Why I Support The Compacts...And Why You Should Too

Hardy L. Brown

He was just checking up on me and said he had a good story to share about the mystery of how God works...

It was approaching Thanksgiving and an old lady in the neighborhood wanted a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner but she had no financial means by which to buy or get one. So she prayed.

In the meantime, some of the young men from the neighborhood were gambling. One of them won some money and the thought came to him to be charitable.

So he bought an extra turkey and gave it to the old lady. Some of her nosey neighbors saw these young men go to her house. When they left the neighbors came to her and said "What did they want, they didn't hurt you, did they?"

The old lady said, "No, they gave me a turkey for Thanksgiving."

The nosey neighbors said, "I wouldn't take anything from those rascals," the old lady responded. "The devil may have brought it but the Lord sent it."

I started laughing and Rev. Jacks said, "Take care, Brother Brown" as we got off the phone.

I thought of that conversation later in the week when my daughter mentioned that some of our regional tribes are in the middle of negotiating new compacts with the state of California. I often hear from members of our community, that because the tribes now make their money primarily in gaming, that it must be bad.

It's important to understand that it wasn't that long ago when these tribes - our neighbors - were relegated to unwanted land with no services. They had limited means to generate income and were left to pick fruit for some of the local canneries at the time or open bingo parlors and card rooms to sustain themselves.

I remember back in 1961, I was asked to go with a friend to the San Manuel Indian Reservation located on the north end of San Bernardino. As we traveled up Victoria Avenue, the pavement stopped and the narrow dirt road took us the rest of the way.

I remember coming upon a small house with a couple of dogs running loose in the yard without grass. I saw a wash pot like the ones we used back home and a clothes line for drying clothes in the sun. There were a few trees that provided shade from the hot summer sun, and there was no running water or the convenient utilities I was accustomed to back in San Bernardino.

Later the same year, when I went to Palm Springs as a driver, I noticed the Morongo Indian Reservation near Banning. You could see that, at some point in time, a group of government "scoundrels" had assigned this tribe this land in the desolate desert cramped against the harsh cold mountains to fend for themselves or die.

So, after all of these decades of starving, receiving inferior education, poor healthcare, and being treated as a non-entity, these faithful and proud people are now sitting around the table with public policymakers and providing hundreds of millions of dollars into civic organizations, state and local government budgets.

If you visit either of these reservations today you will see homes with all of the modern conveniences. Instead of begging others for employment, they now employ thousands of local citizens including my grandson. They contract with hundreds of local vendors. Instead of pleading with local boards of education about not receiving equal treatment, tribal leaders like San Manuel's James Ramos now sit on boards making policy that will benefit all our children. Instead of seeking charity from local community agencies they give generously to many community agencies that in turn provide much needed services.

Once they had to beg the government for services and attention. Now that same government is seeking them out for funds to balance their budget.

Our state budget is going to be short more than a billion dollars and now our state needs help. The governor has made an agreement that will allow Morongo and four other California tribes to increase their gaming operations on their reservations. This agreement will result in hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue each year - helping to avoid spending cuts to healthcare, education and other critical programs. It's a good agreement for the state and a good agreement for the tribes.

The tribes will pay the state billions of dollars in revenue over the life of the compacts. These new funds will help balance the budget, improve education and provide healthcare for Californians who need it most.

The Indian tribes have come a long way to be able to help the state now.

Just this week the Agua Caliente tribe donated over a million dollars in their annual contributions to local organizations, including the African  American Chamber of Commerce in Palm Springs.

Annually Morongo distributes thousands of Thanksgiving meals to less fortunate families in the region. All of our local tribal governments have accessible charitable programs. Morongo alone gives more than $2 million every year to local charities.

The tribes are concerned with the impact of gaming on local communities and fund impact studies to identify any problems while working closely with local governments to resolve key issues. In fact, they are the only group to have given millions of dollars to the state for problem gambling programs.

In short, the tribes have been doing the right thing.

Once the reservation was a place for people not to visit, now you can't keep people off the reservations.

Over the last two decades, we have witnessed tremendous community support for our local tribal governments including Morongo, San Manuel, Pechanga, and Agua Caliente.

As their self-reliance has grown, so has their support for local governments, regional agencies, and community based organizations. The tribes have been our friends and deserve our support.