From Crain’s Detroit Business:
Tom Celani, owner of MotorCity Harley Davidson and MotorCity Power Sports, has dropped plans to acquire a stake in Greektown Casino L.L.C.
Under a plan announced in January, Celani was to become president of casino operations and buy a 22 percent stake in the company from the majority owner, the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians.
From the Michigan City News-Dispatch:
ST. JOSEPH, Mich. – Negotiations between the state and the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians to resolve problems blocking the distribution of casino revenue to local governments should wrap up in 60 to 90 days, a tribal official said.
The tribe, saying it was concerned over actions taken in forming the Local Revenue Sharing Board and its bylaws, withheld in escrow the first payment from electronic gambling earnings at the Four Winds Casino in New Buffalo Township. The payment was due in December.
From ICT:
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. – In an effort to ward off unionization efforts under the federal National Labor Relations Act, some tribes have adopted labor laws that allow employees to organize under tribal law. The Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe has taken a different approach.
”The position of this tribe is that the National Labor Relations Act does not apply to Indian tribes and the National Labor Relations Board does not have jurisdiction, and, that being the case, we don’t believe we have to adopt an ordinance that allows union organizing to occur. The ordinance the tribe adopted prohibits union organizing,” said Saginaw Chippewa attorney Sean Reed.
The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed an intermediate appellate court decision finding Dorsey & Whitney liable to third party banks in a transaction involving a loan to the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe’s failed casino venture.
The petition is here. This case concerns the validity of25 CFR Part 291, the procedures established by the Secretary of the Interior to act as a “Seminole fix.”
There is no serious chance the Court will grant cert in this case, unless the United States also files a petition. Even then, this is a likely case of first impression, a death knell for cert petitions.
Really, I should get out of the certiorari prediction business….
From Business Week:
The flyers mailed to homes across Michigan in late January looked like the handiwork of a group bitterly opposed to gambling. They pictured dice emblazoned with exclamation marks, piles of crumpled-up cash, and text blaring: “Washington Poised to Force Two New Casinos on Michigan Families. Only You Can Stop the Special Interests.” The outfit behind this grassroots campaign calls itself Gambling Watch.
As it turns out, Gambling Watch is a tiny operation financed by MGM Mirage (MGM), one of the world’s largest gaming companies. MGM is locked in a bitter dispute with two Native American tribes that hope to open casinos in Michigan. The Las Vegas company inaugurated a new $800 million casino in downtown Detroit in October and is not in the mood for competition. There’s nothing underhanded about its tactics, MGM says. “We’ve made no secret of where we are on this,” says Alan Feldman, senior vice-president for public affairs at MGM Mirage.
From the Detroit News:
WASHINGTON — Indian tribes face long odds in winning federal approval for casinos hundreds of miles away from their reservations, the Bush administration told Congress on Wednesday.
In defending the decision to reject 22 such off-reservation casino applications around the country, officials further angered tribal leaders who told the House Resources Committee that the government is trying to force Indians to stay on reservations with high unemployment and few opportunities.
Bryan Wildenthal has posted “How a Ninth Circuit Panel Opinion Overruled a Century of Supreme Court Indian Law Jurisprudence — And Has So Far Gotten Away With It” on SSRN. This paper is part of the Michigan State Law Review’s symposium on federal labor law and tribal sovereignty.
Here’s the abstract:
From the House Resources Committee:
Witnesses:
Panel 1
The Honorable Carl Artman, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Indian Affairs, United States Department of the Interior, Washington, DC
Panel 2
The Honorable Lorraine White, Chief, St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Council, Akwesasne, NY
The Honorable Vincent Armenta, Tribal Chairman, Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, Santa Ynez, CA
The Honorable Hazel Hindsley, Tribal Chairwoman, St. Croix Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin, Webster, WI
Mr. Jeff Warnke, Director, Government and Public Relations, Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation, Oakville, WA
From the Leelanau Enterprise (H/T Indianz):
This winter’s “2-percent” payments from the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians are down for the third year in a row to the lowest level in more than a decade.
The twice-yearly payments represent two percent of the revenues earned from video slot machines at the tribe’s Leelanau Sands Casino in Peshawbestown and Turtle Creek Casino in Grand Traverse County. The tribe is required to pay out the money to local units of government in the immediate vicinity of tribal casinos for governmental services and “for impacts associated with existence” of tribal casinos in their vicinity under terms of a 1993 federal court consent decree. Since 1994, the tribe has paid out around $18 million in “2-percent” money.
Turtle Talk 
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