The goal of the partnership is to preserve the ranch as open space and farmland, and to retain its vast natural resources including water rights, natural gas and flood-control capacity. The tribe, which owns and operates the Cache Creek Casino Resort in Brooks, will join the Conaway Ranch Joint Powers Authority, which also includes Davis, West Sacramento, Woodland, the county, the University of California Davis and the county's flood-control district.
The tribe's role in the financing has yet to be defined, said tribe spokesman Doug Elmets. It might help the county get money or put up funds itself. The tribe will continue to make its existing annual payment to the county to help offset the casino's development impacts, and that payment will not count as part of the financing for buying Conaway.
There is no stated purchase price for the ranch. The county began eminent domain proceedings for the land last summer.
Conaway Ranch land has access to 50,000 acre-feet of surface water from the Sacramento River, 45,000 acre-feet of ground water and 30,000 acre-feet of rights to water from Cache Creek. The ranch can generate more than $2 million in natural gas and mineral rights, in addition to more than $1 million in agricultural rent.
The land was purchased last year by a group that included some of this region's largest developers, including Steve Gidaro, John Reynen, builder Carl Panattoni and homebuilder Jack Sweigart of JTS Communities. They bought the land from an offshoot of PG&E Properties at a price estimated at $60 million. The partners were said to want the land for duck hunting and to use as a mitigation bank for other developments in the region.
Yolo County wanted to control the land from the time it was put on the market. Yolo's general plan directs housing growth to the cities and leaves the unincorporated areas rural and agricultural.
The county will either buy the ranch from owner Conaway Preservation Group LLC in the open market or purchase it by eminent domain through the courts. The tribe will become part of the Conaway Ranch JPA, an action that requires legislation. Assemblywoman Lois Wolk, a Davis Democrat, has committed to sponsor that bill.
Conaway Preservation Group reacted skeptically to the news that the Rumsey Band would help the county buy the ranch.
"We believe the ranch can be preserved and more efffectively managed under private ownership," the group said in a press statement Tuesday afternoon. "The potential use of gambling profits to condemn private property and water rights is an issue that the people of Yolo County should not take lightly."
The tribe owns and operates the Cache Creek Casino Resort in Brooks. Started as a bingo hall in 1985, Cache Creek Resort is now a 66,000-square-foot casino featuring 2,000 slot machines and 120 table games. The casino is part of a 415,000-square-foot complex that includes a 200-room luxury hotel, a health spa, eight restaurants and a live-music venue.
"We look forward to taking a seat next to other governments in the region to develop comprehensive management plans for the future governance of Conaway Ranch and becoming the only tribe in the state to fully participate in a joint powers authority," said Paula Lorenzo, tribal chairwoman of the Rumsey Band of Wintun.