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Hunt Coracci promoted to senior VP,
Consumer Loans at Bank of Clark County
Hunt Coracci, who
joined the Bank of Clark County as relationship manager for commercial accounts,
has been promoted to senior vice president and commercial loan officer, reports
Mike Worthy, president of the bank.
Coracci has been in the banking profession for more than
30 years and has held various positions in southwest Washington, Portland and
Connecticut. Coracci is a graduate of Nichols College, Dudley, Mass., and
attended the National Commercial Lending School at the University of Oklahoma.
Tribal leader asks for meeting
with La Center city officials
Cowlitz Indian Tribal chair
John Barnett, last night speaking to an
invited and mostly partisan crowd at the Red Lion Hotel at the Quay, said, “I
ask La Center to meet with us. Time is running out.”
The immediate and most vocal opposition to the prospect
of an Indian casino on I-5, just up the road from La Center, the only town in
Clark County where gambling is permitted (card only, such as black jack and
poker), has come from the owners of the card room “casinos” in the town, who
claim a casino will all but devastate their business—an estimated gross of $8 to
$10 million a year. Card room gambling is the principal source of revenue for
the bucolic east fork of the Lewis River community, and the card room owners are
not without community support in opposing the proposed Cowlitz development
What the Cowlitz propose for 152 acres they own just east
of the interstate highway between La Center and Ridgefield is a 160,000
square-foot casino, larger by half than any other in the northwest, 210,000
square feet of restaurant and retail space, convention and entertainment
facilities of up to 150,000 square feet, a 250-room hotel, tribal government
offices and a tribal cultural center, up to two dozen tribal housing units, and
parking structures for about 8,500 vehicles.
Last night’s session was set up by the JD White Company,
which currently is involved in the public communications aspect of the project.
The tribe and Clark County last March signed a memorandum
of agreement that spells out how the tribe would indemnify county and local
governmental agencies for development costs and how the tribe would provide
governmental support in lieu of taxes, which it is not otherwise required to
pay. In addition, the memorandum with the county provides that 2 percent of
gaming revenues would be turned over to the county for other purposes, including
art and education.
Other agreements are being pursued with other agencies,
notably the Ridgefield School District, Vancouver, Ridgefield and Battle Ground.
And huge it would be. Casino employment alone would be in
the 4-to-5,000 range, by far becoming the largest employer in the county.
Nothing will happen, however, until the Bureau of Indian
Affairs determines whether the Cowlitz, which gained official tribal status in
2000, can turn their Clark County property into an Indian reservation. That
process has begun. A scoping meeting on an Environmental Impact Statement has
already been held. Tribal officials believe that the draft of the Environmental
Impact Statement will be ready by mid-summer.
What’s given the Cowlitz a kick-start is a recent
agreement with the successful Mohegan Tribe to finance and manage the project.
Mohegan officials have been in Clark County with the Cowlitz, making
presentations most of the week, and they participated in last night’s
presentation.
The Mohegan Sun Casino, in Uncasville, Conn., grosses
over a billion dollars a year.
Barnett explains thusly what the casino development will
mean to the 3,000 members of the tribe: “In addition to employment
opportunities, the casino will provide economic and social benefits for the
Cowlitz people. Proceeds will be used to endow scholarships for the young and
provide health care and prescription drug benefits for our growing number of
elders. The added resources will help us preserve our culture and language,
while protecting ancestral lands and the environment.”
“The Cowlitz Tribe has been in Clark County since time
immemorial,” Barnett said concluding the presentation. “We intend to stay. You
have my word that we will be good neighbors.”
News briefs
First Friday Art Walk in Camas is this evening.
Fitzgerald’s Fine Wines offering wine tasting at 228 NE Fourth Avenue.
g
Quartet for the End of Time, a musical
and multi-media depiction of War II Nazi concentration camps, is being presented
at 3 p.m. Sunday by Bravo! Vancouver in St. Joseph Catholic Church, 400 S
Andresen Road. General admission is $12.00. For further information, call
696-4407.
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MIRIAM GREEN 
"Working to help you!"
