Against the backdrop of an increasingly combative North Bay gambling business and a presidential power shift that has diminished tribal authority in Washington, D.C., the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria celebrated a local victory Wednesday.
As a crowd of guests watched and applauded, a 300-foot cable dangling from a massive crane lifted a metal beam, levitated it across a roadway and lowered it into the waiting hands of a pair of construction workers. They snapped it into place on the skeletal frame of a future gaming floor adjacent to the current Graton Resort and Casino near Rohnert Park.
