Legal Update September 16, 2016

Residents of Jamul, you are amazing!!! Over 300 of you attended the September 15th community meeting! Thank you for keeping the faith that we shall prevail!

I have always said that our battle is a marathon not a sprint! Your willingness to endure the time consuming legal challenges proves that our cause is not the cause of a few disgruntled residents, rather the opposite is clear, the vast majority support the efforts to have our courts halt this nightmare permanently!

Please stay informed, and please continue to support us fiscally if you can. Quality legal representation is expensive and necessary for us to prevail.

Our attorneys have told the federal court that the land on which the casino is being built is not a reservation under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.

The Jamul Action Committee, the Jamul Community Church and other concerned individuals are seeking a declaration that the four parcels of land upon which the Hollywood Casino is being constructed on do not qualify as a reservation and therefore are ineligible for gaming under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA).

“The casino is being constructed on four different properties all of which must qualify, but none of which do qualify, as a ‘reservation’ eligible for Indian gaming under IGRA,” the motion for partial summary judgment said.

It is the role of the Secretary of the Interior – not the IGRA – to determine if property qualifies as a “reservation” for IGRA purposes. That determination must be made by relying on the agency’s 2008 definition of the term “reservation.”

Because the secretary of the interior has not found that the four parcels meet the criteria, and because none of the parcels meet any of the regulatory definitions of a reservation, none of the four parcels qualify.

To be clear we continue to believe that the JIV does not constitute a “federally recognized tribe,” since they never completed the process for such recognition under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. Further we do not believe the land upon which they’ve built their project is a “reservation” in the legal sense of the word.

If either of those arguments is upheld in court then this project may not operate as a casino.

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JAC
P.O. Box 1317
Jamul, CA 91935

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