The Mashpee Wampanoag tribe’s recent fee to trust transfer in Taunton, Massachusetts, is being challenged in court, and funded by the non-tribal commercial casino developer who would like to build a 0 million gaming resort in Brockton. It proposes a 2018 opening.
The suit, filed by 18 Taunton residents who oppose a casino in their town, challenges the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ ability to put the land in Taunton into trust because of the Carcieri v. Salazar decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that ruled that tribes not recognized by the federal government after 1934 cannot put land into trust.
An attorney for the plaintiffs, Adam Bond, declared last week, “The federal government has grossly overstepped its authority. The decision is completely unprecedented, twists statutory language and logic, and produces a result that defies reason.”
The Mashpees were recognized in 2007. The tribe says it has maintained continuous relations with the federal government and before that the British crown. It was one of the first peoples to greet the Pilgrims when they landed in Plymouth in 1620.
The lawsuit, Littlefield v. Department of the Interior, is being partially funded by casino developer Neil Bluhm, whose company Mass. Gaming and Entertainment, has the only remaining license application still active for a casino license in the state, and which has applied to build a casino in Brockton. MGE is a subsidiary of Rush Street Gaming.
Mashpee Tribal Chairman Cedric Cromwell sounded a defiant note last week, promising to defend the tribe’s interests in the “court of public opinion as well as the federal court in Boston.” He also called the suit a “desperate attempt” to stop the tribe’s plans.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs last year put 151 acres into trust for the tribe in Taunton, where it plans to build the First Light Resort and Casino. The resort would include a 150,000 square foot casino with 300 slots and 150 gaming tables, hotel with 600 rooms,
Site work on the project is expected to begin later this year. The project is backed by the Genting Group, one of the largest casino developers in the world. Recently Genting Malaysia Bhd restructured the shareholding of its wholly owned unit, Genting Massachusetts LLC.
According to Maybank Investment Bank (MaybankIB) Research “We gather that GENM (Genting Malaysia) may be aiding the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe in building and managing a casino 45 minutes from Boston in return for interest income and management fees.” No details on that development are available. Genting, being a foreign company, is not allowed to hold shares in a tribal casino.
Cromwell added, “We’re excited about our project, we’re going to build in the great City of Taunton. As you saw with the referendum in Taunton, we had great support. We’ve got the compact in place, we’ve got land into trust.”
The state’s Gaming Commission, created by the 2011 gaming expansion act, has issued licenses for three casinos and will consider in March whether to issue one for the southeastern part of the state. If it does it would compete with the Taunton casino.
Without the competition the tribe’s state tribal gaming compact requires it to pay 17 percent of its profits to the state. With the competition it would have to pay nothing, although the Brockton casino would have to pay 25 percent of its commercial profits to the state.
Bluhm has argued that his Brockton casino was more feasible than the Taunton casino precisely because it might be challenged in court—something that he has now helped fun. The two sites are about twenty miles distant from each other.
In a statement issued last week Mass. Gaming and Entertainment said
“Based on market research, MG&E believes a Brockton casino would be successful with or without a tribal casino in Taunton,” the company said in a statement. “However, a Brockton casino will ultimately be more successful and the financial benefit to the Commonwealth will be greater without a tribal casino in Taunton.”
Wynn Everett
After years of throwing verbal and legal brickbats at each other, Steve Wynn and Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh are, if not the best of friends, at least over their longtime feud over the Wynn Everett that the casino mogul has started to build across the Mystic River from Walsh’s city.
Wynn has called the $1.7 billion project “the largest single private investment in the history of Massachusetts.” The problem with the project, located just outside of the city’s boundaries, was that Wynn didn’t agree to pay the city as much as it thought that it ought to be paid.
The city argued that it should have been treated as a “host” rather than “surrounding community,” in other words, treated as if the casino was being built inside of city limits.
The courts did not uphold that view and two weeks ago Wynn and Walsh buried the hatchet. The city agreed to withdraw all legal challenges and Wynn agreed to pay the city $6 million more than what the Massachusetts Gaming Commission had ruled that it should pay.
The amount was a minor nuisance in return for a casino that is expected to earn more than $845 million annually. According to a statement from Wynn Resorts: “Our agreement with Boston will unlock economic development and jobs for the entire region.”
The developer has been doing site preparation work, including removal of hazardous materials from the 33-acres that once was the site of the former Monsanto chemical plant, for about a year. That is costing the casino giant about $30 million The 24-story, 600 room Wynn Everett is planned to open in 2018, about a year later than originally planned.
The feud was originally sparked when the gaming commission awarded a license for the Boston metro area to Wynn rather than Boston’s favorite Suffolk Downs Race Track in East Boston. The racetrack said that it couldn’t stay open without a casino, and that has proven to be the case.
Walsh, a newly sworn mayor in 2013, took up the cudgel in defense of what he perceived as his city’s rights, focusing on the claim that the lion’s share of the casino traffic would pass though Sullivan Square in Boston’s Charlestown neighborhood. Three years and $2 million in legal fees later, Walsh finally threw in the towel.
At the time, Wynn expressed both wonderment and frustration with Walsh’s attitude. Last fall, during a conference call with investors before the deal was struck Wynn mused, “It may sound laughable at this point and in a perverse way it is a comedy. But it did cause us delays.” He added, “Happily, they’re pretty much behind us now.”
Work on the casino is expected to go into overtime by April 1, if not before if weather permits.
In January Wynn named locally owned Suffolk Construction, the largest builder in the state, to build the largest private construction in the state’s history. Besides a mega-casino the project will include dining, retail, convention space, as well as a public river walk.
