Fired official again lobbying for Indian gambling

Don Thompson

Monday, Aug. 4, 2003 | 9:04 a.m.

SACRAMENTO -- A former top Bureau of Indian Affairs official fired last year during a federal influence-peddling investigation is now working with a San Diego County tribe that wants to open a casino on non-reservation land in Imperial County.

Wayne Smith, formerly the Department of Interior's deputy assistant secretary for Indian affairs, is representing Liberty Gaming on behalf of the Manzanita Band of Kumeyaay Indians.

The 97-member tribe has a state compact to open a casino on its own remote 3,580-acre reservation, but wants to build instead in Imperial County, at a more accessible but as yet unspecified site near El Centro, tribal spokesman John Elliot said Friday. Elliott is president of the Manzanita Economic Development Corp.

Liberty Gaming, incorporated in Nevada early this year, is a potential development partner, Elliott said. It's proposing to develop and manage a resort that would include a casino, public golf course, hotel, recreational vehicle park, convention facilities, an entertainment center, restaurants, and perhaps an outlet mall.

Smith and company officials did not return telephone messages Friday.

The band is now the 23rd tribe seeking permission to operate an off-reservation casino, according to the advocacy group Stand Up for California, which opposes such efforts.

"It's what we call reservation shopping," said Imperial County Supervisor Wally J. Leimgruber. The outside investors would compete with locally owned businesses, he fears, while gambling's social ills would add to the problems of the state's poorest county.

Supervisor Hank Kuiper is intrigued with Smith's promises of thousands of jobs if the project proceeds.

"If there's something that makes sense and it's good for the economic climate and jobs in Imperial County, we're willing to take a look at it," Kuiper said.

In a letter to Kuiper, Smith touts his federal experience overseeing Indian gambling, which he said helps bring Liberty Gaming "an unequaled understanding of the governmental process necessary for such projects."

Obtaining an off-reservation gambling site requires permission from Interior Secretary Gale Norton.

Smith was fired from his Interior post in May 2002 amid allegations that Smith's friend and former business partner, Philip Bersinger, had asked at least three West Coast Indian tribes to pay him for his influence with Smith.

Smith denied wrongdoing, and asked for his own investigation.

He alleged he was improperly fired after he complained that the White House was making "highly inappropriate" calls urging him to reverse a lower-level decision involving one of the three tribes. That tribe is involved in a leadership struggle over its plans for a $150 million casino near Sacramento.

The Interior Department's Office of Inspector General has finished its investigation, but is delaying its report while the FBI completes its probe.

Within a month after his firing, Smith formed W.R. Smith and Associates outside Washington, D.C., to advise tribes and governments on gambling and tribal reservation issues, the same issues he oversaw as the No. 2 official at the BIA.

While Smith is promoting a tribe's casino now, shortly after his firing last year he unsuccessfully offered to help Sonoma County residents combat the Dry Creek Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians' River Rock Casino 75 miles north of San Francisco.