No money from the tribe has been used to mitigate that negative impact. What they didn’t listen to were projections that gamblers stopping in Shingle Springs would never make it to Tahoe so it negatively impacted the county as a whole. While officials on the South Shore made noise about how the Indian casino would be bad for the basin section of the county, the supervisors only saw the potential dollar signs in front of them. This was pre-recession, and although gaming was declining, it was still a huge reason to come to the South Shore.
“The original agreement hammered out with the tribe was the richest agreement ever in American history of a local public entity and an Indian tribe.” “All the money that the tribe paid to the county was for mitigation … the negative impacts we expected when the casino went in,” Ed Knapp, who today became chief county counsel, told Lake Tahoe News. Ultimately, the Indians agreed to pay the county $5.2 million a year for 20 years. The 2006 agreement stemmed from a settlement involving a lawsuit the county had filed against the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians in regards to the interchange that needed to be built to access the casino from Highway 50, along with environmental concerns. Red Hawk Casino has had financial issues since it opened in December 2008.
