"News that the Dry Creek Band of Pomo Indians is considering building a minor league baseball stadium on property it owns alongside the freeway just south of Petaluma offers some hope to local residents that an unwanted gambling casino might never be built. The very uncertain future of the property, however, remains a justifiable cause for public concern.

Shortly after the tribe announced its controversial plans to take the 277-acre property into federal trust in 2006 in order to develop “a class III gaming facility,” 80 percent of Petaluma voters went to the polls and said no to a casino on the site located opposite Kastania Road between the highway and the river.

But the vote was advisory in nature, and can only serve as one piece of a complex and shadowy decision-making puzzle that could one day lead to a casino development in Petaluma. As part of negotiations last year to expand the tribe’s existing River Rock Casino in Geyserville, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors signed an agreement stipulating that no casino would be built on the tribe’s Petaluma property for eight years in exchange for dedicating a portion of the land as open space. The tribe later said it would permanently abandon all plans for a casino in Petaluma if the city would just provide water and sewer hook-ups for an alternative commercial project on the site, such as a baseball stadium, hotel or service station.

But should Petaluma be forced to relinquish some of its increasingly precious water supply and limited sewer capacity to an Indian tribe in order to prevent a casino from being built on its doorstep? So far, the city has properly declined to even consider this brazen proposal."

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Editorial: Petaluma casino threat lingers (The Petaluma Argus-Courier 10/23)