Nick Fonseca, tribal chairman of the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, spent nine years leading his tribe's quest to build Red Hawk Casino. He says he'll continue to try to improve his tribe's fortunes.
Nick Fonseca didn't know he was American Indian until he was 13.
Now, at age 54, he is the tribal chairman of the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, which recently opened the $530 million Red Hawk Casino in Shingle Springs.
Fonseca has spent his nine years as chairman battling lawsuits and eliciting support for the casino.
The chairman seemed relaxed as he spoke to The Bee a few days before the casino opened. He wore a T-shirt, jeans and a rugged cotton jacket and laced his fingers behind his head as he reclined in his office chair.
On the wall behind him were trophies of his greatest accomplishments – a giant photo of the entrance to the Red Hawk Casino and a replica of the overpass that leads to it.
The gambling establishment, which opened Dec. 17, is expected to generate about $250 million a year. Much of that will go to repay investors and to pay expenses and government fees – 20 percent to 25 percent of the net win of its slot machines to the state and at least $191 million over 20 years to El Dorado County.
Fonseca said much of the expected tribal windfall from the casino will be spent on health care, social services, education and housing, as required by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The rest will be split among the 503 members of the tribe.
Each adult member of the tribe will receive an equal share. Children younger than 18 will receive a quarter share. If a child does not earn a high school diploma by age 18, he or she will continue to collect the smaller share until age 21.
The tribe wants to encourage education, Fonseca said of the decision. It doesn't want its youths to rely on casino checks.
The influx of money also could mean more land for the tribe. Fonseca has his eye on a couple of parcels, one near the casino and 1,500 acres on Rattlesnake Bar Road in Placer County.
He said those who live on the rancheria aren't required to pay local property taxes. Residents who work there also don't have to pay state taxes.
But there are regulations.
The chairman learned about these when he first acquired a tract of land in 1975. Recipients of the land must erect a house or otherwise improve the land within two years in order to keep it. Fonseca's land was taken back and reassigned in the '80s. He didn't move to the rancheria until 1997.
As a boy growing up in West Sacramento, Fonseca was told he was Hawaiian. He didn't learn about his American Indian heritage until age 13. It was then that his grandmother told him of the family's legacy.
Fonseca believes his lineage comes through one of 10 Hawaiians brought to the United States by John Sutter about 1839. He says his great-grandmother, a Maidu Indian, married one of the Hawaiian men.
The revelation didn't change life much for Fonseca at the time. He graduated from high school in 1972 and joined the U.S. Navy. After leaving the military, he worked for electronics companies, including Atari.
He returned to the Sacramento area after a layoff and found work at a sawmill. An accidental injury resulted in 300 stitches, and Fonseca went to work as a laborer at the Shingle Springs Rancheria at age 46.
People were getting excited about the notion of a casino at the rancheria at that time, Fonseca said.
Fonseca lives on the rancheria with his wife, Katherine, the tribe's gaming authority treasurer, who is of German descent. Two of his four daughters also work on the rancheria.
Fonseca said that when he started as chairman, he had to re-energize the seven-member tribal council to get the casino going. But as the casino came closer to reality, tribe members became more active and more people wanted to become members.
"When you distribute checks, people come out of the woodwork," Fonseca said.
But becoming a tribe member isn't so easy. Applicants to the Shingle Springs tribe must prove their descent from one of five families of Miwok and Maidu Indians.
Fonseca also has seen more people interested in running for seats on the seven-member tribal council. But he's not too worried about competition for his seat as chairman, up for election Jan. 20, two days before the casino's official grand-opening celebration.
"I put a casino up on a hill and an interchange on the freeway," Fonseca said. "If they don't appreciate it, I don't need to be chairman of the tribe."
Being chairman is a full-time job that calls for everything from quelling neighborhood disputes to rounding up roaming dogs.
"I can visit Governor Schwarzenegger, then I come down here and catch a dog," Fonseca said.
Fonseca says he hopes to retire from the chairman's job one day, but not quite yet.
"I don't ever expect I'll be able to leave," Fonseca said. "I won't always be chairman, but I'll always be on the council."
He said the tribe would eventually like to expand the casino and add a hotel. He'd also like to add more businesses to the tribe's portfolio.
Despite Fonseca's interest in building a gambling empire, don't expect to see him contributing to the tribe's coffers at a slot machine or gambling table.
"I'm not a gambler," Fonseca said. "You're not going to watch me dropping a dime into those machines."
