From the Petoskey News Review:
By Ryan Bentley News-Review Staff Writer
A more specific framework has been crafted for how Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians casino proceeds should be shared with the local community.
From the Las Cruces Sun-News (h/t Indianz):
ALBUQUERQUE – Months before the Navajo Nation’s first casino is scheduled to open, a group is planning to sue over the validity of legislation that provides for financing the development of that casino and others.
From Mlive:
NEW BUFFALO TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — The American Indian tribe that owns the new Four Winds Casino Resort in extreme southwestern Michigan is withholding its first revenue-sharing payments from local governments and school districts.
The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians says it has concerns about the organization of the board that is to oversee the distribution of the estimated $3 million a year in payments.
From Indianz:
The Florida Supreme Court will hear oral arguments December 12 on a lawsuit that challenges the ability of Gov. Charlie Crist (R) to sign a Class III gaming compact with the Seminole Tribe.
In short, not much. From the article, “evidence of a measurable impact of casino gambling on crime is inconclusive.” And, “While there may be a perceived increase in crime by the public, it cannot be attributed directly to the state’s casinos.” However, it seems clear that the researchers here looked hard to find a link and are no friends to Indian gaming. It appears their research started with the 1999 National Gambling Impact Study Commission Report — anti-tribal gaming as anything — and went from there.
Here are the materials in the Soaring Eagle v. Teamsters case:
Saginaw Chippewa Labor Ordinance
From Indianz:
The National Labor Relations Board will oversee a union election at the casino owned by the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe of Michigan. The election takes place December 20. Teamsters Local 486 wants to organize about 300 housekeeping employees. This the second NLRB-overseen election at a tribal casino since the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the board’s ability to assert jurisdiction at tribal enterprises. Dealers at the casino owned by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation of Connecticut agreed to a union this past weekend.
Get the Story:
Union election date set for casino workers (The Mt. Pleasant Morning Sun 11/29)
From the Bay City Times:
Sunday, November 18, 2007By Helen Lounsbury
STANDISH – Rumored for decades, Northeast Lower Michigan’s first casino stands just six weeks from its scheduled Dec. 31 opening.
Yet even as construction crews put finishing touches on what has finally become a certainty for rural Arenac County, little else here is certain. Questions and few answers, loom about how the casino will change this industry-poor, farmland-rich community. Here, in open pasture, the casino marks Arenac’s biggest development project in years.
”People hope it creates good jobs. People hope it makes us a destination. People hope it means more revenue for the area,” muses Curt Hillman, a Standish businessman who has spent a lifetime serving on local economic development boards.
From the Chicago Tribune:
Four Winds Casino and Resort has a half-dozen restaurants and a 165-room hotel. (Four Winds Casino and Resort photo / November 22, 2007)
|Tribune staff reporter
NEW BUFFALO, Mich. – First thing’s first: Gambling can be dangerous.Casinos, on the other hand, are fascinating.Think about it: Top-notch restaurants, well-appointed hotel suites, luxurious spa services, live entertainment, boutique retail outlets, free-flowing alcohol and, of course, gaming galore — in most cases, at all hours. Minus the whole “experience nature” thing, casinos essentially provide all the major amenities of a luxury vacation under one neon-clad roof.They’re also not without their annoyances: that steady hum of ringing slot machines tuned to the pleasant key of C major, which can get stuck in your head for days; and, despite advanced air filtration systems, the lingering stench of smoke.But it’s all part of the experience. Staying at a casino — even just for a weekend (I wouldn’t recommend any longer) — means immersing yourself in a culture that may be foreign from your own. Which, when you think about it, is the whole point.So, where to go? The obvious destination for experiencing casino culture is Las Vegas.
And then there’s New Buffalo.
About 2 miles from downtown New Buffalo (population 2,200) lies the brand-new $180 million Four Winds Casino Resort, which opened its doors Aug. 2. The place is huge. It boasts 130,000 square feet of “gaming positions” (actual seats at slot machines or gaming tables) which, were it located in Las Vegas, would make it the second-largest casino on the Strip; plus a half-dozen restaurants and a modest 165-room hotel.
And, when I visited two weeks ago, all of its grandeur seemed absolutely necessary, due to the sheer volume of visitors. As I approached the long, winding drive leading to the casino nestled in the woods, I encountered something I’ve never before experienced in New Buffalo: traffic. People were lined up in their cars, waiting to park in one of the 2,120 spots in the heated, four-level parking garage and commence spending money. And after hanging out for a few days, it’s easy to see why: The place is beautiful — and, perhaps more importantly, resembles nothing of the gaudy glam of Vegas.
Designed by Urban Design Group (which counts Disney among its clients) and owned by the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, Four Winds has the look and feel of a regal North Woods lodge, situated far enough back from Interstate Highway 94 that the “woodland retreat” facade is believable.
Just inside the entrance, a grand rotunda (on which a local Pokagon artist will soon begin a mural project) is flanked by two ridiculously huge fireplaces; the beams lining the arcades (leading to shops and a bus terminal at one end, the hotel at the other) were carved from dead standing cedar and birch trees, which are often used in tribal ceremonies for the Pokagon band.
At the heart of it all is the gaming floor itself, which, despite the refreshing lack of neon, looks like a casino (darkly lit, maze-like carpet, banks and bars at every turn), but the restaurants tucked within could stand alone — even in Chicago.
From the Port Huron Time Herald:
Those required “Problems of Democracy” classes you took in high school are long on theory, but very short on reality.You saw it again a week ago. After several previous attempts, the Bay Mills Indian Community sought approval of a Michigan land settlement plan. The tribe would relinquish any claims to contested land at Charlotte Beach in exchange for the right to have property put into trust in the city of Port Huron.
HR 2176, the bill to approve the land-claim settlement between the state of Michigan and Bay Mills, was offered by U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Menominee, whose district includes the contested land. It was co-sponsored by U.S. Rep. Candice Miller, R-Harrison Township, whose district includes the property to be put in trust as part of the settlement. The arrangement has the support of former Michigan Gov. John Engler and Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
Who was responsible for pressuring House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., into pulling the bill and thereby preventing it from being voted out of committee – let alone an up-or-down vote by the House and Senate? Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. The Senate majority leader pressured House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to pull the plug.What has our government become when a senator 2,000 miles away can reach down into the belly of a House subcommittee and kill a bill that would provide staggering benefits for Port Huron? After six years, Bay Mills has yet to be permitted a vote -even by a subcommittee of either branch of Congress. That’s absolutely astonishing to any American who still believes in the precepts of American democracy – “one man, one vote.”
In small-town America, the democratic system actually works pretty smoothly. If you’re a county commissioner, school board trustee or village or city council member, all you have to do is make a motion, get just one other person to second it, and you get your day in court – an up-or-down vote.
In Congress, however, the system has been corrupted beyond belief. It’s a system where power is granted to members not based on “one man, one vote,” but on an anti-democratic arrangement where certain members can block a bill, giving them power way beyond their single vote.
What has the corruption of the democratic process in Congress cost Port Huron? As a community facing an economic depression, one of the highest unemployment rates in America and a federally-funded Blue Water Bridge Plaza project that is on the brink of annihilating Port Huron, Congress is six years into blocking a $500 million casino development that would provide 3,000 to 6,000 union jobs with the spin-off developments.
Who’s benefiting from this obvious attempt to block competition for Detroit’s good old boys? Along with Reid’s Nevada crowd (including Detroit’s MGM Grand Casino, with its record $55 million earnings in October), is the newly-crowned “Most Dangerous City in the Nation” – Detroit.
Think the battle for the Port Huron casino is over? I think not!
Cliff Schrader is a radio columnist on WGRT-FM 102.3. His Friday columns are part of a cooperative agreement between the radio station and the Times Herald. His opinions are his own and not those of the Times Herald or WGRT.
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