From Michigan City News Dispatch:
NEW BUFFALO, Mich. – The last position on the Local Revenue Sharing Board has been filled, moving it closer to being able to distribute some $5 million in Four Winds casino money to local units of government and schools.
Chikaming Township Supervisor Jeanne Dudeck has been appointed as the fifth member of the board. Representatives from eight local governments and school districts in southern Berrien County chose Dudek on a 5-to-3 vote in a meeting Wednesday at the New Buffalo Township Hall. They voted unanimously to make the fifth LRSB seat a rotating two-year position.
“I’ve worked with Jeanne in the past. I think she’s fair. She’s fair-minded and would keep the interest of all of us in mind,” said Three Oaks Village President David Grosse, who made the motion to appoint Dudeck.
With the LRSB seats now filled, the board’s next step is to approve its bylaws.
Only after that will the Four Winds Casino and Resort distribute its 2 percent of slot machine profits it owes local governments and school districts according to its compact with the state.
The LRSB could have its bylaws written and approved by Feb. 10, the date the board next meets.
The four permanent LSRB members represent New Buffalo, New Buffalo Township, Berrien County and Pokagon Band of the Potawatomi Indian Nation, which owns the casino in New Buffalo Township.
An amended compact forged in October between the Potawatomi Nation and the state changed the board’s composition – giving the tribe a permanent seat and adding a fifth member.
The tribe paid $15 million it owed the state shortly after the October compact was signed, but the money owed to local governments and school districts is still sitting in an escrow account.
The pool of money has been filling since the casino opened in August 2007. As late as last October the casino owed the LRSB more than $5 million.
The October compact rewrote the distribution formulas into a three-tiered system of payments.
In the first tier, local governments are to be reimbursed all specific actual costs that have resulted from the casino, including police, fire, ambulance and other public services.
In the second tier, each local government unit is to receive an amount equal to the property taxes it would have received if the casino were subject to those taxes. These units include New Buffalo Area Schools, Lake Michigan College and the Berrien County Regional Education Service Agency.
Any remaining money would be divided between eligible local units in the third tier. That would include the three school districts if the board decides so. The formulas for distributing the remaining money, and the actual distribution, must be done by a unanimous vote of all five LRSB members.
Dudeck assumes Chikaming Township’s LRSB seat Feb. 1 and will serve until Jan. 30, 2011.
Of the eight representatives from the local units that stand to gain casino revenue, the five that voted to appoint Dudeck to the LRSB were Dudeck, Grosse, Grand Beach Village President Jim Bracewell, Michiana Village Councilman George Hermelink, and Three Oaks Township Supervisor Charles Sittig.
The three others voted to appoint Lisa Werner, president of the New Buffalo Board of Education. They are Lake Michigan College Interim President Bob Harrison, New Buffalo Area Schools Superintendent Michael Lindley and Berrien RESA Superintendent Jeff Siegel.
Werner will be the alternate fifth LRSB member to take the seat in the event Dudeck is absent.
Turtle Talk 