The town of Aquinnah, which shares Martha’s Vineyard with the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) has asked to join a federal lawsuit between the tribe and the State that the State filed to stop the tribe from building a Class II casino in an unfinished community building.
The federal judge, F. Dennis Saylor IV, ruled recently that the case belongs in federal rather than state court. The state seeks to prevent the tribe from building the casino, which it says that a 1980s agreement that the Aquinnahs signed in return for a land settlement prevents them from violating local land use laws.
The first hearing in the case will be held August 6. The judge is expected to create a court calendar for the case and hear initial arguments on whether other parties, such as the town, may be a party to the suit.
The town says it should be allowed to join the lawsuit because it is one of the parties named in the land settlement.
In its request to the court the town’s attorney wrote, “The town respectfully requests that it should also be afforded an opportunity to advance its position, consistent with the Supreme Judicial Court and the Massachusetts Appeals Court, and that the plain language of the settlement agreement, and the terms of the permits issued under the 2007 agreement, bar commercial gaming in Aquinnah.”
