Former National Indian Gaming Commission Chairman Harold Monteau of the Chippewa Cree Tribe is calling on the NIGC to suspend the casino operations of the Nooksack Northwood Casino, which is operated by the Nooksack Tribe of Deming, Washington.
Monteau, in an op-ed published last week in Indianz.com noted that the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Indian Health Service and Department of Housing and Urban Development have already taken the position that the leaders of the tribe are not a legitimate government.
The tribe has been riven by a leadership and disenrollment dispute. The BIA’s Larry Roberts has announced that no more federal funds will be issued to the tribe.
Monteau wrote: “The NIGC has closed Indian casinos in the past when it could not determine that the facilities and revenues were in control of a bona fide tribal governing body. As former Chairman of the NIGC, I shut down the Elem Casino in California when the factions were shooting at each other and the casino operations did not appear to be in control of a recognized tribal government.”
Three years ago, the NIGC shuttered the Sac and Fox Tribe’s Meskwaki Casino and the current NIGC Chairman did the same to the Chukchansi Gold Casino, when the tribe’s legitimacy came into question due to an armed power struggled.
Why not do the same in this case? Monteau asked. “This is no mere internal matter involving tribal politics or membership or an enrollment dispute. It is a matter of the NIGC as trustee doing its duty under IGRA and its own regulations now that the tribal gaming facilities and revenue are now in the hands of an entity that the Department of Interior has determined is not the legitimate governing body,” he wrote.
The tribal council is continuing to make distributions to some members, but excluding a group called the Nooksack 300. The distributions have never been approved according to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act’s Revenue Allocation Plan, says Monteau. This violates the law.
