Here is the article.
Dale Kildee Opposes Bay Mills Off-Rez Casino Efforts
Here is the article.
Bay Mills Indian Community
Little Traverse to Sue Bay Mills Tomorrow
News article here.
NIGC and Interior Opine that Bay Mills Vanderbilt Casino is NOT on Indian Lands and is Therefore Illegal
Michigan AG’s Office Issues Demand to Bay Mills to Close Vanderbilt Casino
Here is that letter: Bay Mills Ltr 12 16 10.
Bay Mills’ legal theory (at least as presented to the NIGC) is here.
Detroit News Laments “Low-Rent Casinos” in Editorial re: Bay Mills Vanderbilt Casino Start-Up
A cheap shot from the News:
Editorial: Rolling the dice
Allowing a slot machine hall without state involvement opens door to proliferation of low-rent casinos
The latest tribal casino imbroglio illustrates what a tangled web government weaves when it attempts to determine who will be winners and losers in the marketplace. Five tribes want Michigan to crack down on a new slot machine hall the Bay Mills Indian Community has installed 100 miles south of its Upper Peninsula headquarters near Brimley, arguing it violates the spirit of the law allowing casinos on tribal land.
In a perfect world, casino locations would be based on business prospects. But because gambling is a regulated industry, the state is going to have to wade into this controversy, and Gov.-elect Rick Snyder will inherit the job of negotiating some new ground rules with the Indian communities regarding the proliferation of casinos.
Interlochen Public Radio on the Bay Mills Vanderbilt Casino Controversy
Here.
A small casino that just opened last month in Vanderbilt is already growing. The Gaylord Herald Times reports leaders of the Bay Mills Indian Community are building on to the small facility, even as questions abound over its legality.
Several other Indian nations say it is not legal and that Vanderbilt is not place Bay Mills has any historic claim to. That’s a traditional litmus test with off-reservation gaming.
The state has yet to decide whether the casino is legal.
It’s no more than a few dozen slot machines and even after expansion, it will be just 2,600 square feet. But it’s widely speculated that this is a test case, and that the tribe would like to build in other places, such as Port Huron.
Play the audio above for more on the legal questions, as seen by Matthew Fletcher. He’s a member of the Grand Traverse Band and an Indian law expert at the Michigan State University College of Law. He spoke with IPR’s Linda Stephan.
Bay Mills to Expand Vanderbilt Casino
From Indianz:
The Bay Mills Indian Community of Michigan is already expanding its controversial off-reservation casino.
The tribe opened the 1,200 square-foot facility on November 3. A 1,400 square-foot addition will more than double the size of the casino.
“It’s going as well as we had expected. On opening day we were tickled pink with the number of people who showed up,” spokesperson Shannon Jones told The Petoskey News-Review
Other tribes say the facility is illegal. But Bay Mills says it’s entitled to open a casino in connection with a land claim settlement.
Get the Story:
Casino expands in Vanderbilt (The Petoskey News-Review 12/8)
Bay Mills Indian Community Submission to NIGC re: Vanderbilt Casino
This document was submitted in support the Bay Mills Indian Community’s amendment to their gaming ordinance, and appears to be the legal justification for their Vanderbilt casino.
Here it is: Bay Mills Submission to NIGC.
1500-Slot Casino Planned for Port Huron if BMIC Vanderbilt Casino Succeeds
Here is the article.
An excerpt:
With little to lose and much to gain, the Bay Mills Indian Community has opened a mini-casino in Vanderbilt, a village on Interstate 75 north of Gaylord, without federal or state approval.
If the play in Vanderbilt succeeds, the tribe will convert the old Port Huron post office on Military Street into a temporary casino with 1,500 slot machines.
Eventually, Bay Mills intends to build a permanent casino and luxury hotel at Desmond Landing, where the tribe owns 16.5 acres. This parcel would become the first Indian reservation in Port Huron since the 1830s when federal troops forcibly removed the Blackwater band of the Chippewa to Kansas.
ICT Article on Bay Mills Vanderbilt Casino Controversy
From ICT:
By Gale Courey Toensing, Today staff
VANDERBILT, Mich. – In a move that astonished the gaming world in Michigan and outraged some of the state’s tribal nations, the Bay Mills Indian Community announced it has opened a new casino on off-reservation land without the usual state and federal approvals.
Bay Mills tribal leaders said Nov. 3 that the tribe’s newest gaming facility on 47 acres of land in Vanderbilt purchased in fee simple in August complies with all applicable gaming laws. The new casino has 38 slot machines.
The tribe operates two casinos in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula on reservation land. The Vanderbilt casino is in the northern part of the Lower Peninsula, about 170 miles north of Lansing.
“The new business venture was seen as positive by the residents of Vanderbilt, where the unemployment rate is one of the highest in the nation,” the tribe announced on its website – http://www.baymillsnews.com.
The new business venture was not viewed as positively by other tribes in the state.
The Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, Gun Lake Tribe of Pottawatomi Indians, Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi, and Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe immediately issued a statement condemning the action.
“This attempt to conduct Indian gaming in the absence of trust land is a serious violation of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and long-held federal Indian gaming policy. Bay Mills has also violated the state gaming compacts, most notably Section 9 which clearly requires the consent of all Michigan tribes to pursue gaming on non-reservation lands,” the tribal leaders wrote.
The five-tribe coalition called on the National Indian Gaming Commission, the Justice and Interior departments to work quickly with state officials to close the new casino, “which threatens to undermine the significant public support for Indian gaming here within the State of Michigan and around the country.”
On Nov. 8 the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians Chairman Ken Harrington announced that the Bay Mills casino violates the exclusivity zone provision of its gaming compact. The tribe will stop the six percent of net slot revenues to the state – a loss of millions of dollars to state’s coffers.
Turtle Talk 
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