| Dear
Friends and Neighbors,
Things are happening
fast in Shingle Springs with our economic development project. You
should start to see things happening fairly soon, as the tribe has
completed all the necessary bureaucratic processes to begin building
the Highway 50 interchange.
This is the
access we have been waiting on for 40 years. If you don’t know
about our long struggle, it all began with the construction of Highway
50 in the 1960’s, designed to deliver gamblers and skiers to
Lake Tahoe. At that time there was a separate Rancheria adjacent
to our own and we both shared a road to come and go as we pleased.
With the building of Highway 50, that road was eliminated, leaving
us landlocked. The Bureau of Indian Affairs contacted the state’s
Department of Transportation to let them know that they were leaving
us without access to our land. The state then promised to build
an interchange to rectify this problem.
The cost back
in the 60’s for the interchange was $100,000. The state decided
not to build us our access road and saved the money instead. This
left the Rancheria inhospitable, with no services or access. In
the 1970’s, some tribal members decided to take up residence
on the land despite the hardship. As residential neighborhoods were
built around the Rancheria and the area began to develop, it became
a little easier to sustain one’s self on the land. By this
time Reservation Road, which runs through Grassy Run Homeowners
Association, was the only way to get to the Rancheria even though
our land stood a mere 200 feet from Highway 50.
Slowly, but
surely, our members began returning to the Rancheria. Even slower
was the process of bringing services and utilities to the reservation.
In fact, it wasn’t until 1988 that running water was made available
to us. In the early 1990’s the tribe decided to try to pay
for an interchange itself and opened the Crystal Mountain Casino
to fund it. It was a small operation in the white tent you can see
from Highway 50. Needless to say, our neighbors were none too pleased
to have the casino traffic clogging the tiny Reservation Road. They
took the matter to court and the Grassy Run Homeowners Association
was granted control over Reservation Road, giving the tribe only
limited use of it. Absolutely no commercial access was allowed for
the tribe.
Then at the
turn of the millennium, and with overwhelming public support, Propositions
5 and 1A made Indian gaming a state-sanctioned activity and tribes,
such as ours, soon signed tribal-state compacts. Having such legislative
and legal approval allowed tribes to find investors for gaming projects.
For us, it was nothing less than salvation, as the cost for the
interchange had escalated to more than $20 million, a sum the tribe
would have no chance of raising without revenues from Indian gaming.
We are now eagerly
awaiting the beginning of construction on what will be a new era
for the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians. The freedom to come
and go as we please will only be matched by the realization of our
dream of economic self-reliance.
Respectfully,
Nicholas Fonseca
Tribal Chairman
P.O.
BOX 1340 SHINGLE SPRINGS, CA 95682 • PHONE (530) 676-8010 •
FAX (530) 676 - 8033
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