Pokagon Band

Pokagon Band Settles Revenue Sharing Dispute & Amends Gaming Compact

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the Business Review Western Michigan:

Amendments to the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians’s gaming compact will give the state an immediate $15 million and give the tribe the right to open limited satellite casinos in Hartford and Dowagiac, Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s office announced today.

The amended compact resolves issues between the state of Michigan and the tribe that led to the Pokagon Band’s withholding revenue-sharing payments to the state for most of the 14 months its Four Winds Casino in New Buffalo Township has been open.

The band contended the state’s Club Keno game eliminated the tribe’s exclusive rights to operate electronic games of chance. The exclusivity provision was deleted from the amended compact. As a result of this change, the band immediately will make an initial annual payment of more than $15 million to the state.

Similar disputes between the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians and the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians were resolved earlier this year. Amendments to compacts do not require approval of the state legislature.

The amendments to the 1998 compact extend the life of the compact from 2018 to 2028, to ensure a full 20 years, as the original compact intended, according to the joint announcement. A series of lawsuits delayed the casino’s opening to August 2008.

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News Coverage re: Pokagon Revenue Sharing Dispute

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the South Bend Tribune:

NEW BUFFALO — For the state of Michigan and local municipalities, the tribal Four Winds Casino Resort that opened a year ago in New Buffalo Township has a lot in common with the 1996 Tom Cruise movie “Jerry Maguire.”

Like the movie’s tag line, they’d like the casino to “show me the money.”

Certainly, the casino has been successful, earning an average of $24.4 million a month over its first eight months just on slot-machine revenue. But the state’s 8 percent share of those revenues and the local communities’ 2 percent share that were specified in the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians’ 1998 gaming compact have yet to be paid.And the payments, placed in interest-bearing escrow accounts, are sizable, amounting to $15.6 million for the state and $3.9 million for Berrien County, New Buffalo Township and the city of New Buffalo.

Essentially, the Dowagiac-based tribe’s stance, like that of other Michigan tribes with casinos, is that the Michigan Lottery’s Club Keno game introduced in 2003 violated their compacts’ exclusivity agreements. Two of the tribes sued the state, and although the Pokagons weren’t involved, they chose to withhold payment until the issue was resolved.

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Pokagon Revenue Sharing Dispute News Coverage

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the Michigan City News-Dispatch:

NEW BUFFALO, Mich. – The slowing economy is not keeping people away from the Four Winds Casino Resort in New Buffalo Township, which collected about $146.6 million in slot machine revenue over the six-month period that ended March 30.

Figures released by the Michigan Gaming Control Board show that the casino, owned by the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, is taking in $24.4 million a month in slot machine revenue.

The monthly total has not changed from the amount estimated using figures covering August and September 2007, the casino’s first two months of operation.

Because it is privately held, the casino does not release figures on its total revenue from its hotel, restaurants, bars, poker and other games.

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Pokagon Fund Projects Announced

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the Dowagiac Daily News:

NEW BUFFALO – The Pokagon Fund Board of Directors Friday announced the funding of six new projects in June totaling $195,542.

The Pokagon Fund began funding grant proposals in November 2007. Since that time it has provided more than $2.5 million in project funding to local charities and municipalities.

Grant funding supports initiatives in the fields of health, human services, art, education, recreation and environment.

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Keepers of the Fire: The Potawatomi Nation by John Low

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

Here is an outstanding powerpoint presentation about the history from pre-contact to modern day of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians. It’s a large pdf of the powerpoint.

Pokagon Band Casino a Success

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From Indianz:

Since opening last August, the casino owned by the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians has become a tourist destination in southwestern Michigan.

The Four Winds Casino Resort has had a positive impact on the economy, a business leader said. Local hotels are booking more rooms, more restaurants and retail stores are being opened near the casino and more tour groups are inquiring about the area. “Four Winds is part of their visit and that’s what drew them to the area, but they’ve wanted to stay in a bed and breakfast and do other things,” Pam Sudlow told the Associated Press. “Our lodging properties have been benefiting because the casino is very short of rooms.” The success of the casino has the tribe thinking about an expansion, Chairman John Miller said.

Get the Story:
Four Winds casino creates new vacation destination (AP 5/27)

ICT Editorial on Fee to Trust Statute

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

From ICT:

The federal government’s recent actions involving its authority to make decisions on acquiring land in trust for tribal gaming purposes may inadvertently threaten the authority and duty of the secretary of the Interior Department to take land into trust for Indian tribes.

On April 29, the D.C. Circuit decided an innocuous case involving the secretary of Interior’s decision to take land into trust for the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians (also known as the Gun Lake Band). It was the third such opinion in recent years involving Michigan Potawatomi Indian tribes, each brought by well-funded citizens groups opposing Indian gaming. The suits were mere harassment suits, intended to delay rather than prevent the opening of the Potawatomi gaming operations. Each of the suits brought similar claims.

Of import, one claim was that Section 5 of the Indian Reorganization Act, the statute that authorizes the secretary to take land into trust for Indian tribes, was an unconstitutional delegation of congressional authority. The first two D.C. Circuit panel decisions (2006 and 2007), involving the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians and the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi Indians, rejected the constitutional challenge to Section 5 without much discussion or dissent. In fact, since 1995, at least three other federal appellate circuits have rejected the same kind of challenge to the statute, so this is unsurprising.

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Discord on Pokagon Revenue Sharing Board

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Funny/sad thing about all this is that the 1993 compacting tribes, who still retain the right to decision where the two percent money goes, never have this problem — and yet the State tries so hard to take it away.

From Indianz:

The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians agreed to share 2 percent of gaming revenues with local governments in Michigan but officials in one county still can’t agree how to distribute the money.

Berrien County’s Local Revenue Sharing Board has been trying for the past six months to decide how to spend $977,266 from the Four Winds Casino. One official became so unhappy with the process that he resigned from the board. The other board members, however, say they have reached an agreement on distributing the money. They hope to receive the first payment in time for the tribe’s second on May 31.

Get the Story:
Disagreements continue over distribution of casino revenue (WSBT 4/28 )
Casino proceeds remain elusive (WNDU 4/28 )

Op/Ed on Pokagon Potawatomi Language Preservation

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

From the South Bend Tribune:

Language is among the most important symbols of a culture. And while there may be as many as 50,000 Potawatomi Indians living today in North America, as few as 60 speak their native language. Just five to seven are able to teach it.

The urgency to keep the language from dying away is at the heart of the Pokagon Band’s participation in a federally funded program that now involves between 25 and 30 adults in Lower Michigan.

The area group meets for two hours every Thursday, alternating between classrooms in Dowagiac and Mishawaka.

Their goal, says Matt Morsaw, language specialist, is to produce three semi-fluent speakers over the next three years.

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Interviews with Michigan Tribal Chairs @ United Tribes of Michigan Meeting

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here are videos of interviews with Fred Cantu (Saginaw Chippewa), DK Sprague (Gun Lake Band), Frank Ettawageshik (LTBB), Matt Wesaw (Vice-Chair, Pokagon), and Aaron Payment (Sault Tribe).

Link to videos on the Saginaw Chippewa website.