The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde is looking again at the former Multnomah Greyhound Park property in Wood Village, Oregon as location for a casino.
The tribe bought the former racetrack in 2015 for $10 million after investors twice proposed it as a casino site. Voters rejected commercial casino proposals in 2010 and 2012.
Spurred by news that the Siletz Tribe is proposing to build a second casino, this one in North Salem, 61 miles away, October 4 Tribal Council Chairwoman Cheryle A. Kennedy announced at a General Council meeting “For our Tribe to be prepared, we are looking at putting the Wood Village property into trust for the purposes of gaming.”
This is an about face from the tribe’s earlier resolution, announced in August 2018, not to develop the property and to put it on the market.
The property, which included a broken down grandstand and outbuildings, was originally 31.5 acres. Since then the tribe sold 4.6 acres of wetland to the city of Wood Village for a park. July 10 it took down the “for sale” sign.
A Wood Village casino would be the closest in the state to the Portland metro area. It would be four miles away, compared to the nearest casino, the Ilani, which is 17 miles from the state’s largest city.
The Grand Ronde and Siletz tribes have tried to negotiate a plan that would benefit both of them, but didn’t agree.
Kennedy told tribal members, “We had a couple of proposals that did not go anywhere. At the end of the day, the writing was on the wall. We need to do what it takes to protect our people because the needs are great, as are theirs. We needed to develop a strategy on maintaining our revenues.”
The next step is to put the land into trust. This can take many years. Kennedy said the tribe has applied to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
It will also need to reach out to the city of Wood Village, whose mayor, Scott Harden commented about the proposal: “The Council for The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde were excellent partners in the process of recreating our town center master plan.” He added, “We look forward to working with them on developing the land for the benefit of the citizens of Wood Village and the tribal membership.”
