August 15, 2001, Oakland Tribune

 By Josh Richman
 STAFF WRITER

 A new federal lawsuit has frozen the impending transfer of the Casino San Pablo card room into an
 Indian tribe's hands for conversion into a Nevada-style casino.

 The Lytton Band of Pomo Indians, a landless 220-member tribe with roots in Sonoma County, could
 have taken possession of the 9.5-acre tract at San Pablo Avenue and San Pablo Dam Road as early as
 this week, if not for this latest salvo in a legal battle stretching from a federal courtroom in Sacramento to
 Capitol Hill.

 "Everything is basically on hold," Michael Franchetti, attorney for the Lucky Chances card room in
 Colma, said Monday.

 But Tony Cohen, the Lyttons' attorney, said this "hold" was incorrectly applied and might not last long. "I
 expect once the Bureau of Indian Affairs has a chance to act, they will promptly move to dispose of this
 and to rescind the extension of time they've given the card clubs."

 The Lyttons are close to taking over Casino San Pablo only because U.S. Rep. George Miller,
 D-Martinez, added one paragraph deep within last year's 76-page Omnibus Indian Advancement Act.
 That paragraph ordered the government to put Casino San Pablo into trust for the Lyttons, helping the
 tribe bypass the years of bureaucratic review such a move ordinarily requires.

 Card rooms and charities which fear they'll be run out of business by a full-fledged casino in the Bay
 Area filed their first federal lawsuit in February to challenge the plan's constitutionality.

 And U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. and majority whip -- egged on by his state's gaming industry -- has
 penned an amendment to repeal Miller's amendment and put the Lyttons back at square one. Reid's
 amendment has passed the Senate but still must go through a House-Senate conference committee's
 review before it can reach the president's desk. Congress won't reconvene until September.

 Still, the Bureau of Indian Affairs in July published a order that would put Casino San Pablo into trust for
 the Lyttons. Such an order can't be executed until 30 days after it's published; that clock would've run
 out Monday, had it not been stopped last week.

 The Interior Department's policy is that if someone sues to stop the placement of land into trust for a
 tribe, the department can voluntarily postpone the transfer until the lawsuit is resolved.

 In this case, Cohen said, the department last week agreed to stop the clock just before the card rooms
 actually filed their new lawsuit challenging a technical aspect of the transfer. That was a mistake for two
 reasons, he said.

 First, Cohen said, the policy only applies to transfers made at the Interior Secretary's discretion;
 Congress ordered this transfer, leaving no such discretion. Second, the Interior Department can
 voluntarily postpone a transfer only after finding the same factors a court would have to find in order to
 issue an temporary injunction.

 Those factors are a likelihood the card rooms' lawsuit will eventually succeed; irreparable injury the card
 rooms will suffer if the transfer goes through now; substantial harm other parties will suffer if the transfer
 goes through now; and the public interest.

 "I think they lose on all four branches of the test," Cohen said Monday, adding he believes the Interior
 Department -- which saw the card rooms' new lawsuit only after agreeing to the voluntary postponement
 -- soon will recognize it as frivolous and withdraw the postponement.