Longtime Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Chairman Cedric Cromwell and Vice Chairman Jessie “Little Doe” Baird are the subject of a recall effort led by a recently elected councilmember Aaron Tobey Jr. and signed by 100 members of the Massachusetts-based tribe.
The affidavit now needs to be certified by the tribe’s Election Committee. In presenting the petition to the committee, Tobey stated, “This is … a movement,” adding, “Tribal members are hurt and embarrassed by what the Tribal Council has or hasn’t done and they know it’s time for a change.”
The petition alleges “wrongful conduct” and malfeasance by the leaders, and cites as evidence the fact that the tribe owes more than $500 million to Genting Malaysia, the tribe’s erstwhile partner in the $1 billion First Light Casino & Resort the tribe has sought to build in Taunton, an effort that was derailed by a federal court decision.
This is the second attempt to strip Cromwell of his authority. In January the council temporarily took away his fiduciary powers, after information surfaced that he and his wife owned the IRS $37,000 only to restore them after an investigation.
The petition alleges the tribe paid the chairman more than $1 million since he took office ten years ago, and in that time it went into debt $500 million with “very little to show for it; no casino, no jobs.”
The tribe also had to borrow millions to fight the lawsuit that ultimately halted casino construction. That lawsuit was filed by neighbors of the Taunton property, who successfully sought the federal court to overturn a 2015 decision by the Department of the Interior to put 321 acres in Taunton and on Martha’s Vineyard into trust for the tribe. The tribe has also spent millions on lobbying Congress to pass a law that would put the land into trust.
The petition also questions Cromwell’s private business, claiming that he uses junkets around the country for the tribe to press his own business interests.
A month ago, after the first effort to oust Cromwell, one of his critics on the council, Carlton Hendricks Jr., survived an effort to remove him from the council. Tobey and his all councilmember Rita Gonzalves also were targeted for removal shortly after Tobey took office.
At that time Baird accused Tobey of calling her names and defaming her in the Cape Cod Times.
If Toney’s petition is certified it would set up a recall that would take during a general tribal meeting. Both sides would present arguments and if 60 percent the tribal members present vote to recall they would be removed.
At the time that the tribe’s partnership with Genting Malaysia was announced, in 2016, Genting said it was investing in an interest-bearing promissory note to the tribe. The adverse court ruling came in 2017 and the Department of the Interior held last September that it could find no way past the federal court decision. The judge ruled that the department did not have the authority to put the land into trust since the tribe wasn’t under federal authority in 1934, the year when Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act. The tribe was recognized in 2004. The tribe has litigation pending against the department challenging its decision.
Also in September 2018 the company filed a statement with Malaysia’s version of the SEC that it had recorded an impairment loss of the equivalent of $440 million on the promissory notes.
The tribe’s one remaining hope for building a casino seems to rest with federal legislation that would move around the Department of the Interior and directly put the land into trust.
The House Committee on Natural Resources heard the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Reservation Reaffirmation Act last week, as a potential first step to moving it to the floor for a vote.
The bill’s author, William Keating, faces opposition to the bill, most notable by the neighboring state of Rhode Island, which fears competition from a Taunton casino. When the subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples of the United States held a hearing on the bill April 3, Claire Richards, executive counsel to Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo testified, “An Indian casino in Rhode Island’s gaming catchment area poses a serious threat” to casino revenue that is the state’s third largest source of government funding.
