After months of information gathering, Gov. Jay Inslee is believed to be close to making a decision on the Spokane Tribe of Indians’ proposal to develop an off-reservation casino in Airway Heights, near Fairchild Air Force Base.

We urge him to act in the best long-term economic interests of Spokane County and reject the proposal.

Above all else, the envisioned project poses too much of an encroachment threat to the military base, the county’s largest employer, at a time when the future of the base already is becoming more clouded.

The most recent unsettling news came last month when a Greater Spokane Incorporated delegation visiting Washington, D.C., learned that Fairchild—as it seeks to become a home to new KC-46A tankers—now is competing with more bases that can accommodate fewer airplanes. That raises the stakes as Fairchild supporters seek to do everything possible to protect the base and to assure it’s serving a mission with long-term stability as the Air Force takes steps to trim excess capacity.

Our objection to the casino complex has to do with its proposed location, within a particular level of what’s termed a Military Influence Area. Before it reached Inslee’s desk, the project received approval from the U.S. Department of the Interior, based on draft—rather than final approved and geographically broadened—Joint Land Use Study criteria (JLUS) prohibiting concentrations of people in excess of 180 people per net acre.

JLUS was a joint study between the Department of Defense and local community to determine how to protect the military installation from encroachment and incompatible uses. In this case, had the federal agency been applying the proper criteria, Fairchild supporters contend, the tribal project never would have reached the governor’s desk for consideration.

We oppose the Spokane Tribe’s casino proposal at its current location to avoid giving military decision makers any added justification for skipping over Fairchild in considering where to assign the KC-46As, or for potentially shuttering the base.

 The proposed casino is part of what’s called the Spokane Tribe Economic Project, or STEP, a mixed-use development envisioned for 145 acres of tribal trust land. Such a development no doubt would provide added employment here, though the tribe’s claim that it would create more than 5,000 jobs seems highly exaggerated.

Compare that with the roughly 5,800 people—military and civilian—who work on the base and a total estimated economic impact on Spokane County of more than $1 billion annually.

A report about the potential economic risks the STEP project poses for the county notes that encroachment isn’t an exclusive reason for the military choosing to close a base, but says it’s an important consideration. Encroachment, the report and Fairchild advocates say, precludes certain missions, restricts others, and raises operating costs.

In short, approving development of the STEP project is a bet the governor should consider too risky to make.