County officials are bristling because they do not have authority over construction on tribal property. The tribe has no intention of halting current construction of the new casino area or parking structure. If they don't meet the deadline, which is set by the state, they may forfeit the ability to add additional machines. Although the tribe has had a public meeting on the expansion and prepared a limited environmental assessment report on its plans, they have yet to look at the potential impacts of their much larger ideas for expansion. Those plans include a permanent casino of up to 200,000 square feet, which worries many locals in the Santa Ynez Valley.
Tribal leaders say, however, that they are addressing potential environmental impacts.
But we have two-way politics going on here. On the one hand we're meeting and talking with them in a productive way, and then behind our backs they're doing and saying other things altogether. We don't think that's productive.