Officials Urge Approval Of New Casino

Barstow city officials who traveled to the state Capitol to plead for approval of two casinos along the heavily-traveled highway to Las Vegas came back Thursday, discouraged but not defeated.

"We were disappointed to say the least, but this is only a short setback," Barstow Mayor Lawrence Dale said. "We'll continue our efforts to bring a casino to Barstow and we learn from our mistakes and hopefully we can make the proper corrections and adjustments and move forward.

"Some city officials were hoping that a state legislative committee would ratify two compacts on Wednesday, negotiated by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, to allow two American Indian tribes to build Vegas-style casinos in the city.

The casinos proposed by Big Lagoon Rancheria tribe of Humboldt County and the Los Coyotes Band of Mission Indians of San Diego County were expected to generate about 3,700 jobs and $6 million annually for the city of about 23,000 residents. The land where they proposed the casino gambling is owned by Michigan-based developer BarWest LLC.

BarWest spokesman Tom Shields said his associates intend to resubmit the compacts to the Legislature.

June 30, 2006
Posted By Tom Jones
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