NICOS Chinese Health Coalition officially opposes Props 94 - 97. 

 

As many of you know, for nearly a decade now NICOS has worked to address the issue of problem gambling in California, in particular in the Chinese/ API community in the Bay Area.  Props 94-97 would dramatically increase gambling opportunities in the State without providing an adequate plan to address the related problems this would likely create, including increased problem/ pathological gambling, domestic violence and family stress.  The impact on the Chinese/ API community could be especially devastating; in a study NICOS commissioned, nearly 70% of Chinese Americans in San Francisco identified gambling as a problem for their community.

 

Attached is further information on groups opposing the props.  Below is an editorial from the San Jose Mercury News.  Note that the City of San Jose very recently voted to oppose the props as well.

 

For those in need of assistance for a gambling problem, please call our toll-free helpline at 1-888-968-7888 (Chinese and English help available, all calls confidential.)

 

Thank you for your attention to this matter.  Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or would like further comments.

 

 

Kent Woo, MSW
Executive Director
NICOS Chinese Health Coalition
1208 Mason St.
San Francisco, CA 94108
(415) 788-6426 - phone
(415) 788-0966 - fax
http://www.nicoschc.com/

NICOS Chinese Health Coalition is a public-private-community partnership of more than 30 health and human service organizations and concerned individuals. The mission of NICOS is to enhance the health and well-being of the San Francisco Chinese community. Since 1985, NICOS has been engaged in advocacy, research, training, coalition-building and program implementation for the benefit of this population and the organizations that serve it.

 

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Editorial: Stop gambling expansion: Vote no on Props. 94-97
Mercury News Editorial

The millions of dollars' worth of television ads for and against Propositions 94 through 97 are a voter's nightmare. And it gets worse when you try to parse the various analyses of the gaming compacts that
these propositions would ratify for four Southern California tribes.

So let's cut to the chase. Vote based on what you want California to become. Should we compete with Nevada to become the nation's gambling capital? No. Stop the escalation now. Reject Propositions 94 through 97.

Each proposition is a referendum on a pact negotiated by the governor and ratified by the Legislature with the already-rich Pechanga, Morongo, Sycuan and Agua Caliente tribes. Besides a higher percentage
of profits, the state would get some but not enough improvement in its oversight power.

But the magnitude of the expansion in gambling would be stunning: 17,000 more slot machines in just four casinos that now have around 2,000 each. Approval would mean a 28 percent increase in the current
number of slots spread across 58 facilities statewide.

And if these compacts are approved, Northern California tribes will start angling to renegotiate deals. A yes vote on these propositions will open a floodgate.

The Legislative Analyst's Office says the compacts could bring $200 million to the state next year, figuring on 15 to 25 percent of net income from the new machines - although many argue it will be much
less because of murky rules for calculating the take.

It's real money, but a small percentage of the state's current $14.5 billion budget shortfall. Overall, income from the compacts would be no more than half of 1 percent of the budget.

For the state to get $200 million, Californians will have to lose more than $800 million at the slots. Some might have been lost in Las Vegas anyway. But much of it will come out of other entertainment spending
in local communities, and some will come out of mortgage payments, college savings or productive business investments.

Gambling addiction splits families and ruins lives, and a spike in the amount of gambling will take a toll. San Jose saw this during its last major expansion of cardroom gambling in the 1990s. After Bay 101
opened, specializing in Asian games, local human service agencies saw waves of Asian domestic violence victims - a rarity before - and families in financial distress.

Casinos have made some tribes, like these four, extremely rich. A fund spreads some of the profits to non-gaming tribes, but many Native Americans still languish in poverty, and these new compacts will not
be much help. They're definitely not what Californians signed up for when they approved Indian gaming in 1998 to help struggling tribes.

The dueling campaigns on the airwaves are all about profits. Opponents who collected signatures to force this referendum are financed by competing gambling interests. Neither side is pure.

Further complicating things, it's possible that voters' decision on the propositions won't even matter because of action by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

At the governor's request, the federal Department of the Interior has published the new gaming compacts in the Federal Register, which makes them part of federal law. That could supersede California law, which
is the subject of the referendum.

An unusual - some would say suspicious - chain of events led to this, including a mysterious disappearance of the compacts for a period. The Interior Department's inspector general is investigating, and the governor's role deserves close scrutiny as well - particularly if it ends up thwarting the voters' will. It's hard to believe he didn't know what he was doing.

This is the kind of shady dealing that dogs large-scale gambling wherever it takes place. It's all the more reason to say no to Propositions 94 through 97, and hope it's not too late.