CARS chairman urges county: No new MOU

CARS chairman Ed Lynch thanked the Clark County commissioners this morning for their recent decision to abandon the county’s ill-fated 2004 memorandum of understanding with the Cowlitz Tribe. He also urged the commissioners not to negotiate a new agreement. His comments follow:

I’m Ed Lynch, here today representing Citizens Against Reservation Shopping. On behalf of our organization, I want to thank you for your decision to return to compliance by abandoning Clark County’s court appeal and with it the 2004 Memorandum of Understanding with the Cowlitz Tribe.

I’m here today, too, to ask that you leave that trouble-plagued document behind and not negotiate another. It’s hard to understand that you would, since this Board opposes a casino. As you know, BIA’s senior gaming official, George Skibine, told CARS directly last year that having no MOU attached to the Cowlitz application would likely be a “deal breaker” for the casino.

And why not? With the County, La Center, City of Vancouver, Woodland, along with others on record as opposing the Casino, there is no way that the federal government would proceed. Add to that, the tribe’s complete failure after three years to show any Cowlitz geographical, historical or cultural presence of significance below Kelso and the developers will be looking for a new home where they belong in Lewis County or northern Cowlitz County.

You can make the casino go away. If you are leaders, LEAD. If you should sign an agreement it will serve as a signal to the BIA of the county’s willingness to work with the developers to site a casino. Don’t do it unless you truly desire a casino in Clark County.

Although many area agencies were harshly critical of the Cowlitz Final Environmental Impact Statement, no local government was more direct in its condemnation of the Cowlitz FEIS than Clark County. Yet the Cowlitz Tribe’s response to the county’s concerns was to ignore them and pretend they didn’t exist. After the thousands of staff hours the county expended on the EIS, surely you wouldn’t negotiate another MOU without first getting tribal developers to seriously address the environmental and socio-economic issues the county’s experts raised time and again without recognition. Take as one example, the I-5 traffic problem. How can you negotiate on a new MOU without an independent, thorough, statistical analysis of traffic across the bridge; and the impact of a casino on that traffic, by a well regarded traffic consultant?

In April of last year, this board conducted three hearings around the county to elicit ideas for another MOU. More than 100 citizens turned out to speak—more than 70 percent of those speaking delivered two distinct messages to the county: They didn’t want an MOU, and they didn’t want a casino.

Gentlemen, I hope to God that we, the opposition to the scam, will prevail, and I believe we will. But, I also pray that you will actively join us and do your part to secure, maintain and advance our collective communities’ superior standard of living.