Some opponents of the Cowlitz tribe’s 0 million ilani Casino Resort near La Center, Washington, have dropped their legal challenge, but others are taking their final appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The tribe is aiming at an April 17, 2017 opening and hopes to tap into the Portland market with its casino that will have 100,000 square feet of gaming floor with 2,500 slots and 75 tables.
Citizens Against Reservation Shopping, whose membership includes a property owner near the casino site, Susan Gilbert, and card clubs in La Center, have filed a 452-page appeal in which they claim that the Department of the Interior violated the High Court’s Carcieri v. Salazar decision when it put land for the tribe into trust.
That decision said that tribes that weren’t under the jurisdiction of the U.S. government after 1934 can’t put land into trust. The federal government recognized the Cowlitz tribe in 2002.
No word on whether the Supreme Court will take the case for review.
Gilbert told the Longview Daily News, “The Carcieri case was a very important Supreme Court case, and we believe the Appeals Court judge made a mistake when she went in opposition of that ruling.”
She and her husband fear that the casino so near their ranchland will pollute their streams with runoff. The card clubs fear being put out of business by the tribal casino, and claim that other businesses will be harmed as well. “That’s why the opposition has always gone for so long,” said one of the card club owners.
The tribe claims that the card clubs offered to drop the case if the tribe agreed to buy them out, but that the tribe refused.
A spokesman for the card clubs doesn’t support that story. “We have believed in the principal of our issue from the very beginning. I haven’t sensed any waiver at all,” he said.
Other former foes who have dropped out of the case include the city of Vancouver, Clark County, and the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde in nearby Oregon. That tribe announced in its Smoke Signals newspaper that the tribe would not be appealing the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruling that upheld a lower court’s decision in favor of the Cowlitz tribe. The Grand Ronde operate Spirit Mountain Casino 127 miles south of La Center.
The judge in that case, Barbara Rothstein ruled that Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell acted correctly nine years ago when it put 152 acres into trust, in spite of the fact that the tribe was recognized in 2000.
Rather than continue the fight, the tribe has decided to concentrate on remodeling and expanding its existing casino.
It continues to maintain that it is in the right, however, wrote Reyn Leno, chairman for the Grand Ronde Tribal Council in Smoke Signals, adding “The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde doesn’t believe that a tribe should be allowed to go reservation shopping outside [its] historic territory simply because [it has] identified a location that is more desirable because of its proximity to an urban area. We look forward to keeping our membership informed and are determined to forge ahead in a positive manner. In addition to how we respond to this decision, the tribe has initiated a major renovation of the Spirit Mountain Casino, is redeveloping the greyhound track at Wood Village and continues to explore options to build the Grand Ronde economy.”
Meanwhile, in order to make it more likely that its three cardrooms can survive the proximity of an Indian casino, the La Center city council is considering a proposal by the mayor to lower the tax rate on the card clubs from 10 percent to 5 percent. The city budget is also looking at the possibility that its taxes from the cardrooms could fall by as much as two thirds. Currently the taxes paid by the card clubs amounts to 73 percent of the city’s revenues.
Meanwhile a new four-lane exit bridge for an interchange that will bring traffic from Interstate 5 right to the casino has begun construction. For several days and nights construction occurred right over the freeway with girders being installed overhead. The new bridge will replace the existing two lane bridge.
The project will cost $32 million, but will be paid for out of private casino funds.
