Official who helped bring tribe gambling wealth resigns

Thursday, Sept. 30, 1999 | 10:04 a.m.

"I've been thinking about this for a long time. I'm tired of it. I've beat my head against the wall too many times," Henry Duro said of his resignation Tuesday.

Duro, who has been tribal chairman off and on for more than 20 years, was elected to his latest two-year term last year.

He helped lead the tribe to prosperity when he spearheaded construction of its high-stakes bingo operation in the 1980s. That in turn led to the building of a casino that has made the San Manuels among the richest tribes in the state.

But Duro complained that the tribal council has come to rely too much on gambling and simply dumps money into new reservation projects these days rather than pursuing a cost-effective approach.

He also complained that he's been frustrated in his efforts to get such projects off the ground as a tramway linking the reservation with Big Bear Lake and the construction of a water-bottling operation.

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