Company: Shingle Springs Rancheria
Agency: Pacific Research & Strategies, Inc.
Timeframe: 2006
Cultural tensions have always run high in El Dorado County, California, where about 140 member of the Shingle Springs Tribe reside; those tensions were further inflamed in
2006. After receiving approval by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and other state agencies, Tribe members wanted to build a casino on its 160-acre reservation called Rancheria,
creating 1,500 new jobs with an estimated annual payroll of $20 million.
But construction came to a standstill due to the county's bitter campaign (not to mention a lawsuit) against the Tribe and its casino project. Frustrated, the Tribe turned to
the Long Beach, CA-based Pacific Research & Strategies, Inc., who put together a community relations program that would stir public opinion away from the county detractors and
toward the Tribe.
War And Peace
The conflict between the county and the Tribe was not an altercation that transpired overnight. Rather, the battles between the two communities have been waged along legal and
political lines since the mid-1990s. The primary issue of dispute: the Tribe has been without proper access to its land for 40 years; in fact, since the 1970s, the only way to
enter the Rancheria was by a private road through a home development. Without commercial access to its land, this made the Tribe, landlocked, dependent on the county and not as it
wanted to be--wholly autonomous.
To remedy this impossible situation, the Tribe decided it wanted to build and maintain an interchange from a local highway to the reservation, incurring no cost to taxpayers.
To get the bureaucratic say-so and the funds necessary to undertake this $45 million project, the Tribe also agreed to build a casino in the affected area.
Unfortunately, the problems only escalated for the Tribe once word of its plans got out. Seeking to deprive its only access to and from the Rancheria, the county gave it to a
private homeowner's association following a successful lawsuit against the Tribe. They also sought to deny water service to the reservation.
Even the public was making openly hostile gestures to the Tribe. Some members of the homeowner's association would throw rocks at vehicles driven by Tribe members driving
through the now-private road leading to the Rancheria.
Healing A Cultural Divide
Facing deadlines to begin construction, in January 2006, the Shingle Springs Tribe hired Pacific Research & Strategies, Inc. (PRSI) to spearhead a campaign that would
inform community members of the true details of the interchange/casino projects and the county's intransigence in dealing with them on any level.
This type of project was familiar to PRSI due to their expertise in resolving similar disputes for other Tribes. Plus, according to Rod Wilson, president and CEO of PRSI,
Shingle Springs had been a client of theirs for 10 years. "The case with Shingle Springs was very interesting because [the dispute involved] not only neighbors who had differences
of opinions but there were also a lot of issues that needed to be worked out," he explains. "It was really about education, trying to get the facts together, seeing commonality
and building it from there."
One key issue that needed to be resolved was healing the cultural divide between the Tribe and the county. "Especially in areas that are not in large cities, there are a lot of
not recent views on both sides [that needed to be addressed]", says Wilson. "The Tribe had a view that the white man wanted to keep them from doing something, and the county had
this view that they didn't want these Indians coming in, destroying their community, making lots of money and running the show."
Another problem causing the stalemate was a hardcore "no-growth" stance that forbade additional developments in the community, thus ensuring to citizens that the quiet semi-
rural area, seen by them as an oasis from the hurly burly of city life, would remain just that. Wilson says this was a position staunchly held by the county for a number of years,
despite the potential revenue created by the casino project. "The county has routinely turned down other projects that would bring in lots of jobs and revenue and what not," he
notes. "So that was one of many hurdles we had."
Strategizing For Symbiosis
PRSI set out to work immediately. The first thing they did was create a Web
site (http://www.votersforresponsibleleadership.com),
which questioned the massive spending on the litigation as well as the county's
motives in pursuing it, invoking its support of Lake Tahoe's gaming interests,
which Wilson says were funding the opposition, "to delay the opening of the
project as long as they could."
What Lake Tahoe had to benefit from this was obvious -- putting a possible rival casino operation out of commission; what the county had to benefit from their partnership with
Lake Tahoe was more money into the coffers that would keep the lawsuits coming and further stall the construction of both the interchange and the casino.
To publicly affirm its point of view, members of the Tribe wrote letters to the editors in local newspapers throughout the year. The letters column were used as a forum to
express the Tribe's position on county issues, while presenting updates on the casino project and correcting misconceptions.
Working with the agency, the Tribe, under PRSI's guidance, also placed ads in the local papers that sought to place pressure on county officials to drop its lawsuit against
them. The ads emphasized the exorbitant sum that was being squandered on the lawsuit, while propounding the notion that perhaps the entire economy of the county was being spent on
litigation, when the money could go to better use.
To drive home this same message to county residents, the agency and Tribe rented a prime billboard in the area, asking the same question. Because the billboard was located in a
busy area, nearly every driver passing through saw it.
Other components of the campaign included:
- Two "Community Update" mailers sent out to more than 15,000 homeowners who were also voters in the local area;
- Presentations made to community groups by Tribal government officials. Coached by the agency in public speaking, Tribal officials sought the help of local organizations to
place pressure on the county to make an agreement with them;
- A constant stream of information to the media informing them that the county was spending $1 million a year on private lawyers to delay the casino project; and
- PRSI coordinated a "Friends of the Shingle Springs Rancheria" group, which consisted of community leaders sympathetic to the Tribe. These individuals wrote letters and
attended government and community group meetings to present facts about the Tribe's projects as well as blast the county's continued wasteful spending on litigation against the
Tribe.
Confronting Scare Tactics Head-On
PRSI also sought to change the community misconception about the Tribe's projects by encouraging them to see the actual property site where the casino would be built.
"We wanted them to look at the property and see what was being proposed," says Wilson. "There were a lot of scare tactics used by the opponents. It was an educational issue."
The results of PRSI's program turned out in the Tribe's favor. Prior to the campaign, public sentiment suggested that a majority of the local populace were opposed to the
Tribe's casino project, in addition to county officials. But after the campaign got underway, the sentiment shifted as PRSI collected the support of 900 local businesses as well
as a database of thousands of residents who now identified themselves as strong allies of the project.
The local media also swung to the Tribe's side as more positive stories about both the interchange and the casino began appearing weekly in newspapers.
As public opinion rallied around the Tribe, as represented in letters to the editor and county meetings, the county relented on their opposition and dropped their lawsuit. To
announce the $191 million agreement between the county and the Tribe on September 28, 2006, a press conference was held. Numerous stories on the agreement were written about in
papers and Web sites throughout the state.
For its efforts in the area of Public Affairs-Government, Shingle Springs Rancheria with Pacific Research & Strategies Inc. was awarded the 2007 Silver Anvil Award,
presented by the Public Relations Society of America.
Lessons Learned
For Wilson, the lessons learned from the program were forthright: "No matter what the project, there are always differences of opinion, someone will always be opposed. It's
important to always try and find a creative way [to resolve a dispute]."
"Sometimes, it's a simple way to get both sides to at least agree that they will look at a different perspective," he continues. "We started with two or three people initially
and now today we have 9,000 names on a database of supporters who can't wait for the thing to open and want to be there opening night. So I think [reconciliation] is possible
through education and communication."
CONTACT:
Rod Wilson, [email protected]
What's So Wrong with Peace, Love and Understanding?
For agencies looking to settle similar disputes through PR measures, PRSI's Rod Wilson suggests the following in his own words:
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Part of building credibility is having a solid basis of what people would perceive as being internally accurate and straightforward--it's not a sales job. People have
to believe it and your client has to be able to present their position in a way that they believe it and in a way that it's believable so they have credibility. The worst thing is
to have somebody give you a used car sales pitch when they don't believe it and it's clear they don't know what they're talking about.
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Visuals are always very important because most people don't take the time to read a lot these days.
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Being able to easily demonstrate your facts quickly is very important to helping people in a very short period of time to make a decision. The reality is that people make a
decision in a five or 10-minute period of time so you need to constantly have things lined up.