling. (See "County to appeal casino deal ruling" in The Columbian.)
Handed down by the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board, the ruling declared that the MOU was negotiated and approved without the state- and county-required public participation, and gave the county six months to fix that.
Commissioner Steve Stuart identified in The Columbian three possible courses for the county: pursue a new agreement involving the public, let the document die or appeal the ruling.
The first two options are certainly preferable. If the document were left for dead, it would send a message to federal decision-makers that the county is not a casino proponent. If county leaders and the public worked together to produce a new document with the tribe, we might get something that would actually protect the county.
Consider the following:
1. The county was spooked into signing this MOU in 2004, before the casino developers had publicly defined the nature and scope of their project. (See "Secrets of the MOU" on our Web site)
2. Because the county signed the MOU prematurely, not knowing what the tribe had in mind, it failed to negotiate an agreement that would adequately protect the county given the size of the proposed development and its location. Among the MOU's shortcomings:
- Property tax. The tribe agrees to pay "for revenue lost resulting from the removal of the Clark County Site from the tax rolls." That appears to be approximately $10,000 a year, according to an analysis by the economic consulting firm ECONorthwest.
- Problem gambling mitigation. The tribe agrees to pay $50,000 a year. A similar agreement in Wisconsin promises $150,000 a year. Clark County has a population 2½ times larger than that county.
- Potential expansion. The MOU does not address the possibility that, if the Cowlitz Tribe gets its requested land taken into trust, it could continue to expand its holdings -- taking more and more land off the county's tax rolls.
- Compensation. An agreement structured like the one in Wisconsin would bring in nearly $29 million a year to local governments and charities. Clark County's would bring in only $5 million to $7.5 million, according to ECONorthwest's analysis.
3. Two of the three commissioners who signed the MOU now regret it and joined CARS' Steering Committee. The third, Betty Sue Morris, remains on the board, where by all accounts she is the casino's primary advocate.
4. Without the MOU, the tribe's Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is in serious jeopardy. The EIS mentions the MOU nearly 150 times. If the MOU goes away, it means serious consequences for the EIS.
5. When the county signed the MOU, it attached the following disclaimer:
"Nothing in this Memorandum of Understanding should be construed as evidencing county support for or endorsement of the Tribe's trust application. The Board has concerns that the trust application, if federally-approved, would permit uses on this rural and resource land which otherwise would not be allowed under the County's comprehensive land use plan, would permit gaming, which is otherwise prohibited in unincorporated Clark County, and could potentially adversely affect existing business."
In our view those are real concerns and they exist today.
Support for the MOU is support for the casino. Why are the commissioners fighting so hard to resurrect this document? And why would they oppose giving the public a voice in an issue that could affect life in our county for many decades to come?
