"Clark County commissioners have been handed a golden opportunity. They can stand up and tell the federal government that it's a bad idea to allow for a sprawling casino that would be a gold mine for its backers and the Cowlitz Tribe, which has its primary ancestral lands in other counties.

Commissioners Betty Sue Morris, Steve Stuart and Marc Boldt can walk through that door of opportunity by not renegotiating a deal for delivering services to the proposed mega-casino. On Friday, two of the three commissioners who signed the deal in 2004 said they wish now that they hadn't approved it.

The 2007 county commissioners should tell the Bureau of Indian Affairs and its parent agency, the Department of the Interior, that better uses exist for the 152 acres along Interstate 5 at the La Center exit than a casino, with all of its negative effects. Those agencies will pass judgment on the dream of David Barnett, the power behind the Cowlitz tribe, and his business associates who run the Mohegan Tribe's huge Connecticut casino.

This new opportunity surfaced last week when the 2004 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Clark County and the Cowlitz Tribe was ruled invalid by the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board. It has jurisdiction over counties' comprehensive growth plans, and the MOU qualifies as an amendment to the Clark County plan."

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Editorial: Stand Up, County (The Columbian 6/24)