Oregon Public Broadcasting

Supporters and opponents of a casino in Cascade Locks are taking aim at each other over how the size of the proposed development is being characterized.

As Pete Springer reports, the dispute began with a half-page ad that ran in the Sunday Oregonian. 

That ad was paid for by the Friends of the Columbia Gorge, who oppose the Cascade Locks casino.

It says the Gorge casino complex would be the size of 60 Portland city blocks.

Supporters of the casino call that figure deceptive and erroneous.

Len Bergstein is a lobbyist for the Warm Springs tribe, whose tribal members proposed the casino. 

Bergstein says the actual casino will be a fraction of the size mentioned in the newspaper ad.

Bergstein: “The footprint is about 250,000 square feet.  That’s the approximately, you take a Portland city block—that would translate into about five or six city blocks.”

At the core of the dispute is just what constitutes the whole development associated with the proposed casino.

If approved, the casino itself would be built on a 25 acre parcel of industrial land transferred to the Warm Springs tribe.  

But the proposal also includes leasing an additional 35 acres from the Port of Cascade Locks. And that land would be used for casino ancillary facilities, including parking.

That’s where the disputed development size comes in.

Kevin Gorman is the executive director of the Friends of the Columbia Gorge—the group that took out the ad.

Gorman: “We’re looking at the area that they are planning to have for casino development and that really is all the, it’s the buildings but it’s also the parking lots, it’s the area that they’re looking at whether it would be owned by the tribes or leased from the ports.”

Gorman says all sixty acres should be counted in the size of the proposed development, and that amounts to sixty Portland city blocks.

But casino supporters adamantly disagree, pointing out that much of that land will remain open space with no buildings or parking lots at all. So, they argue, those areas shouldn't count in the development size.  

There’s a public hearing on the  casino tonight in Cascade Locks -- and other meetings throughout the week in  Portland, Hood River and Stevenson, Washington.