By Roger Phelps
A trio of current civil lawsuits involves Amador County.
Supervisors took a closed-session briefing on them Tuesday.
The briefing was routine, however, because each of the cases is a slow-moving one involving a second public agency as either defendant or plaintiff.
Two name the same defendant - the federal Department of the Interior - and each of those involves efforts by American Indians to build gaming facilities inside county boundaries.
Filed in 2005 in federal court in Washington, D.C., the earlier of the two gaming-related cases involves the Buena Vista Rancheria near Ione. The suit challenges a compact made by the Interior Department with the Rancheria granting the right to conduct gaming on Rancheria territory, according to Martha Shaver, county counsel. A judge has ruled that the compact is not reviewable in court.
The status of the case is that the county has filed a motion requesting the judge reconsider, which request the judge on discretion could grant or deny. No deadline exists for a decision on the motion.
In the later gaming-related case, filed two years ago in Sacramento federal court, the county challenges the right of the Ione Band of Miwok Indians to build a casino on land near Plymouth. The property has not yet been taken into trust for the tribe by the Interior Department as the legally restored lands of a recognized Indian tribe.
The status of the case is that the court has ruled Amador's challenge is premature and that the matter is properly resolved only when the Interior Department makes its decision on taking the land into trust. That issue is not yet settled despite an opinion earlier this year by the department's Solicitor General that the land is unsuitable for taking into trust. That opinion has not been formally adopted, Shaver said.
Lastly, Amador County is defendant in a case brought several years ago by the East Bay Municipal Utility District. EBMUD contends that deed language on agency property within Amador makes the county responsible for maintaining a particular culvert within the agency water system.
