Michigan Indian

Creditors Object to Greektown Reorganization Plan

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the Detroit News:

DETROIT — Greektown Casino LLC, which is in bankruptcy reorganization, shouldn’t get an exclusive right until June 1 to file a turnaround plan, a group of creditors and a U.S. government representative told a judge.

Greektown’s request to block competing plans for more than eight months beyond the current Sept. 26 deadline should be denied because the company can realistically gauge its success long before then, U.S. Trustee Daniel McDermott said in an objection filed Monday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Detroit.

“The court should not permit the debtors to remain in Chapter 11 in a shroud of secrecy” while ” keeping other potential plan proponents off the playing field for such an extensive length of time,” McDermott said in the filing.

Closely held Greektown won court approval last June to borrow $150 million to continue operations and construction of a new hotel and gaming floor. McDermott questioned the viability of the company’s projected future operations during an economic decline in the U.S.

“The question that must be answered is whether the projections are reasonable for the foreseeable future in the given economic and political milieu in Detroit,” McDermott said in the filing.

Objections also were filed by the Michigan Gaming Control Board and the official committee of unsecured creditors.

Greektown sought court protection from creditors on May 29, citing cost overruns in a $332 million expansion. It opened in 2000, four years after Michigan citizens voted to legalize three gambling facilities in Detroit. It employs about 1,976 people, and attracts 15,800 visitors a day, the company said.

GTB Chairman Election Re-Run

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the court order referenced in the Record-Eagle article — Bailey v. GTB Election Board

PESHAWBESTOWN — A new election will be held for the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians’ chairman’s post after a tribal court ruled the band’s election board improperly censured candidate Derek Bailey just before the initial vote.

A 23-page order issued by the band’s appellate court last week threw out the results of the May 21 tribal chairman’s election and ordered a new vote for the four-year post.

Bailey lost by 23 votes to two-term incumbent Robert Kewaygoshkum. But he challenged the results because the band’s Election Board held an emergency meeting two days before the election and subsequently issued an e-mail censuring him for allegedly using his tribal computer to visit his campaign Web site.

No date for the new election has been scheduled, tribal officials said.

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Muskegon County Advisory Vote on LRB Casino Proposal

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the Muskegon Chronicle:

The Muskegon County Board of Commissioners will put a non-binding casino referendum on the countywide Nov. 4 general election ballot.

The vote will be advisory in nature, giving county commissioners the voters’ direction on how to handle issues concerning the Manistee-based Little River Band of Ottawa Indians attempt to place its second casino at the former Great Lakes Downs horse-racing track in Fruitport Township.

The casino advisory vote was proposed by county board Chairman James Derezinski in response to a citizen group forming in light of a previous casino resolution of support by the county board. A group has formed calling for an open debate of the county board’s support for a Fruitport Indian casino after the tribe announced it had purchased the former racetrack last month.

County officials indicated that a public vote for the casino would not insure the tribe the successful development of a Muskegon County Indian casino. Likewise, a vote against the casino will not necessarily prohibit an Indian gambling facility at U.S. 31 and I-96.

The issue of Indian casino development is decided in agreements between the tribe and the state of Michigan and the tribe and the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. The tribe is a sovereign nation under U.S. law.

The specific language for the Indian casino advisory vote will be drawn up by county attorney Theodore Williams. The ballot language is expected to be back before the county board Aug. 26.

Odawa Casino Layoffs

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the Petoskey News-Review:

The Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Casino Resort was quiet this morning, as the resort announced approximately 100 job cuts on Monday.(G. Randall Goss/News-Review)
There was turn of bad luck for some employees at the Odawa Casino Resort on Monday. Faulting the rising cost of gas and subsequent poor attendance, management reported that as many as 100 employees were laid off, including tribal and non-tribal members.

“We were ultimately forced to face the reality of too many employees serving too few customers,” said general manager Sean Barnard.

Although some staff members reported being caught off guard by the reductions in a series of mandatory meetings on Monday, tribal chairman Frank Ettawageshik said that he and other tribal leadership were kept abreast of the reductions.

“We knew about it all along,” he said.

Warren Petoskey, an elder with the tribe, said rumblings about layoffs started last month.

“I heard a rumor three weeks ago that this was coming,” he said. “This morning I got an e-mail that said they laid off 40 percent of their workers.”

Barnard denied reports that as many as 200 workers had lost their jobs in Monday’s cutbacks. He confirmed that 55 full-time employees had been let go, in addition to 45 part-time seasonal positions. Although those who lost their jobs were being put in contact with an official from Michigan Works! for outplacement services, Barnard would not give details on the severance package offered to them. He said specific details were “too personal” to divulge publicly.

“We’ve been reviewing our options,” said Barnard. “We did not rush into this. We’ve been working on this for some time to make the right decision.”

Ettawageshik said that there has been an ongoing process to adjust the size of the staff to meet the appropriate needs of the casino’s customers. According to Ettawageshik, the recent round of layoffs were “a continuation of that adjustment.”

Despite the layoffs, Ettawageshik confirmed the tribe was still posting profits and said there were no major financial concerns heading into the second half of the year.

ICT on MichGO’s Ongoing Legal Wrangling

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

From ICT:

WAYLAND COUNTY, Mich. – In an effort to take advantage of every possible opportunity to delay the Gun Lake Tribe’s casino, the anti-Indian casino group Michigan Gambling Opposition – MichGO – has asked a court to stop all further action while the group files a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court.

MichGO’s latest tactic followed a July 25 ruling by the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia denying the group’s request for a full panel, or en banc, rehearing of the court’s 2 – 1 decision in April upholding a district court decision to allow the Interior Department to take 147 acres of land into trust for the tribe’s proposed $200 million casino.

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Book Reading at Everybody Reads (Lansing) — October 25

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

I’ll be reading from my book “American Indian Education: Counternarratives in Racism, Struggle, and the Law” at Everybody Reads, located at 2019 E. Michigan, Lansing, Michigan. The reading and book signing will take place at October 25, 2008, from 1-3 PM.

More details here.

LRB Member Recalls Mt. Pleasant Indian School in the 1920s

Matthew L.M. Fletcher2 Comments

From the Morning Sun:

John Crampton, member of the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, still remembers the days when he attended the Mt. Pleasant Indian Industrial School at age 6.

Eighty-three years later, as he walked the grounds of the former school, he reminisced about the fond memories of his childhood.

“That was the big boy’s dormitory,” Crampton said. “Over there was a deer pen.

“The buildings for the teachers and staff was over there.”

The Mt. Pleasant Indian Industrial School was in operation from 1893 to 1933.

An excerpt from an Oct. 1, 1889 report from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs shows what the U.S. government’s mindset was like at the time: “The Indians must conform to the ‘white man’s ways,’ peaceably if they will, forcibly if they must,” the report stated.

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MACPRA News Coverage

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the Petoskey News-Review:

The Little Traverse Bay Bands (LTBB) of Odawa Indians, along with 11 other federally recognized tribes and two state recognized tribes in Michigan which form the Michigan Anishnaabek Cultural Preservation and Repatriation Alliance (MACPRA), are currently seeking the return of about 60 Native American remains from the Cranbrook Institute of Science in Bloomfield Hills.

The remains, which scientists believe belonged to Native Americans who hunted and fished in what is now Oakland County hundreds of years before European arrival, have spent several decades in the back rooms of Cranbrook — unaffiliated with any specific tribe.

According to U.S. law — the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) — requires federally funded institutions such as Cranbrook to return Native American bones that are found with artifacts affiliating them with a specific tribe, if that tribe requests it.

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Soo Tribe Layoffs

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From Indianz:

The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians plans to lay off about two percent of its workforce.

Chairman Joe McCoy said the tribe’s financial situation forced the reduction. “Unfortunately, over the years, millions in tribal reserves has been dwindled down to nothing. According to financial analysts, if changes are not made, the tribe will not recover,” he said in a press release. The layoffs affect employees of Kewadin Casinos and employees of the tribal government. Based on recent figures, it looks like about 80 people will lose their jobs. The tribe already laid off 89 people at the Greektown Casino in Detroit. The tribe has a majority stake in the commercial casino, which is undergoing a restructuring in federal bankruptcy court.

Get the Story:
Press Release: Soo Tribe and Kewadin Casino to restructure (SooToday 7/30)

GTB Revenue Sharing for the 1st Half of 2008

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the press release — 2-first-half-2008-press-release-07-30-08