Highway ranch casino? Not in my life
By Brett LeTourneau
Special to The Madera Tribune
I’m perplexed about the proposed new casino possibly being constructed in the Madera area. I guess you could say I just don’t the like the idea of paving over more of God’s countryside, or rich valley farm soil.
The property that may soon have numerous tall buildings, parking structures, and other casino accouterments is the same piece of land that used to be part of the Daulton cattle ranches. This particular piece of soil means so much to me as I grew up living and playing boyhood games within it.
Daulton cowboys knew this cattle land as the “highway ranch” and there were hundreds of acres of irrigated pastures and “volunteer” grazing land, as well as corrals, stanchions, and everything needed to raise big, fat beef cattle.
As a boy I had numerous excursions onto that land with my trusted BB gun, running and dodging imaginary bandits, pretending to “cowboy” the ever-present herds of cattle and pretending to operate the different pieces of dilapidated, rusting equipment that had six-foot-tall weeds intertwining within the levers and cogwheels of the antiquated machinery. My favorite was always the little bulldozer, but I spent a lot of time playing on the old harvester combine too.
Over the years I saw this land grow hay and cotton and eventually a thoroughbred horse ranch moved in as the Daultons must have sold it and moved on. I even have vivid memories of someone raising huge buffalo there for several years. Testing the range of my walkie-talkies, riding on dirt bikes with my friends and just enjoying the great outdoors after my mom would shoo us out of the house on Saturday afternoons are memories this country boy will never forget, and all these took place in my big “backyard” growing up in the Avenue 17 area.
Every spring for so many years I would chase frogs, tadpoles and cottontails in the soggy marshes of the old Schmidt creek. Riding on the school bus traveling down Golden State Boulevard, I used to look over and see the cattails growing in the marshy area where Schmidt creek would emerge from under the west side of (state Route) 99… After seeing those cattails and all the birds and wildlife, I couldn’t wait to get home and come back to the “swamp” to see what I could get into.
It is impossible to believe how much Madera Acres has grown in just 35 years. As an older kid on a bike, I would ride and explore the winding roads and empty cul-de-sacs in this planned community just on the other side of (SR) 99 from my house. My friend Kerry had a 1930 Model-T hot rod and as teenagers we would blaze these empty avenues dodging the already-present massive Madera County potholes.
Of course, now these empty streets are loaded with houses and people, many whose homes are located within the flood zone of old Schmidt creek and I’m sure they worry about flooding during rainy winters or an El Niño phenomenon. Although usually dry, I have seen with my own eyes how that creek can swell in late winter-early spring.
These houses that have sprouted up in Madera Acres just don’t seem to bother me as much as high-rise hotels and concrete structures. There is a difference between families building and moving into new homes and hoards of strangers drifting into my neighborhood to gamble and party with no intention of settling down here.
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On Christmas morning of 1978 my brother David and I played with our new remote-controlled cars on Avenue 17 in the fog. Since then, the Pilot Truck Stop has been firmly established on Avenue 18 1/2. Coupled with the 18-hole golf course, these two establishments have dramatically increased traffic. Now there is an automobile or semi-truck flying by my parent’s house every 16 seconds. I know … I’ve timed it.
When the 7 a.m. shift starts at Gottschalk’s, traffic in and around the Avenue 17 off-ramp is an absolute nightmare. Can anyone imagine how horrific traffic will inevitably become after a Las Vegas-style casino is constructed? Anyone driving down (SR) 99 surely notices how this once country highway is absolutely bursting at the seams. There is just no room for more cars.
Now we must prepare ourselves for the casino, and I just can’t get used to losing more memories. It’s not that I’m dead-set against it; I know that it will create jobs, increase community revenue and help with poverty-stricken tribal members; rather, it is something about that land. Something about building massive structures and urbanization just doesn’t sit right with me.
At some point I want to say “enough is enough” and beg for developers to stop paving and cementing. I can imagine that soon Madera will expand clear out to Pilot and beyond, and my boyhood home, replete with pasture, horses and cattle, will be some type of strip mall or shopping center and that just sickens me.
Over the years my entire family has poured love, sweat and “rural grit” into that land and in turn that land has given us a bounty that is unmatched by anything we’ve ever seen involving pavement and concrete. The work ethic and family unity from ranchers and farmers is a tradition that is on rapid decline in California and it is a shame to see this way of life shoved aside in the name of progress and the “almighty” dollar…
I have already said good-bye to so much where I grew up and it will be even more difficult to say good-bye to the Daulton Ranch and Schmidt Creek and eventually my home. Construction is so rapid and unforgiving in situations like these.
At least urban sprawl will never be able to pave over my memories.
I get to keep those.
I appreciate all those people who see the growth around Madera and feel sad. The land around where the proposed casino resort will be built - in fact around most of the county - is beautiful. But we also need to keep a perspective on all this because, like it or not, change will happen. The question is whether we can direct it to the best outcome.
First, change has already happened. Before irrigation made farming possible on the Valley floor, there were grasslands and seasonal rives and marches. To the many Native Americans tribes that roamed through these areas, the subsequent farms and ranches would have looked very different that what they grew up with and loved.
Second, change will continue to happen. We live in one of the fastest growing counties in the state. We can better control our growth and community if we balance population growth with sound economic growth. Without jobs and business opportunity for newly arriving Maderans, we will end up with massive decay, poverty, gangs and social upheaval. The proposed resort will bring tons of jobs and community investment into the county to balance the projected population growth. This provides an important tool for managing our growth.
Lastly, the North Fork resort provides significant benefits over other forms of growth. For one thing the current plan calls for only about 55 acres of the 305 acre site to be developed. This means there will a huge green belt or buffer zone around the site. For another thing the casino resort mandates mitigations that other forms of development won’t come near touching. Other forms of development such as retail would provide only a fraction of shared revenues that the North Fork tribe has agreed to provide the County and City of Madera. So if the casino is not built, there will be development but without most of the advantages.
It makes sense to focus growth along the travel corridors where the infrastructure is already in place and/or can be quickly added to. This allows other parts of the our County that are perhaps more fragile, such as the more remote foothills and farms, to be better protected. Again, the proposed resort provides the community an invaluable tool to manage its future.
In balance and in the final analysis, the North Fork project looks like a pretty good pathway to growth and prosperity.