The Illinois Gaming Board was set to vote November 18 on awarding the city of Waukegan’s casino license.
However, that vote was delayed to allow the Forest County Potawatomi Community−whose bid was rejected−to file in Cook County Circuit Court a memorandum of opposition to Waukegan’s motion for a summary judgment concerning the tribe’s previously filed lawsuit. The Chicago Tribune reported Forest County Potawatomi asked a Cook County judge on November 16 to block the IGB from making a “determination of preliminary suitability” between former state Senator Michael Bond’s North Point Casino and Full House Resorts.
The tribe, which operates a lucrative casino in Milwaukee, claims in its lawsuit that Waukegan’s licensing process was “rigged.” It alleges former Mayor Sam Cunningham directed the city council not to submit the tribe’s Waukegan Potawatomi Casino bid as a finalist to the IGB and instead recommend Bond’s North Point Casino, Full House Resorts and a joint bid from Rush Street Gaming and Churchill Downs Inc. The city council in October 2019 did not forward the Waukegan Potawatomi Casino proposal to the IGB and the tribe has been trying since then to reverse that decision.
In the recent filing, attorneys for the tribe claimed Cunningham’s “secret directive was the culmination of a rigged process” and that “the city’s casino review process discriminated against plaintiff Potawatomi without any rational basis, disregarded the requirements of the gaming expansion law and violated both the letter and the spirit of the Illinois Open Meetings Act.”
Forest County Potawatomi Community attorneys also cited sworn testimony from Alderperson Keith Turner, who said, “As the mayor entered, he came by, he had to pass by my chair, and he said to me, ‘These are the three that we want to send to Springfield. Right.’ And that was what the vote was going to be.”
Tribal attorneys pointed out toward the end of the 2017 mayoral campaign, Bond, a former Democratic lawmaker turned video gambling executive, directed more than $50,000 to Cunningham and $250,000 to four candidates who won city council seats.
Potawatomi attorneys stated, “Based on Bond’s campaign largesse and personal connection to Cunningham, North Point indeed had the inside track. But given public scrutiny of the Bond connection, the city also favored Full House as a relatively weak competitor that could ‘quash’ the (accurate) perception of bias toward North Point. The selection of Rivers does nothing to negate this inference, because Rivers punched its own ticket in the form of damaging information it unearthed in the Waukegan Gaming litigation. Hence Cunningham’s directive to send North Point, Full House and Rivers, but not Potawatomi, to the Illinois Gaming Board.”
Additionally, Potawatomi lawyers noted Cunningham did not properly disclose his communication with Bond to state gaming regulators. Also, former City Attorney Robert Long did not properly disclose communication from Bond’s company that said it planned to lower its pledged financial contribution to the city.
The suit also claims the city’s consultant improperly gave the Potawatomi lower scores than their own analysis indicated. Also, the tribe states in the suit a bid for city owned land was millions of dollars less than Forest County Potawatomi claims it would have offered.
In a court filing last month, city attorneys said, “Waukegan Potawatomi Casino tries mightily to establish that the mayor (who did not vote), the city’s gaming consultant and the aldermen who voted against them engaged in some vast corruption conspiracy.” The attorneys claim the city has absolute immunity from the lawsuit and that Forest County Potawatomi cannot bring the lawsuit because it is an arm of the federally recognized sovereign Potawatomi Tribe. Furthermore, Waukegan officials contend the tribe’s real motive is to protect its Milwaukee casino from competition.
A settlement conference between attorneys for Forest County Potawatomi and Waukegan is scheduled for November 30.
Churchill Downs and Rush Street withdrew their Waukegan bid in late September, one day after Churchill Downs agreed to sell its Arlington International Racecourse in Arlington Heights to the Chicago Bears for $196.2 million. Full House recently lost out to Churchill Downs for the casino license in Vigo County, Indiana. The IGB also is considering who will receive the suburban Cook County license, Wind Creek or South Suburban Development, to be awarded in January.
