- Interior found the band had not shown a significant historical connection to the Vallejo parcel.
- The finding also blocks the eight-story, $700 million resort planned for the 160.33-acre trust parcel.
- Scotts Valley suspended gaming at the hall it opened July 24 and said it will sue in federal court.
- A federal court set aside Interior’s 2019 denial on the same standard as arbitrary and capricious in 2022.
VALLEJO, Calif. – The U.S. Department of the Interior revoked Scotts Valley gaming eligibility at a 160.33-acre Vallejo trust parcel on July 31, stripping the site of the restored-lands status the band’s casino plan rested on. The Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians suspended gaming at the hall it opened on the parcel seven days earlier and said it will challenge the determination in federal court.
Interior Ruled Out Restored Lands And No Other Exception
Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs William H. Kirkland III signed the determination Interior released July 31. “I have determined the Band has not demonstrated the requisite significant historical connection,” he wrote, and the parcel therefore “does not qualify as restored lands” and cannot host gaming under that exception, the Daily Republic reported.
Kirkland then stopped short. “I provide no opinion on whether the Band may game on the parcel pursuant to another exception,” he wrote, which rules out the route the band has pursued since its January 2016 request while taking no position on the other carveouts to the gaming ban on post-1988 trust land.
The restored-lands carveout at 25 U.S.C. 2719(b)(1)(B)(iii) is the exception the band pursued for land taken into trust after Oct. 17, 1988. Interior’s own regulation at 25 C.F.R. 292.12(b) conditions that carveout on the historical-connection showing Kirkland found missing, and the determination reverses the department’s Jan. 10, 2025 finding that the parcel qualified.
The Vallejo Hall Went Dark Seven Days After Opening
“Gaming operations are temporarily suspended while the tribe pursues its legal options,” the band said in a statement. The hall had run up to 100 Class II machines since July 24, an invitation-only opening the band pushed through months after Scotts Valley’s Vallejo bid stalled in the federal review.
Class II machines require no state compact, which let the band start play while that review was still open. Class III floors across gambling in California require a negotiated compact with the state, a step that comes only after a parcel clears the eligibility test Kirkland applied here.
A $700 Million Resort Stops With It
The determination also halts the full build the parcel was acquired for, an eight-story, $700 million resort that would have joined California’s land-based casinos with restaurants, bars, a ballroom, 24 tribal homes, a tribal administration building and a 45-acre biological preserve.
The Same Standard Has Been Litigated Once Already
Interior denied the band’s application on the significant-historical-connection standard once before, on Feb. 7, 2019. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia set that denial aside on Sept. 30, 2022, in Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians v. U.S. Department of the Interior, No. 19-1544.
The court held that Interior did not exceed its authority in writing the Part 292 regulations but applied them in an arbitrary and capricious way under the Indian canon of construction. Judge Amy Berman Jackson remanded the opinion to the department, and Interior reversed itself in January 2025.
2025 Approval Challenged By Rival Tribes
Lytton Rancheria, the United Auburn Indian Community and two Wintun tribes, Kletsel Dehe and Yocha Dehe, all took the Jan. 10, 2025 determination to federal court. Yocha Dehe has argued the Vallejo site sits in Patwin ancestral territory rather than Pomo land.
The Band Goes Back To Court
U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden vacated Interior’s March 27, 2025 rescission of the same eligibility finding on Oct. 30, 2025, holding that the department had cut the band out of the process. McFadden also held that Interior could still revoke eligibility so long as it gave the band notice and a chance to respond, and the July 31 determination came out of the reconsideration that followed.
Scotts Valley Chairman Shawn Davis said the administrative record “overwhelmingly supports the tribe’s gaming eligibility,” and that the band will “move quickly to challenge the decision in federal court.”