Don’t gamble with base

I’ve never understood how Native American tribes can be permitted to build casinos on off-reservation lands. It’s really not that I begrudge them their casino; if they can pull it off, then go for it. I suppose they could buy the Peyton Building and install a casino. Wouldn’t that spice up downtown?

However, I draw the line at the proposed casino alongside Fairchild Air Force Base if its existence casts the slightest shadow on the base’s life. There is absolutely no way that another casino’s potential in our community will ever come close to FAFB’s current positive impacts. We just cannot afford to lose the base.

Put yourself in the place of a federal base closure committee member who sees an airfield’s traffic pattern overflying a casino complex. Wouldn’t the picture flash “danger” and pose a negative to our base’s value? Remember the B-52 that crashed in the same neighborhood in 1994? The unthinkable is still possible.

If there is a choice, an airfield’s safety buffers should not be degraded or encroached upon. The risk is not worth taking, and any politician should recognize this point. It’s not the casino that’s wrong; it’s the effect on FAFB.

Charlie Morris

Spokane