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Why not a casino?

Since it affects my home, I’ve noted with interest and some pain the ongoing and proposed construction by the Spokane Tribe on Highway 2 across from Fairchild Air Force Base. Far be it from me to question a long-impoverished tribe a way to enrich itself. Besides, the West Plains is pretty much lost anyways to pavement and light and noise pollution.

Within a few square miles, we have recently added the Northern Quest Casino, also a racetrack, the Waste-to-Energy plant, another dump just up the road from the Spokane Tribe’s 145-acre parcel, a prison and a mini-mall that features Wal-Mart. Why not more traffic and pollution? Why not a second casino?

The objection that it might offer the addictions of gambling and alcohol and thus distract our soldiers – the descendants of those who 130 or so years ago shot Indians on this very site, then summarily hanged them and consigned them to the reservation system – is an exquisite historical irony.

John Keeble

Medical Lake

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