Alaska’s first tribal casino may be in the works. And the dropping of state opposition to put land in the 49th state into trust may make it more than a possibility.
The tribal council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska announced last week announced that it has in hand a federal gaming ordinance but declined to say whether it wants to build a casino in Juneau currently.
The council’s statement instead said that it wants to create “a diverse retail, cultural and entertainment project.”
The statement says, “In May the Central Council, like other tribal governments in Alaska and elsewhere, adopted a tribal gaming ordinance consistent with federal law. While Central Council has long been interested in resuming its bingo operations, its overall focus is on developing a diverse retail, cultural and entertainment project. That project predated and is not affected by the Akiachak litigation over tribal trust land acquisition and would not involve class III Indian gaming. It is but one of many new opportunities Central Council is pursuing. Because any economic development presents a long list of legal requirements that must be met, Central Council is moving ahead deliberately, and in collaboration with other jurisdictions once a project is fully reviewed and approved.”
Tribal President Richard J. Peterson posted this statement on the tribe’s website: “Tribal economic development is essential if Central Council is to hope to meet the needs of its tribal citizens.” He added, “We must start up our engines of economic activity just like other Indian and Native communities throughout the United States.”
For many years there was no way for Alaskan tribes to build casinos on their reservations because they didn’t have any reservations. Then two weeks ago Governor Bill Walker ended the state’s opposition to the Bureau of Indian Affairs putting land into trust for Native Americans. The state has fought creating reservations for decades.
The tribe owns an acre or more in what the Juneau City-Borough calls its “Indian Village” just a short distance from the state capitol. The tribe also owns property elsewhere in the area, which attracts thousands of people during the summer.
More than 10 years ago Kenaitze Indian Tribe’s proposal for a casino on the Kenai Peninsula was rejected by the NIGC because it said the tribe didn’t have sovereign territory on which to build.
The NIGC agreed with one of its attorneys that the tribe was unable to show that it “‘exercises governmental power’ over the property in question, a restricted allotment owned by a tribal member,” the now defunct Anchorage Daily News reported in 2005.
The status of tribal sovereignty in Alaska has been up in the air since the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 which paid the state’s 224 tribes $1 billion and granted them about 44 million acres. In the opinion of many this abolished the notion of tribal trust status for Alaskan tribes until a federal judge ruled that tribes were still able to request to put land that they acquired into trust.
The governor declined to appeal that ruling, which now opens the way for Indian gaming in the nation’s largest state.
The Tlingit-Haida would need to successfully petition to put its land into trust and then negotiate a tribal state gaming compact with Governor Walker, which would be subject to review by NIGC.
