DEBATE OVER POINT MOLATE HOTEL AND CASINO PROPOSAL INTENSIFIES

Debate over Point Molate hotel-casino proposal intensifies

The battle over a proposed $1.2 billion hotel-casino resort on a stretch of Richmond's waterfront is heating up as the project inches closer to a vote.

City leaders on Tuesday extended the closing date on its $50 million deal to sell the old Point Molate Naval Fuel Depot to a developer, giving the parties more time to negotiate changes to the contract. The deal was set to expire on March 15; it now ends on April 20.
Progress has been made in recent negotiations, City Councilman Tom Butt said.

"There are a lot of issues out there. None of them to me seem to be insolvable," said Butt, who is seeking a commitment from the developer to keep historic buildings in tact among other issues.
Additional extensions that would push the deadline to later this year — and squarely into the City Council election season — are likely if officials want this project to move forward.
Meanwhile, the card club-backed Stop the Mega Casino group is spending $33,900 to oppose the resort.

Their eight-page mailer, which began arriving in mailboxes Saturday, depicts a gritty Richmond and suggests drug dealing, loan sharking, poverty and crime will become permanent fixtures if a casino opens here. It urges locals to call the City Council to tell them to say no to a casino.
A 30-second television ad in the same style as the mailer also aired this past weekend.

Stop the Mega Casino is working with Whitehurst/Mosher Campaign Strategy and Media in San Francisco, according to an expenditure report filed with the city clerk's office. The group represents a dozen medium and small card clubs that worry about competition from a large casino.

The proposed Point Molate hotel-casino resort would host 124,000 square feet of gaming, a conference center, nearly 1,100 hotel rooms, restaurants, shops, tribal headquarters, a shoreline park, trails and ferry service. Developer Upstream Point Molate and the Guidiville Band of Pomo Indians, with the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation as an investor, are seeking federal, state and local approvals to build it.

The city would receive at least $16.6 million annually under a 20-year agreement with Upstream.
This is the second extension of the closing date. The deal was initially set to expire in January, but officials postponed it to March 15 and now to next month.
More extensions are likely if officials want this project. The city has not distributed responses to public comments on the draft environmental impact report yet; nor has it voted to certify the document. Both are required as a condition of closing.

At Tuesday's council meeting, union workers wearing green "Support the Resort at Point Molate" T-shirts outnumbered project opponents. They urged officials to approve projects that create construction and long-term operational jobs.
"Richmond needs jobs ... something to give hope to people in Richmond that will generate jobs," said resident Ricky Jackson, who supports the project. "Positive change promotes positive things."
Opponents fear the project is a pipe dream that won't produce as many jobs for locals as promised. Officials should let the land sale agreement expire and study other options, they said.

"It is time to let this go," said Joan Garrett, a member of Citizens for a Sustainable Point Molate.
Jim Levine of Upstream acknowledged the mailer and TV ads mark the start of an election-year battle over the project. But Levine said their message ignores 17,000 direct and indirect jobs that the casino resort promises, with agreements for mostly local jobs and training programs to help fill them. Levine dismissed the ads' claim that the project would only burnish the city's struggles with drugs, crime and poverty.

Katherine Tam - Contra Costa Times, March 3, 2010