The Madera County Farm Bureau has reaffirmed its opposition to a North Fork Rancheria-proposed casino for Highway 99, north of Madera.

Bureau executive director Julia Berry said a letter has been sent to U.S. Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar opposing the project.

“We have been against this project since 2005,” Berry said. “Being an election year, we thought it would be good to reaffirm our position.”

The letter, dated Feb. 2, was signed by Jim Erickson, bureau board president.

The letter said “… gaming should be confined to Indian reservation lands and that the practice of acquiring real estate with the intention of building off-site gaming facilities should be prohibited.”

The letter also said Madera County is in a drought situation and overdrafts its underground aquifer by 100,000 acre-feet annually.

“A project the size of the proposed casino will not be sustained by underground water supplies, and this project will have the detrimental effect of drying up wells on adjacent farms and homesites,”

“The farm bureau is very concerned that building a mega-casino on this property would overtax the region’s already depleted water supplies,” Berry said.

“We’re also concerned that this casino project violates the promises made to California voters that Indian gaming should occur on Indian lands, not off reservations,” Berry said.

North Fork Rancheria, whose tribal lands are nearly 40 miles from the Highway 99 casino site, is petitioning the approval of the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs before it can build the off-reservation casino near the Madera Airport. The agency has approved a small number of off-reservation casinos over the past 20 years.

Charles Altekruse, spokesman for the Rancheria, said its attorney in 2005 said the farm bureau would remain neutral on the issue.

“We are surprised regarding this recent announcement from the farm bureau opposing our project,” Altekruse said. “While the tribe is aware of a letter submitted in 2008 by the Farm Bureau, as part of the environmental review, expressing concerns on several issues, the tribe was not aware of any formal opposition to the project,” Altekruse said.

Alterkruse, in a prepared statement, said the tribe understands that water issues are critically important and that’s why its environmental impact statement proposes several mitigation measures concerning groundwater.

“The tribe is no newcomer to water issues,” Alterkruse said. “We signed a memorandum of understanding with the Madera Irrigation District more than three years ago that provides for water contributions to the district equivalent to the pumping rates for the project.”

Alterkruse said the North Fork Rancheria strongly supports water and farming issues for Madera and the San Joaquin Valley.

“The tribe is disappointed that six years after first announcing the project, the Farm Bureau has taken a position that is at variance with creating jobs and prosperity for Madera.”

Alterkruse also stated that the tribe is not sure why the Farm Bureau would want to “wade into complex legal matters relating to Indian land determinations, which seem a little beyond the scope of the organization.”

The proposed site is owned by the tribe’s financial backer, Las Vegas-based Station Casinos.

A Native American tribe that wants to build a casino near Madera paid for a city council member’s trip to Washington, D.C., last year so he could testify in favor of the project, interviews and recently filed court records show.

The council member, Gary Svanda, has been a vocal and longtime supporter of the controversial project. When he testified in front of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in May 2008, he said he was speaking on behalf of the Madera City Council and the Madera County Board of Supervisors, according to a hearing transcript. But neither the city nor the county approved the trip, and some council members said they didn’t find out about it until after he returned. By state law, Svanda was supposed to report the cost of his flight and who paid for it. He never did.

Neither Svanda, the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians nor the company that wants to build the casino — Las Vegas-based Station Casinos — would say how much the flight and hotel stay cost, or even which hotel Svanda stayed in.

Government watchdog groups say the trip was a conflict of interest because Svanda was elected to represent Madera residents, not the tribe. Members of the tribe also accompanied Svanda.

“When elected officials need to travel in the service of their community, the public should pick up the tab,” said Douglas Heller, executive director of the nonpartisan Consumer Watchdog group in Santa Monica. “It’s much more expensive in the long run when special interests pay for travel because of the indebtedness politicians inevitably feel.”

In contrast, when Frank Bigelow, a member of the Madera County Board of Supervisors, went on a similar trip in October 2007 to testify before the same committee, the county paid his expenses — a $1,038 flight and a $422 one-night hotel bill, records show.

Bigelow said the county paid for the trip because the Board of Supervisors has voted to support the casino project and he was advocating for the county’s interests.
It’s not clear whose interests Svanda was representing at the hearing. Even though he told the committee the project has “strong local support,” the Madera City Council never has taken a vote to support or oppose the casino project, and council members are divided on it. Cheryl Schmit, founder of the gambling watchdog group Stand Up for California, said Svanda should not have told the committee that he was representing the city. “It’s a criminal offense to lie to Congress,” she said. “That’s a real concern.”

No disclosure made

Svanda says he did nothing wrong. He insists he went only as a private businessman and not as a representative of the city — despite his statements at the hearing.
Svanda said he was only following up on Bigelow’s earlier testimony and that it wasn’t improper for the North Fork tribe to pay for the trip. The tribe bought his air ticket and reimbursed him for his hotel stay, Svanda said.

It’s unclear who asked Svanda to attend the hearing: Svanda said Bigelow asked him to go, but Bigelow said he didn’t. Elaine Bethel-Fink, the tribe’s chairwoman, said questions about who paid for Svanda’s flight and hotel are “petty.”

“My thinking is that anyone on my team should have [their travel costs] paid for to promote our projects,” she said. Bethel-Fink did not elaborate on what she meant by saying Svanda was on her team. Elected officials are required to fill out finance disclosure forms each year that list any gifts worth more than $50. This also includes any payments for travel costs outside of California, though not necessarily hotel costs. Svanda did not disclose either the flight or hotel costs.

The California Fair Political Practices Commission, which enforces the disclosure laws, said such violations could result in a fine of up to $5,000.
If necessary, Svanda said, he will amend his 2008 finance disclosure form to include the cost of the trip. He also said he will abstain from any future votes on the casino “if there is a perceived conflict of interest.”

There wasn’t any indication of who had paid for Svanda’s trip until Station Casinos filed for bankruptcy in late July. Bankruptcy records reviewed by The Bee list hundreds of people, including Svanda, who have received money from Station Casinos over the years. The list does not say how much money they had received or why.

In an initial interview, Svanda said he had no idea why he was on the list and was “not that interested in knowing.” It was not until after he was asked whether it may have been for the Washington, D.C., trip that Svanda acknowledged the tribe had purchased his airline ticket and had reimbursed him for his one-night hotel stay.
It’s unclear why the court records appear to indicate that Station Casinos made the reimbursement when Svanda says the tribe reimbursed him.

Longtime involvement

The North Fork tribe has long sought to build a 55-acre, $350 million casino four miles north of Madera off Highway 99. Station Casinos also owns another 250 acres of adjacent property where the tribe could expand — potentially turning Madera into an entertainment mecca.

Because the property is about 35 miles from the North Fork Rancheria, the tribe must first get approval from the Bureau of Indian Affairs before it can build an off-reservation casino. The bureau has approved only a small number of off-reservation casinos in the past 20 years — and the process is notoriously cumbersome.
In October 2007, the Senate Indian Affairs Committee held a hearing to address complaints from North Fork and other tribes on the slow pace of the process and on several other issues. Bigelow says he doesn’t remember how he first found out about the hearing but asked the committee if he could testify.

At the hearing, Bigelow was joined by Jacquie Davis-Van Huss, then the North Fork tribe’s chairwoman. He asked the committee to encourage federal officials to release a key environmental study on the casino. He also said that both the county and city of Madera “strongly support” the project.

But support is not unanimous — Madera County Supervisor Vern Moss and Madera City Council Member Robert Poythress oppose the project. Madera Mayor Sam Armentrout says he has not taken a stance. A ministerial association in Madera that includes 30 churches and ministries also opposes the casino.

Bigelow said he was invited to testify at the next hearing in May 2008 but couldn’t go because of a previously scheduled conference. He would later describe Svanda in a letter to the Indian Affairs Committee as “one of the initial liaisons from the city to the project’s development team” and as someone who has “been involved since [the casino project's] inception in 2003.”

Svanda, who works as a financial adviser for Edward Jones Investments, was first elected to the City Council in 2000 and served until 2004. After a two-year break, he successfully ran for a second term.

‘False representation’?

During his first term in office, Svanda said, he and a former mayor, Herman Perez, started a business coalition to promote the casino project. The coalition now includes more than a dozen businesspeople and has thrown luncheons and other events to tout the benefits of the casino.
Svanda said the coalition does not receive any money from the tribe or Station Casinos.

At the May 2008 hearing, Svanda was accompanied by the new North Fork tribal chairwoman, Bethel-Fink, and the tribe’s treasurer. He introduced them to the committee as “two important political leaders from my area.” Svanda’s testimony focused mostly on why the casino was a good idea and the need for the Bureau of Indian Affairs to approve the project — noting that it had “very strong local support.”

According to the transcript, Svanda told the committee that he was speaking “on behalf of the City Council of Madera and the Madera County Board of Supervisors.”
In a recent interview, however, Svanda said he was only representing the greater Madera business community and did not represent the city “in any way, shape or form.”

He said he told the committee he was a council member only because its members “wanted to know who I was.” Council Member Poythress said he felt Svanda made a “false representation” by speaking on behalf of the city. “I haven’t been happy with people taking liberties to say the city of Madera supports this project when there has been no official position taken,” he said.

A nationally known gambling expert said last week’s bankruptcy filing by Station Casinos could hamper efforts by the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians to build a Madera County casino.

The Las Vegas-based company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Tuesday. Station has a deal with the North Fork tribe to run a proposed $250 million casino, which would include about 2,500 slot machines, 70 table games, multiple restaurants and a hotel.

It is estimated the project would generate 2,500 temporary construction jobs and almost 1,500 full-time jobs after the casino and hotel open.

Another 2,300 Madera-area jobs could be created because of the economic spinoff of the mega-casino, and tribal leaders have said the project would generate $45 million to $50 million in annual vendor purchases.

But Station’s bankruptcy is another setback for the long-planned casino, which also faces multiple governmental hurdles at the state and federal levels before ground can be broken.

A Station Casinos’ spokeswoman said the deal is intact and the company is committed to the Madera project. The Mono tribe also said the bankruptcy will not pose a problem.

The company, however, will need permission from the bankruptcy judge to “do anything — which puts a clamp on Station,” said Bill Eadington, an economics professor and director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada in Reno. Money also will have to be allocated to sustain the Madera project, he added.

“While in bankruptcy, it is very difficult to allocate funds for speculative ventures — and this would probably fall under that,” Eadington said.

The current credit crunch and lingering recession add to the challenge, not only for Station, but other high-profile gaming companies, as well. One option for the company is to sell the Madera contract, if it could find a willing buyer in this economy, Eadington said. The casino, proposed to be built on a little more than 300 acres about four miles north of Madera, is in a prime location, which could possibly fetch $20 million to $40 million, he said.

In its press release, Station said that its owners, the private equity firm Colony Capital and members of the Fertitta family, will invest an additional $244 million into the company if investors holding $2.3 billion in bonds approve the plan. Among the Fertitta family members who would contribute money are Frank J. Fertitta III, Station’s chairman and chief executive, and Lorenzo J. Fertitta, its vice chairman.

Colony, the Fertitta family members and Station’s senior secured lenders have already approved the plan.

Station has hired Lazard and the law firm Milbank Tweed Hadley McCloy, people with knowledge of the matter told DealBook.

Hit by the twin blows of a recession and tight credit markets, many gaming companies have been squeezed hard. Tropicana Entertainment, another large casino operator, filed for bankruptcy last spring amid mounting debt woes.

Station has had to contend not only with falling revenues — it expects to announce a 19 percent drop in fourth-quarter revenue from the same time in 2007 — but with the debt it accrued in its $8.8 billion leveraged buyout in 2007. The banks who led the financing arrangement for the deal were Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase.

The company sought a debt exchange in December, but failed to garner the 60 percent approval of bondholders.

Under the terms of the plan, Station would dramatically cut the amount of debt it owes to bondholders. Institutional investors who tender their existing bonds will receive a far smaller amount in new notes and cash. If the plan is approved, the company may file for bankruptcy protection in what is known in restructuring lingo as a prepack and reemerge shortly after.

“We believe the proposed restructuring plan is in the best interest of all of our constituents,” Frank Fertitta said in a statement. “It is no secret that current economic conditions in our country have had an adverse effect on Las Vegas in general and the casino business in particular. However, we believe that the steps we have taken and those we are proposing to take will result in our company being well positioned for the future.”

Votes are due by midnight on March 2.

–Michael J. de la Merced

The effort to build a $250 million casino on Highway 99 north of Madera has been slowed by the downturn in the economy. This gives the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians an opportunity to reconsider the casino’s location and build it in a rural area closer to the tribe’s homeland.

Station Casinos of Las Vegas, the tribe’s partner in the proposed off-reservation casino, could file for bankruptcy, and gambling industry analysts believe that would limit plans to go forward with the project.

We have supported Indian gaming on reservation land in rural areas. Our opposition to a casino on Highway 99 is based on its location. We believe the North Fork Rancheria should be able to build a casino if it’s in an appropriate location.

Building the casino on a major California freeway would turn the 305 acres at Avenue 17 into a congested area. It is not an appropriate location.

We understand that the tribe is handicapped when locating a casino site. The North Fork tribe lost its original rancheria decades ago after the federal government terminated recognition of 41 California rancherias. The government, years later, settled a lawsuit by restoring the status of the tribes. But in the case of North Fork, the rancheria was transferred to individuals and the tribe itself was “landless.”

The tribe could remedy this situation by seeking land in a rural area closer to its traditional homeland.

The Highway 99 site was chosen because of its potential to generate gamblers from a long distance. Richard Wells, a Reno gaming consultant, told The Bee last week that it’s an attractive project because the casino would be next to Highway 99 and would be highly visible. While that may be a plus for the casino, that’s why we oppose the location.

Tribal leaders say they still intend to pursue the Highway 99 location, and would like to break ground in 2010. At some point the economy will turn around and the project will be viable again.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has negotiated a compact with the tribe that would pay the state about $25 million a year. That compact still must be approved by the Legislature, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs must approve the casino’s site.

We believe this is the wrong location and this is a good time to reconsider other sites.

Tell us what you think. Comment on this editorial by going to fresnobee.com/opinion, then click on the editorial.

The Las Vegas company that wants to build a $250 million casino off Highway 99 near Madera is struggling financially and may have trouble lining up money to fund the project, gaming industry analysts say.Even worse, Station Casinos could file for bankruptcy, which would force the Mono Indians of the North Fork Rancheria to search for a new financial partner and delay the project indefinitely.

“Obviously this is a bad time to be trying to build a casino anywhere,” said Joseph Weinert, an analyst with the New Jersey research firm Spectrum Gaming Group.

Despite the nation’s faltering economy — which has not spared even the resilient gaming industry — tribal officials say the project could break ground as early as 2010. They say the Madera casino will generate thousands of jobs and inject tens of millions of dollars into local business and government coffers.

But the project, which would be California’s first off-reservation casino, still needs approval from federal officials and state legislators.

Station Casinos’ financial troubles are emerging as an additional hurdle.

Since the beginning of the year, the company has delayed plans to build a new casino in Las Vegas and, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, has lost more than $75 million. Analysts say the company is struggling to make payments on its debt, which totaled $5.4 billion as of September.

The setbacks reflect a general downturn in the gaming industry. Station Casinos, the largest operator of suburban casinos in Las Vegas, has been hit especially hard because of the high rate of home foreclosures in Las Vegas, gaming consultant Ken Adams said.

Credit rating agencies have increasingly warned that Station Casinos will likely be unable to make its scheduled debt payments. If that happens, analysts say, the company could file for bankruptcy.

Station Casinos, however, says it expects to make its debt payments on time and complete the Madera project.

“We’re confident that when the time comes to finance the project, we’ll be able to do so,” company spokeswoman Lori Nelson said.

Tribal Chairwoman Elaine Bethel-Fink said there is nothing in the tribe’s contract that dictates what would happen if Station Casinos went bankrupt. She said she’s not sure how that would affect the partnership or what the tribe would do if that happened.

“This economy was not anticipated,” she said.

If the company does make it through the economic downturn, it still faces other financial challenges that could delay the Madera project.

The credit crunch has made it difficult for companies to find money for large projects, analysts say. If the problem persists, it may be years before Station Casinos could borrow money to build the casino.

“No one is getting financing — not Harrah’s, not MGM, not Station,” said Las Vegas gaming consultant Adams, referring to some of the biggest casino companies in the country.

Harrah’s Entertainment announced this month that it will back out of a $560 million casino project near Wichita, Kan., because it could not find the money to build it. Similarly, Station Casinos said this month that it will delay construction on a Las Vegas casino indefinitely.

“Station and Harrah’s are in very similar situations,” said Bill Eadington, an economics professor and the director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada in Reno.

He said that creditors are reluctant to lend either company the money necessary to build projects because they are struggling to make their current debt payments. Any money borrowed would come with higher interest rates.

The reporter can be reached at ccollins@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6412.

Station Casinos downgraded after seeking debt exchange

By ARNOLD M. KNIGHTLY
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

Moody’s Investors Service on Wednesday downgraded Station Casinos’ probability of default rating from Caa2, or in poor standing, to Ca, or extremely speculative, a day after the gaming company announced it was seeking a private debt exchange.

Station Casinos announced Tuesday it hopes to issue a pair of 10 percent secured term loans due in 2016, pushing the earliest maturity date back four years.

The casino company’s corporate family rating remained at Caa2.

CreditSights, an independent credit analysis firm, said Wednesday in a investor’s report the “proposed exchanges will not forestall a bankruptcy” without the company seeking credit amendments from its banks.

Station Casinos “has its back against the wall as the company is likely to breach its financial covenants by the end of the year,” CreditSights analyst Christopher Snow wrote.

Snow wrote that negotiations with the banks started last month after the company unsuccessfully tried “to exchange some of its subordinate debt for equity,” during the summer.

The exchange offer, however, is contingent on 60 percent of the old notes being tendered before midnight Dec. 5.

In a note to investors, Moody’s analysts wrote that there “is a high probability” Station Casinos will breach its bank covenants if the exchange is not successful, jeopardizing the company’s ability to meet its debt burden.

CreditSights said the exchange could reduce Station Casinos debt by $1.4 billion and its interest expense by $70 million.

For the year, Station Casinos had $5.4 billion in long-term debt through the third quarter ended Sept. 30. The company paid $281.9 million in interest payments during that nine-month period.

Station Casinos’ owners are also contemplating loaning the company between $450 million and $500 million. That owners’ loan would be a unsecured, junior subordinate loan only if 82.5 percent of the old notes are exchanged.

Debt issues affect Station Casinos’ 13 wholly owned properties but not the five properties co-owned with the Greenspun Corp. — the recently opened Aliante Station, Green Valley Ranch Resort, Barley’s, The Greens Supper Club, and Wildfire Lanes and Casino.

Contact reporter Arnold M. Knightly at aknightly@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893.

More than 800 people showed up at Hatfield Hall at the Madera District Fairgrounds last night for a
hearing on the environmental impact statement on the proposed casino on Highway 99 north of Madera.
So many people showed up that not everyone could get into the hearing, and not everyone had a chance
to speak. While they can submit written comments until the end of the month, it would have been much
better if the feds could have accommodated everyone last night.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise to the Bureau of Indian Affairs that this controversial casino proposal
would draw so many people to the hearing. Opponents had been drumming up interest in the hearing for
several weeks and supporters of the casino rallied their troops to show up. The BIA started the hearing
while several hundred people were still trying to get in. This “public” hearing does not give you a lot of
confidence that the BIA is handling this proposal in an even-handed way.
In a column last Sunday, I said the site is not a good one, although I support Indian gaming. Casinos should
be on Indian land in rural areas. That was the deal the tribes made with voters when expanded Indian
gaming was approved at the ballot box.
State Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, argued in his testimony that approval of the casino would set a
precedent leading to a “gaming corridor along Highway 99.” Florez is a key official in this political exercise
because he chairs a Senate committee that will have to approve a gaming compact if the federal
government allows the North Fork Rancheria of the Mono Indians to proceed with the casino.
Here’s Florez’s statement:
Mr. Chair. I’m Sen. Dean Florez. I represent the 16th Senate District, which covers a wide area of the
Central Valley — from Bakersfield in the south to Fresno in the northern part of my district.
I am also the chairman of the Senate Committee on Governmental Organization, which is the Senate
policy committee with jurisdiction on issues of gaming. This includes Indian Gaming Compacts.
Let me start by saying that I have great concerns about any tribe’s efforts to take land into trust that is
not reasonably situated to their existing tribal lands. I understand that there are some situations which
merit special consideration.
Taking land into trust, miles away from already existing tribal lands, for the sole purpose of conducting
Class III gaming sets an objectionable precedent that could result in a grand race to place other major
casinos along Highway 99.
I’m not in favor of creating a gaming corridor along Highway 99 and would prefer that the tribe find a
solution closer to its existing tribal lands.
While this proposal may not come close to the off-reservation plans that were proposed for the city of
Barstow (which didn’t receive legislative support), I would say that members of the Legislature are aware
of the issue of off-reservation gaming, and I can say, haven’t shown an interest in supporting off reservation
gaming in general.
We would probably closely look at how any proposed casino will affect existing facilities and tribes and
we would ask that you complete such a similar review in your analysis.

Published: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 at 3:40 a.m.

The declining fortunes of a Las Vegas casino company allied with a Sonoma County Indian tribe are threatening to further delay a proposed billion-dollar casino resort next to Rohnert Park.

Proposed Building Site

The downturn in the economy has hurt revenues in the nation’s gambling and entertainment capital and with it the ability of Station Casinos to build casinos.

The corporation is a longtime partner with the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria to develop and operate the major casino-hotel on Rohnert Park’s western edge.

The project has been stalled for five years by a protracted federal environmental review and more recently a legal challenge by opponents. The tribe still needs to obtain a state gaming compact.

Even if the those issues are resolved soon, financing for construction appears elusive.

“The capital markets are basically closed to gaming operators at the moment, for two reasons: The bank crisis and, second, the cost of capital,” said Peggy Holloway, senior credit officer with Moody’s Investors Service in New York. “Station doesn’t have any excess cash, or liquidity to fund new projects.”

Lori Nelson, a spokeswoman for Station Casinos, said Monday “we want to acknowledge anyone operating today in a retail environment is going through challenging times, based on current economic conditions. However, Station Casinos is committed to the project moving forward.”

She declined to estimate when it would break ground, and analysts say it’s an open question as to when construction money could be available.

“It’s hard to go to market and raise debt to build, or expand,” said Ben Bubeck, a credit analyst who specializes in the gambling industry for Standard & Poor’s, a bond rating service.

The timing to build the Rohnert Park casino is unclear, he said, along with two other casino projects Station Casinos has planned with tribes near Chico and Madera, north of Fresno.

The gambling industry once was considered relatively recession proof, but gaming revenues are down on the Las Vegas Strip nearly 7 percent through August compared to the same period in 2007. Jobs have been eliminated, and hotel room rates have been cut.

Several high-profile projects have been delayed, including MGM suspending work on its $9.2 billion CityCenter project on the Strip and Boyd Gaming Corp. postponing its $4.8 billion Echelon mixed-use project.

Some Indian casinos in Southern California have been forced to lay off workers or scale back expansion plans. In Sonoma County, River Rock Casino, owned by the Dry Creek Pomo tribe, last month shelved plans to raise $600 million for an expansion. Instead, casino officials said they would try to raise the money in smaller increments and expand in stages.

But even that remains uncertain in light of River Rock’s slumping revenues and profits and credit problems.

“Difficult times in corporate gaming are going to have a significant impact on tribes’ ability to borrow,” Frank King, managing director of tribal banking for Merrill Lynch, said in a conference call sponsored by the Native American Finance Officers Association.

At one time, Rohnert Park officials were predicting the Graton Rancheria’s casino would be open by 2007. Earlier this year, the head of the Friends of the Graton Rancheria predicted the casino, resort and entertainment complex, which could cost as much as $1 billion, would break ground by this fall and be completed in late 2009, according to the North Bay Business Journal.

But the fate of the tribe’s project is linked to the financial health of its partner Station Casinos, which has experienced a 6 percent decline in revenues in the first six months of this year. Net revenue declined from $735 million in the first half of 2007 to $691 million this year.

Station Casinos was a publicly traded company until 2007 when it converted to private ownership with a highly leveraged buyout that as of June 30 left it with $5.5 billion in debt.

The company owns and operates 13 casino and entertainment facilities in Las Vegas that cater to local residents and also holds a 50 percent joint venture interest in five casinos. It is opening its newest property, the $662 million Aliante Station Casino in Las Vegas, on Nov. 11.

In addition, the company has a lucrative contract with the United Auburn Tribe to manage its Thunder Valley Casino east of Sacramento. But that expires in 2010.

In recently downgrading Station Casinos’ credit rating, Standard & Poor’s noted some favorable view of Stations Casinos’ long-term growth prospects. But the ratings agency said market conditions are likely to remain challenging, at least through the first half of 2009.

There is always the possibility for the Graton Rancheria to seek financing on its own or with a new partner, said Standard & Poor analyst Bubeck.

Graton Tribal Chairman Greg Sarris declined comment.

But some experts say the tribe’s ability to get financing without Station’s backing could be difficult.

“I know capital markets well, in terms of issues with raising money,” University of Nevada-Las Vegas finance Professor Michael Sullivan said Monday. “An unproven tribe, or even an outfit that’s proven like Station, their ability to borrow large sums of money for projects is not good now.”

Two years ago, Sullivan said, chances of financing a billion-dollar casino in Rohnert Park were better.

“Maybe two years from now,” he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Clark Mason at 521-5214 or clark.mason@pressdemocrat.com