The Native Village of Eklutna, Dena’ina community within the city limits of Anchorage, Alaska recently filed a 38-page lawsuit against the Department of the Interior as part of an ongoing effort to open what would be the state’s first Class II gaming hall under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA.)
It would like to offer Class II gaming on an eight-acre native family allotment it owns about 20 miles from Anchorage, near the Birchwood Airport in Chugiak.
The tribal community seeks to offer bingo-based gaming, rather than the blackjack and slot machines found in Las Vegas style Class III casinos. In other words, the type of gaming that tribes in “the Lower 48” are able to offer by right without a tribal state gaming compact through IGRA.
Currently only one such Class II facility operates in Alaska, in Metlakatla, the only actual Indian reservation in the state. The Eklutna Village is a federally recognized tribal government. But, according to a 2018 Interior Department decision it doesn’t have governmental authority over that eight acres that is part of its land allotment.
Unlike tribes in the rest of the U.S. (minus Hawaii), Native lands in Alaska are owned by Native corporations with Native shareholders, an arrangement that was created by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA), whose purpose was to settle aboriginal land claims to free the state of the kind of entanglements that reservations can cause states.
In the process it also recognized 229 tribes but instead of creating reservations, gave lands and cash to 13 newly minted Native corporations and 220 village corporations. The settlement also granted about $1 billion in seed money to the corporations.
Several of the largest employers in the Last Frontier have done very well with this seed money and half of the state’s largest corporations are Native corporations. Alaska Business magazine recently describe them as “Homegrown Powerhouses.”
However, many Native villages and tribes remain at the poverty level and native unemployment is still high. According to one estimate, 85 percent of tribal members live below the poverty line and the average annual per capita income is $11,000.
The only “reservation” is Metlakatla, which is the only Native entity covered by IGRA, which defines “Indian lands,” as reservations, trust lands or allotments where tribes exert governmental power. The department asserts that this definition does not apply to the Eklutna.
The lawsuit, which is supported by Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz, seeks to force the federal government to allow the Village to open a casino that could serve the largest city in the state as well as nearby bedroom communities. It’s the latest in 20 years of such efforts by the tribe.
Aaron Leggett, president of the Eklutna tribe, sent this statement to the Anchorage Daily News: “After decades of fighting for recognition of our tribal jurisdiction over this tiny fraction of our tribe’s traditional territory, this lawsuit is an important step toward solving longstanding issues and creating new opportunities for the first people of Alaska’s largest city, which have long been denied to us.”
The lawsuit argues with Interior’s determination and asks to court to rule that it erred. It notes that the land allotment falls within its indigenous territory and that it exercises governmental authority over the land through land management and environmental protection. Such as building a septic system, creating fire breaks, removing derelict autos and controlling dogs by ordinance.
It cites as precedence cases where the National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC) ruled that tribes could open casinos on allotments. Once such case took place in California in 2006, with a similar ruling in 2010 in Oklahoma.
It argues that there is no legal distinction between allotments in Alaska and other states. There are more than 10,000 native allotments in the state.
Berkowitz has previously supported the Village, and sent a letter to that effect in January 2018, although his support only recently came to light. He wrote, “The Municipality of Anchorage supports the Native Village of Eklutna’s goals of economic determination and believes both the tribe and the surrounding community will benefit from the jobs and related economic development the project will bring.”
In his letter he wrote, “NVE members are Dena’ina Athabascan people who have occupied the Upper Cook Inlet region for thousands of years. The Village of Eklutna is the oldest inhabited place in what is now the Anchorage area.” The mayor added, “It is the closest Indian tribe to Anchorage, and together with Eklutna Inc. (a village Native corporation), it is a major landowner and important fixture in the local political and cultural landscape.”
Six months later, Interior ruled that the land was “Indian Lands.”
Alaska Rep. Don Young also supports the effort. He told the Daily News, “It’s part of their tribal rights as long as the state is agreeable. I still don’t know why the Department of the Interior turned it down.”
Currently the state of Alaska has not yet decided whether to intervene in the lawsuit, either in support or against.
Many state residents who are not tribal or supporters of tribes worry that a positive decision for the Village of Eklutna would open a Pandora’s box and lead to hundreds of reservations that would operate as sovereign nations.
