Cathedral City Council approves multimillion-dollar casino agreement
As Cathedral City gears up for a new casino, the city council approved a multimillion-dollar agreement with the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians during Wednesday night’s meeting.
“It’s been long-awaited and it’s getting closer as we speak,” said Mayor Mark Carnevale.
The new Agua Caliente casino is slated for a 13-acre dirt lot at Highway 111 and Date Palm Drive. A date has not yet been set for the groundbreaking.
According to the agreement the city approved Wednesday, for the next 10 years, the tribe will pay the city $150,000 per year for emergency services like police, fire, and ambulance.
“If a visitor is playing in a casino, has a medical emergency and they need to send an ambulance, the city of Cathedral City is the agency responsible for that ambulance service,” said city communications manager Chris Parman. “That has an additional cost.”
The tribe will also pay $500,000 each year for road repairs on tribal reservation roads. The payments will total $6.5 million by 2029.
“Basically that’s all of our main roads: Ramon, Vista Chino, so it’s going to improve our infrastructure quite a bit,” Carnevale said.
According to city officials, the federal government still needs to approve the land as tribal land before construction can begin. City officials added this approval could come any day now.
Tom Davis, chief planning and development officer for the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, said the tribe is ready to break ground immediately – as soon as the land is federally approved into a tribal trust. “It’s up to the federal government,” Davis said.
But residents said they are sick of the eyesore. One woman demanded development sooner rather than later during public comment at the city council meeting, “so that we don’t have empty land sitting on that corner we’ve had it too long,” said Carol Ackins.
“It has been an eyesore and it’s coming right into our city, but we are rising up so that will be built up,” Carnevale said.
The city considers the new casino as one of four anchors to Cathedral City’s “Entertainment and Arts District.” The others include the Mary Pickford Theater, the new downtown amphitheater currently under construction, and the CV Repertory Theater.
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