Sarris notes 'this is not the Koi Nation’s first attempt at reservation shopping,' and he points to the tribe's attempt in the early 2000s to acquire a casino site near Oakland Airport, and another failed attempt to establish a reservation and casino on Mare Island in Vallejo. But, they said, they have been largely landless for the last 150 years, and many of their people had resettled in the Russian River area.īut it sounds like there will be more pushback to come about the Koi Nation's chosen site, a 68-acre former winery on East Shiloh Road, just north of Santa Rosa near Highway 101. The Koi Nation acknowledged in their earlier announcement that their tribe originated on an island in Clear Lake. Sarris goes on to say the Koi Nation has 'never been associated with Sonoma County, linguistically or culturally,' and he says this with some authority as a professor who has 'worked closely with renowned ethnohistorians and linguists.'

In fact, the Koi Nation was previously known as 'Lower Lake Rancheria,' a reflection of its geographic and cultural ties to the area, but changed its name in 2012, amid prior attempts to acquire a gaming site in the Bay Area. 'In 1916, the federal government acquired a rancheria for the Koi Nation in Lake County. 'The consensus among ethnohistorians is that the Koi Nation’s ancestral roots are in the Lower Lake area of Lake County,' says Greg Sarris, chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria. They refer to this as 'reservation shopping,' and they contend that if the Koi Nation wants a casino, they should build it in Lake County, where their people once lived. The tribe said in their announcement that the tribe had 'struggle harder than almost any other tribe in California to re-establish our sovereignty,' and the casino plan south of Windsor would be an important first step.īut the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, the tribe behind Graton Resort & Casino in Rohnert Park, don't think it's right that the Koi Nation should be allowed to establish a land base in a county where they did not historically live. SFist reported last week on the proposed $600 million Shiloh Casino and Resort outside Santa Rosa, which would represent the first establishment of a sovereign land base for the Koi Nation tribe of the Pomo people in the county. Things are getting a little tense between neighboring Native American tribes in Sonoma County, where the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria are none too pleased about another tribe moving in on their turf.

Graton Resort and Casino Rohnert Park