Sunday, August 8, 2010

Temecula Could Sue Pechanga Over Casino Costs; Should City BOYCOTT Pechanga Casino?

Temecula officials are recommending legal action against the Pechanga Band of LuiseƱo Indians to cover the costs the tribe's casino incurs on the city.

An item on Tuesday's City Council agenda would direct the city attorney to go to court to get the tribe to pay for the effect Pechanga Resort & Casino has on traffic and city services.

"Given the failure of the Tribe and the County to reach agreement and the consequent failure of the (agreement) to become effective, the City has no alternative but to file litigation to protect its rights ...," a city staff report read.


A lawsuit is a good idea. This will show the city of Temecula how difficult it is to sue for what is right. But, on the good side, it will force Pechanga to defend in court it right to violate agreements with impugnity.

If the agreements with the county, the city and the tribe are interdependent, why didn't Pechanga WAIT until the agreement was in place before they placed the additional slot machines?

Shouldn't the city of Temecula now cancel any planned meetings and events at Pechanga? Shouldn't they advise all city employees to stay away from the casino? Remember, Pechanga has violated the civil rights of many of its members, and made them "former" members via termination, banishment and disenrollment. If you thing AZ's law is a potential civil rights violation waiting to happen, well Temecula citizens, it HAS happened in your OWN BACKYARD. BOYCOTT Pechanga for ACTUAL civil rights violations.

33 comments:

Anonymous said...

mark and jenny are putting money in swiss accounts,feeling heat,thiefs thats all.

Anonymous said...

Boycott!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

I think it likely that if Pechanga is sued by the city of Temecula that they will claim sovereign immunity and the city and everyone else will see how they worm out of everything.

Anonymous said...

Sovereign immunity is the trump card that beats everything. The city is a fool if they think they can win. It doesn't matter who is right or wrong, it will not go farther than the judge throwing everything out because of sovereign immunity.

You can NOT sue the tribe and win.

Anonymous said...

Then, the city, if not successful in a lawsuit, could simply use their options to:

No longer support the casino.
Implement a drunk driver check EVERY Friday and Saturday night on both ends of the Pechanga Parkway.

Or, maybe one by the entrance to the reservation.

Anonymous said...

How about setting up some detours for "road de-construction"?....some nice bottlenecks will have people staying on the freeway and going to Pala or Harrahs....and why are the fountains in front of the casino always going when I drive by?..isnt there a water shortage?..why are we supposed to sparingly use water BUT NOT PECHANGA??

Luiseno said...

To be fair, the water is recycled and it doesn't use any water (except that which is lost to evaporation).

Anonymous said...

Tell your friends NOT to go to Pechanga and ask that their friends not go. A drop in income due to their actions against our city will mean the most.

BOYCOTT Pechanga for the sake of Temecula

Anonymous said...

Thats a lie there was a labor issue where a casino manager sued the tribe and won ,,,and marshals went in and took the 800,000.

Anonymous said...

I'm shocked that the city would actually do this, it probably the most foolish thing they could do. First, the original article said there was a clause that said the tribe was legal in the right. Second the casino is the largest employer in the valley so any harm they do to the tribe will affect their community. Third, why is the city being so greedy, they will still get all their money. The city agreed to payments after an agreement has been met with Riverside County, and now they don't like what they agreed to. The city should ask the county to get their agreement in place then everyone gets paid.
This blog sometimes surprises me. I support our cause but some of you have such a blind hate for Pechanga that it makes your valid arguments seem less valid. I mean if the city officials made poor choices in this agreement shouldn’t the community start questioning the intelligence of their elected officials?

Anonymous said...

I think questioning the officials is correct.
How could they fall for something that the unscrupulous tribal council would put upon them? After all, they know the tribe is capable of destroying the livelihoods of 25% of their tribe.
They KNOW that the tribe lied to congress.
Why would they be so stupid and fall for something that Pechanga puts out?

Just because a business is a job supplier, doesn't mean they should get away with everything ...

Anonymous said...

A job supplier that gives the employees no rights..they can be walked out and fired for no reason and are subjected to cancer causing smoke on a daily basis...every other employer in California has to protect its employees..why not tribal employers?...and I suppose the water used for the golf course is also recycled?..and in 90 degree plus weather...much of that water does evaporate...so dont say the fountains dont use water please!

Anonymous said...

First, I hardly think they get away with everything. They came to an agreement with the city and a couple months later the city didn't like what they agreed to. The city official shouldn't have agreed to it if it wasn't in the best interest of the city. Second, you're really going to complain about workers rights? The employees do choose to work there, so I have to assume they are paid fairly and receive comparable benefits to other workers, and that they are aware of the things that go along with their jobs. I also assume when they are not happy they will search for new employment elsewhere. There’s thousands and thousands of employers in California and 50 to 100 casinos, so if people are unhappy with their job they should find a new one, that’s the beauty of this county we have that right.
Regarding other things you addressed that the tribe has gotten away with. I agree there are many things the tribe has done that I don’t agree with which this blog discusses. I do support our cause for reuniting the tribe however I can’t blanket everything they do as wrong simple because of their actions on unrelated topics.

'aamokat said...

The point I am making is didn't the tribe agree to pay by June 30 and then after this, through talks with the city, then agree to pay by the end of July?

So if they wanted to go by the literal letter of the agreement, then why agree to pay (through talks with the city) before Riverside County approved the agreement?

So it does appear that the tribe did go back on their word.

Anonymous said...

A boycott of Pechanga until they pony up their $2 million is in order.

Temecula OPEN your eyes to what is happening on the reservation.

stand your ground said...

The city of Temecula believes everything that
CORRUPT MARK MACARRO says and promises?
Duhhh... surely they have heard by now that you cant trust this guys word.

Anonymous said...

The Temecula city council turned a blind eye to what Pechanga did to their own people, because it didn't affect them.

OF course a lot of terminated tribal people lost a lot of income that they were spending in Temecula, so it DID have a cost.

Time to get a stiffer spine, Temecula. Let's slow the traffic down on Pechanga Parkway with a few drunk driving stops. I've heard this in a lot of newspaper comments, so it must be a decent idea.

Will the tribe cut employees, or will they just cut some more per capita payments?

Anonymous said...

What a dumb reply...if the employees arent happy...go somewhere else...a dumb statement...in this bad economy, people will work anywhere to make some money...does that mean that they should be subjected to tons of smoke daily(which is against the law in California) and also have no means of suing the employer for wrongful termination etc???

Anonymous said...

YES! Boycott that corrupt casino. God only knows how they must cheat their patrons. STAY OUT OF PECHANGA!!!

Anonymous said...

The defense of Pechanga must be stopped the BLANKET statements of other issues against Pechanga. do you think for one second Pechanga cares about you or your Heritage being taken from you concern yourself with GETTING INVOLVED WITH THE United cause as TRUE Temecula Indians DONT MAKE THEM STONGER THEY HAVE DONE NOTHING FOR ANY OF YOUR REAL PEOPLE TAKE YOUR FIGHT TO UNITE NOW !!!POLYSQWALIS

Anonymous said...

What Polysqwalis?

Unite where? And why can't we come from all angles? Does one necessarily preclude the other?

Anonymous said...

The other issue I find interesting is those of you who were enrolled did you ever do anything for worker rights then? And if you hadn't got disenrolled you wouldn't care about workers rights now. You just use anything you can to say the tribe is bad.
I do realize that the economy is bad right now but nothing has changed from when the economy was good, in both cases the casino has workers. Also I don't believe workers don’t have options. The economy has been bad for more than a year now and almost anyone who is seriously seek employment can find a new job that’s equivalent to working a basic job at a casino within a year of searching. I am certainly not suggesting people quit without a job but if they are unhappy they should be looking.
A lot of you are filled with hate and anger so you verbal assault the tribe/our heritage on every topic you can. To me we should be fighting for the major issues that are really important to us, because I’m sure if they let you in tomorrow your first order of business would not be workers rights.
The last thing I have to say is, over history there have been great leaders that have fought for civil rights, such as Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, both of these leaders had the same dream but went about accomplishing it in different ways. I merely disagree with how you go about our dream of uniting the tribe. I just don’t think mudding the issues with off topic things helps our dream.

Anonymous said...

Perjury in court,theft,shooting at people and not getting in trouble?

Thats getting away with a lot,band of thief's (thats what they should call the pechanga movie)lets see who will play the part of mark macarro? (peewee herman)

Anonymous said...

Those actions were done by individuals not the tribe, the individuals should be held accountable and your negative comments should be directed at those individuals.

Anonymous said...

well if your a tribal member its job to stand up and clean up your tribe,,,,,also what about the moratorium ? Whats the deal? Tell the whole world why there is a freeze on enrollment and the reason for it?????? Were not stupid whats the reason why you won,t vote and open the moratorium?

Why don,t one of you people stand up in a meeting and say lets open enrollment?

Anonymous said...

Someone tell this tribal member whats happening as we speak,,,the Dept of Interior has been served and the U.S attorneys office has been served regarding a current pechanga case in federal court.

It should be interesting if they sweep this dirty ass tribe under the carpet!Its not gonna happen mistakes were made and its on record and anyone who was at the hearing heard the whole thing!


Clean up your tribe!

'aamokat said...

Anonymous of August 13, 2010 1:01 PM said:

"The other issue I find interesting is those of you who were enrolled did you ever do anything for worker rights then? And if you hadn't got disenrolled you wouldn't care about workers rights now. You just use anything you can to say the tribe is bad."

Well personally I used to walk around the casino and talk to the enployees on a regular basis and I promised them that I would go to bat for them regarding things like pay and benefits.

I went to a PDC meeting and told them that we should give all employees accross the board raises in all departments but I was told that the employees had a better benefits package that gave them actual higher conpensation than competitor casinos.

I also said at these meetings the need to be fair and take care of our employees so yes I did try to help our employess as I knew that without them we wouldn't have had anything.

'aamokat said...

"Those actions were done by individuals not the tribe, the individuals should be held accountable and your negative comments should be directed at those individuals."

On July 17, 2005 the tribe voted to outlaw disenrollment and that everyone as of the justification date of June 19, 2005 would remain tribal members and the disenrollment procedures no longer existed as a part of tribal law when we the Hunters were disenrolled on March 16, 2006.

So yes it is the tribe that is doing these things as these individuals represent the tribe.

What are doing to right these wrongs?

Are you going to the tribal council and demanding that the will of the people be followed?

Or are you going to General Membership meetings and speaking out or calling for Special membership meetings to address these issues?

So clean your own house and let those of us who were unfairly kicked out back in the tribe and those who are unfairly being kept out of the tribe in and then we will back off and address any issues we have with the tribe internally.

Until then we have to do what we have to do and if the same thing had happened to you, you would be doing the same thing.

By the way, have you told the leadership to abide by the spirit of the agreement with the City of Temecula and pay to help address the costs of the impact of the casino on the surrounding community?

If I was in the tribe, that is what I would be doing but the difference is I wouldn't be publically commenting on it in Blogs like this.

'aamokat said...

By the way, we see this as a pattern of behavior by rouge elements but as I said, if we were still in the tribe, we would be addressing these issues internally and not publically.

Again, if you agree with us, are you addressing these issues to the leadership?

Because if you are, then my sincere apologies.

My feeling is that you aren't doing so but are just irritated that we are.

Anonymous said...

The sky is falling,mark and jenny and butch and andy are taking many with them ,there is know turning back now,you must face the music!

Anonymous said...

Well I'm not in the tribe, I'm in the moratorium. You have pointed out a couple of my points though, I said the individuals are responsible not the tribe and you mentioned how you went to meetings and you were not heard, so that brings up 2 points which counter both sides. First, you didn't really fight that hard for employee rights you brought it up in a meeting, but personally I feel there is no need to fight because if you work at the casino you know the conditions you work in and accept them. Second, in pointed out that your comments in meetings went unheard obviously the leadership didn’t listen to you and those individuals are to blame. You also brought up that the tribe voted to stop disenrollment, but then the leadership allowed it so again, those individuals are responsible.
Aamokat I support what you’re doing; you are one of the most knowledgeable people on here and I generally agree with everything you say. I’m just pointing out some facts because you know how the tribe functions; with the tribal members having very little power as individuals and whole families being scared to raise too many issue because of fear of retaliation.

'aamokat said...

Anonymous of August 16, 2010 said,

"the tribal members having very little power as individuals and whole families being scared to raise too many issue because of fear of retaliation."

Awhile back I ran into a tribal elder who I hadn't seen since we were disenrolled, I don't remember what family he is from.

I talked to him about how unfair it was that we were disenrolled, about how we didn't get fair hearings.

I also pointed out how the tribe voted to stop all future disenrollments in 2005 but we were disenrolled in 2006 anyway.

He agreed with me that it was unfair but he said, "I just don't get involved in such things."

I am afraid that this attitude is probably fairly common because if it hasn't happened to them, they don't really care so it isn't just because people are afraid that they don't do anything about it.

Anonymous said...

It seems to me that the tribal members like the power they have in place and are letting the tribe be dragged through all the corrupt acts of GREED look who was elected one whom is building on his cousins trust land the council ordered the banishment of these true descendents and than this person was elected to Tribal council the civil and personal rights were restrained and RESTRICTED the power that the tribe has is and will be continued UNTIL YOU UNITE AS THE TEMECULA INDIANS HUNTERS ,MIRANDAS TOSABOLS CLAIM YOUR RIGHTFUL PLACE