
today
8 a.m. Armack Orchestra Rummage Sale Arcata High Multipurpose Room
read >8:30 a.m. Audubon Field Trip: Arcata Marsh Klopp Lake, foot of I St.
read >8:30 a.m. HCAR Holiday Craft Fair and Rummage Sale HCAR Sunrise Plaza
read >9 a.m. Arcata Farmers' Market Arcata Plaza
read >9 a.m. Tai Chi for Everyone Arcata Plaza
read >9:30 a.m. Lanphere Dunes Restoration Pacific Union School
read >9:30 a.m. Disovery Walk: Introduction to Architectural Styles Eureka Theater
read >10 a.m. Holiday Craft Fair Bethel Church
read >10 a.m. Jacoby Creek School PTO Annual Holiday Boutique Jacoby Creek School Gym
read >10 a.m. Celebrate Madhavi Arcata Plaza
read >10 a.m. Earlier than the Bird: Pre-Holiday Sale and Fun See Event Description
read >11 a.m. KMUD's 4th Annual Battle of the Rock Bands Mateel Community Center
read >11 a.m. Downtown Fortuna's Autumn Fete See Event Description
read >11 a.m. Mexican Folk Art Sale Private home in Eureka
read >noon Dreamscapes The Oasis
read >2 p.m. The Uniontown Jazz Trio Morris Graves Museum of Art
read >2 p.m. Friends of the Marsh Tour with Art Barab Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary Interpretive Center
read >4 p.m. Acoustic and Open Mic Has Beans
read >6 p.m. Matthew Cook Cher-Ae-Heights Casino
read >6 p.m. The Tumbleweeds Chapala Cafe
read >6 p.m. Jesse & Lee Libation
read >7 p.m. Saturday Evening Dinners for Singles Private House in Arcata
read >7 p.m. Musaic Old Town Coffee & Chocolates
read >7:30 p.m. Joe & Me Cafe Mokka
read >7:30 p.m. Saul Kaye Six Rivers Brewery
read >7:30 p.m. Depaver Jan Westhaven Center for the Arts
read >8 p.m. Defending the Caveman Arkley Center for the Performing Arts
read >8 p.m. Opal's Million Dollar Duck Redbud Theatre
read >8 p.m. Getting It Arcata Playhouse
read >8 p.m. She Loves Me North Coast Repertory Theater
read >8 p.m. Nightshade Serenade presents Gypsy Alchemist Cabaret Redwood Raks World Dance Studio
read >8 p.m. The Medium Gist Hall Theater at HSU
read >9 p.m. Karaoke w/Chris Clay The Boiler Room
read >9 p.m. Austin Alley & the Rustlers Bear River Casino
read >9 p.m. Triple Junction Cher-Ae-Heights Casino
read >9 p.m. Mission Critical with DJ Dub Cowboy Jambalaya
read >9 p.m. Pato Banton and the Mystic Roots Band Six Rivers Brewery
read >9 p.m. Ponche! WAVE @ blue lake casino
read >9 p.m. Play Dead Humboldt Brews
read >9 p.m. Blanket, Emily Lacy, The Candles The Lil' Red Lion
read >9 p.m. Jeff DeMark, UKEsperience Muddy's Hot Cup
read >9:30 p.m. Live DJ Ragg's Rack Room
read >9:30 p.m. DJ Marv The Playroom
read >9:30 p.m. Jimi Jeff & the Gypsy Band Riverwood Inn
read >9:30 p.m. Abstract Rude, DJ Drez, Myka 9 The Red Fox Tavern
read >10 p.m. DJ Blancatron Aunty Mo's Lounge
read >10 p.m. DJ Itchie Fingaz Sidelines
read >11:15 p.m. The Metal Shakespeare Company, 33 1/3 The Alibi Lounge and Restaurant
read >previous columns
Sept. 6, 2007
Roadside Attraction
Driving to Labor Day destinations amid traffic and road construction ...
read >Aug. 30, 2007
Does LSD Kill?
Martin Cotton, the 26-year-old man who died in police custody ...
read >Aug. 23, 2007
Karuk Leader Arrested
On Monday evening, the Siskiyou County Sheriff's Department arrested Karuk ...
read >Bye Bye Barstow?
By Heidi Walters
Prospects were bleak for the Big Lagoon Rancheria on Tuesday afternoon, over there in Sacramento, where the state legislature was wading through 200-some bills on presumably the last day of its 2007 regular session and nary a one of the bills contained anything whatsoever to do with a Barstow casino.
Who knows, maybe some last-ditch gut-and-amend miracle occurred -- you know, right after they dealt with health care for children and flood safety control -- in which case you can stop reading this and offer the Big L congratulations.
But likely there was no miracle, no desperado's luck for Big Lagoon and its would-be megacasino/resort partners, the Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Cupe±o Indians. The two have been waiting all year for the state legislature to ratify their compacts, signed by the Governor, that would allow them to erect side-by-side hotel-casinos down in the dusty, casino-hungry desert town of Barstow.
You know the story: Barstow was looking for a tribe to open a casino to lure in some of the 60 million cars trekking between SoCal and Las Vegas, and Los Coyotes -- more than 100 miles south of Barstow -- ended up first in line. Meanwhile, the Big Lagoon Rancheria -- 700 miles north of Barstow -- was wrangling in court with the state over plans to build a casino on its property at Big Lagoon. No-go, said the state -- it's too environmentally sensitive. Along came Gov. Arnie, who told Big Lagoon to go work with Los Coyotes in Barstow. Los Coyotes, a poor band with 350 members and an unsuitable reservation for a casino, would rise from poverty; Big Lagoon, a family of less than 20 members, would preserve its pristine waterside land and enjoy economic growth. Big gambling tribes lobbied against the Barstow compacts.
In May, it was almost over. The tribes' compacts had expired. But they were extended -- to Sept. 17. That's next Monday. Finally, with a couple of weeks to go, Big Lagoon and Los Coyotes launched a frenzied media campaign, including a commercial on YouTube, street-corner petitioners and a rash of phonebanking, urging people to call Assembly Speaker Fabian Nu±ez and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata and tell them to act on the Barstow casino.
The campaign was viewed sourly over in Perata's office. "We've received a few hundred calls," said Perata's Press Secretary Alicia Trost on Monday, "but they're from angry citizens because they're on the do-not-call list and they've been phonebanked¬Ý by some sort of phone tree."
Trost doubted the compacts would fly. First of all, she said, they weren't even in a bill. An existing bill would have to be gutted and the compacts inserted into it, a hearing would have to be held and a two-thirds vote obtained to move it along to the leaders' desks where it would have to sit for seven days. "We'd have to break our rules," Trost said. And, besides, there were only 24 hours to do the deed: Sen. Perata was pushing for the session to end Tuesday night, in deference to those celebrating Rosh Hashanah.
Jason Barnett, representing Big Lagoon, laughed at Trost's pessimism. Gut-and-amends happen all the time, he said, especially in the last flurried days of session. "If Sen. Perata wanted a bill, he would have created a bill," Barnett said. The Barstow compacts were in a bill until recently, along with those of some bigger tribes. Several of those big tribes got their compacts. Big Lagoon didn't.
Big Lagoon chairman Virgil Moorehead has said that if the compacts don't go through, he'll return to the idea of a casino project at Big Lagoon. "Maybe he'll build a Class II facility at Big Lagoon, maybe a bingo parlor," said Barnett. "But that doesn't rule out Barstow. You can never say never."
A return to the Big Lagoon site would re-open court dealings with the state. Los Coyotes, meanwhile, intends to pursue a Barstow casino, said spokesman Tom Shields, with or without Big Lagoon. "But they would prefer to work with Big Lagoon," Shields said. And, he said, there's no reason the compacts can't be extended yet again.
















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