The county board of supervisors voted to oppose the development after receiving letters of opposition from five other federally recognized tribes in Sonoma County.
photo credit: Koi Nation via Bay City News Rendering of a proposed casino and resort near Windsor
proposed by the Koi Nation of Northern California.
The public can weigh in on potential environmental impacts of a casino and resort southeast of the town of Windsor in unincorporated Sonoma County proposed by the Koi Nation of Northern California, following the release of a draft environmental impact statement from federal regulators.
The U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs completed a draft environmental impact statement that will be open for public comment until Aug. 26 for the controversial proposed development on a roughly 68-acre site that the federally recognized tribe established as their new home after more than a century of landlessness, according to federal court documents.
The draft report can be viewed at www.ShilohResortEnvironmental.com .
The proposed casino drew a range of opposition when it was announced, from neighbors who objected to traffic concerns, to the town of Windsor, which said it violated the land's agricultural-use zoning in the county's general plan.
The county board of supervisors also voted to oppose the development after receiving letters of opposition from five other federally recognized tribes in Sonoma County.
The Koi Nation of Northern California, a group of the Pomo people, has had a long road to reestablishing their land sovereignty.
The tribe was known as the Lower Lake Rancheria until 2012. The tribe lost their land in 1851 but wasn't granted new land until a treaty in 1916 that gave them 141 acres of uninhabitable land near Clear Lake in Lake County. The tribe moved to land between Sebastopol and Santa Rosa and lost its federal recognition in 1956 because of what the U.S. Department of Interior later said was an administrative mistake when the land at Clear Lake was sold to Lake County.
It was not until 2000 and lengthy litigation that the tribe won back its federal recognition, according to another lawsuit the tribe filed in 2019 after being denied gaming rights, a suit which they ultimately won.
The tribe purchased the land in 2021 and applied to have it placed in trust as sovereign land. Their application to the federal government is under review.
"The Koi Nation has had to struggle harder than almost any other Tribe in California to re-establish our sovereignty," Darin Beltran, Koi Nation Tribal Chairman, said in a statement on the project's webpage.
"Despite this treatment, however, we have endured. It is time to exercise our rights as a federally recognized Tribe to have our own land and to control our own destiny," he said.
The Shiloh Casino and Resort proposed to be built on Shiloh Road would include a 2,500-gaming machine facility, a 400-room hotel, six restaurants and food service areas, a meeting center and a spa.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs released an environmental impact assessment in September analyzing impacts of the development. Public feedback was extensive enough that the Bureau issued a more thorough draft environmental impact report.
Comments should include a name, return address, and note "EIS Comments, Koi Nation Shiloh Resort and Casino" on the first page of written comments or in the subject line of emailed comments.
Comments can be emailed to chad.broussard@bia.gov or sent by mail to Amy Dutschke, Regional Director Bureau of Indian Affairs, Pacific Region, 2800 Cottage Way, Sacramento, CA 95825.
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