From the Detroit News:
That’s the simple question, with complicated answers, facing the Sault Tribe of Chippewa as it decides what to do about Greektown Casino-Hotel.
The bankrupt Detroit gambling hall that began as a dream of self-sufficiency has turned into a legal nightmare and financial albatross that’s divided 38,000 tribal members, choked the tribe’s finances and forced its leaders to rethink long-term ambitions aimed at improving the lives of one of the state’s most historically oppressed people.
“It wasn’t supposed to end up like this,” said Bernard Bouschor, a former Sault Tribe chairman who now sits on its board of directors. “Not after we spent so much time and money.”
The predicament in which the tribe finds itself is serious: likely losing Greektown, which by revenue is the smallest of Detroit’s three gambling halls, to creditors or a new buyer in a federal bankruptcy court hundreds of miles from home. It deeply contrasts with the bright promise the casino held for the tribe when the fight for a crack at the downstate market first started two decades ago.
Back then, vying for a piece of Detroit’s gaming market had a simple impetus: a desire for self-sufficiency.
For decades, Chippewa leaders sought recognition by the federal government, and when that hurdle was finally cleared in 1975, the tribe won the right to receive federal and state assistance offered to Native American groups.
Those dollars were spent to upgrade a standard of living that for decades had fallen far behind the acceptable norm.
Lana Causley, the tribe’s vice chairwoman, grew up on tribal land near the tiny Upper Peninsula town of Hessel, where many Chippewa families lived in houses without electricity or running water. Employment opportunities were few, and discrimination was not unknown.
The Chippewa slowly started to pick themselves up, connecting their homes to water and sewer lines, making electricity more available and expanding access to health care.
“There was so much work to do,” Causley said. “There still is.”
That’s when the tribe started pushing for the right to open casinos on Chippewa land. The first of the tribe’s Kewadin casinos opened in 1988 just outside St. Ignace, just across the Mackinac Bridge. It was little more than a small clapboard shack, with a few table games inside.
But the business took off. Tourists and locals got a small taste of Vegas-style gaming — legal, since it was on tribal land and beyond state jurisdiction.
The tribe began quickly expanding at the St. Ignace site, and added casinos on Chippewa lands in Sault Ste. Marie, Christmas, Hessel and Manistique.
The casinos’ success, spurred on in part by a 1993 compact between the tribe and the state that brought slot machines to Kewadin’s gaming mix, was a sweet victory for the Chippewa. The tribe expanded annual payments to tribal elders while offering more and more educational and medical programs for its members.
But at the same time, leaders soon realized the money wouldn’t be enough, especially if the sovereign nation wanted to be self-sufficient, free of federal and state aid.
“Things kept getting better and better, but the economics have always pointed to us needing more than our U.P. casinos could offer,” Bouschor said. “So we started looking south. What we wanted was doable with Greektown.”
Casino has ups and downs
Chippewa leaders partnered with prominent Greek businessmen Dimitrios “Jim” Papas and Ted Gatzaros in leading a grass-roots campaign to bring three casinos to Detroit, far removed both physically and culturally from the tribe’s native U.P.
After years of expensive campaigns, ballot initiatives and lawsuits, the tribe and its partners opened Greektown Casino, which enjoyed high revenues even though it opened months after its competitors, MGM Grand Detroit and MotorCity Casino.
When it came time for Greektown to begin looking at building its permanent casino and 400-room resort-style hotel as called for in a development agreement between the tribe and the city, things were still looking good. And though it was saddled by tough lending covenants imposed by the Michigan Gaming Control Board, the state’s gaming regulatory agency, the Sault pushed forward and secured financing to begin expansion.
But in late 2007, the tribe’s stars began to fall out of line.
With magnificent new facilities opening, its competitors started eating away at Greektown’s market share as its own building costs rose, eroding the casino’s ability to meet the debt covenants with the state. The state and nation fell into a recession, and the gaming board put Greektown on notice in December 2007: Find a partner with more money within four months, or face a forced sale.
Offers came forward to help the tribe, but none panned out.
With its contractors threatening to walk off the job because of missed payments and the state slinging threats, Sault leaders sought the protective cocoon of Chapter 11. At the time, the casino’s lenders figured it was better to fend off the tight grip of Michigan’s gaming board with bankruptcy, complete construction of the complex to satisfy the development agreement with the city, and have the tribe emerge from the proceedings with a fresh facility and smaller debt load.
Those ambitions only lasted so long. Debts continued to mount — they now stand at more than $777 million, according to court documents — and talk among the lawyers and consultants working on the case quickly turned from the tribe’s emergence with reorganized debt to a possible sale.
In January, at the creditors’ behest, a new management firm from Las Vegas took over the casino’s day-to-day operations; the tribe’s presence on the casino’s management board was reduced to just one position out of three.
Case in judge’s hands
Now that Greektown’s Chapter 11 case is drawing to a close, the man in charge of deciding the casino’s fate, federal bankruptcy Judge Walter Shapero, is left with two options: Let the casino go to the largest group of secured creditors, or allow a sale to Bloomfield Hills businessman Tom Celani, a one-time investor in competitor MotorCity Casino. Celani, who is to present his detailed plan to the bankruptcy court this week, promises to turn around the casino and use it as a springboard for redevelopment of the namesake business area.
Neither option includes a piece for the tribe — a situation that irritates leaders like Darwin “Joe” McCoy, the Chippewas’ chairman.
“After spending so much money making Detroit gaming a reality, it’s unthinkable for many of us to let Greektown go,” McCoy said. It’s especially difficult, he said, because losing the casino will mean accepting government aid at a time when many in the tribe want to be on their own.
McCoy said tribal leaders are working with potential partners to craft a deal that would put at least a part of Greektown back under Chippewa control. But he wouldn’t reveal with whom the tribe is talking, what form such an arrangement would take, or even if a viable exit plan including the tribe’s involvement could be filed in time with the court.
On the grass-roots level, tribal members have started gathering petition signatures from Chippewas and patrons of the five Kewadin casinos in the U.P. They hope to persuade Shapero to consider the tribe’s needs when he makes his decision on Greektown’s fate.
Yet the tribe remains divided.
In a recent edition of Win Awenen Nisitotung, the Sault’s tribal newspaper, Chippewa leaders had disparate opinions on the Greektown situation. Some argued for keeping it, some against, and some, as if taking a cue from the book of presidential politics, blamed the situation on previous tribal administrations.
“We want a solution that provides what’s best for our people and is viable in today’s business environment,” said McCoy.
Easier said than done.
Turtle Talk 
Tribal members warned the tribe about Detroit before Greektown was ever conceived and kept up the pressure to get out of it every year as Bernard Bouschor kept spending tribal money to stay in the game. It was no more than a big bet and he lost all of it and put us deeply into debt. He was not alone but he was the responsible elected official throughout this whole ordeal. It is a serious mistake and outright lie to say tribal members lives are better now. Just the opposite. Our lives and the lives of our grandchildren have been tained by the loss of credibility and disrupted by the loss of revenues that should have been spent at home instead of on a losing proposition in Detroit. But that is our burden and we will bear it. But it would be appreciated if you would look into the Detroit news and Lansing Journal articles over the past two decades and read what they reported about corruption and lack of accountability to the membership. Then write a piece that shows how much time tribal family leaders spent trying to get rid of this guy and his corrupt administration. This will go down as the worst tribal robbery in history. When all is said and done the amount is somewhere close to 1 billion dollars that could have helped all of us but instead we will end up owing and paying debts that appear to be near 300,000,000 dollars from this fiasco. The true figures will be produced soon but we need to wait and see what happens in court before we know just how much we have lost and will owe. Thank God the waiting for the accounting of this loss is just about over. It took a court outside of our own jurisdiction to bring this corruption out into the open. When Bernard said “it was not supposed to come out like this” he meant we were never supposed to know about the amount of money that was exchanged. But he was wronged by his partners in this matter and now our tribe has to pay for his unfounded vision of personal success. Bernard will be remembered for this fiasco but our tribe will never overcome this devastating loss. I predict the Sault tribe will cease to exist soon in favor of several smaller Bands that came together in the 1970’s to work at becoming a truly great tribe of people. Bernard is wise enough to see the outcome is related to Greektown. Our families can never trust these elected representatives again and will not allow it to happen again even if it means disbanding and going seperate ways. Other tribes have done so for much smaller gaffs (one is our debtor) so it should not be too difficult to understand why our Bands will also seperate and become smaller tribes with their own casino revenues, then take responsibility for their own families and territories. The only way to rebuild credibility in this set of Bands and tribal families now is to deconstruct the tribe called Sault Tribe of Chippewas and rebuild each Band in its own name with its own administration. We not only lost a Casino. We lost the vision and dream of becoming a larger and greater tribe that ever existed in this region before this fiasco. Now it is time to begin rebuilding.
Our tribal board no longer reports to the membership on this matter. Tribal members are getting the ‘silence is golden treatment.’ Bloomberg’s report below pretty much explains why.
Plainfield Withdraws Competing Plan for Greektown
Plainfield Asset Management LLC is withdrawing the competing reorganization plan it filed for Greektown Holdings LLC, the operator of one of Detroit’s three casinos. None of the affected creditor classes voted in favor of Plainfield’s plan. The withdrawal leaves only Greektown’s own plan, which was accepted by secured lenders who would take over ownership. Unsecured and trade creditors voted “no” on Greektown’s own plan. Because the lenders accepted, Greektown can confirm its plan using the so-called cramdown process, where it must show that unsecured creditors will receive more than they would through a liquidation in Chapter 7. The casino is currently owned by a tribe of the Chippewa Indians. Its plan would transfer ownership from the tribe to the lenders. Greektown lost the exclusive right to propose a plan in February. One of three in Detroit authorized by a 1996 voter referendum, the casino owes $314.5 million on a defaulted term loan and revolving credit. Revenue last year was $314.6 million. The case is In re Greektown Holdings LLC, 08-53104, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Eastern District of Michigan (Detroit).