The Mashpee Wampanoag tribe last week cleared a major hurdle in efforts to build a casino in the southeastern section of Massachusetts. The Bureau of Indian Affairs approved a compact recently negotiated between the state and the tribe. The initial compact, which called for 20 percent of the gross gaming revenue to be paid to the state, was rejected by the BIA. The new compact gives the state 17 percent of the revenues if the tribe is the only casino in the southeastern region, and 21 percent if it is the only casino in the state, an unlikely outcome.
Mashpee Chairman Cedric Cromwell called the approval a “monumental, historical day” for the tribe. He said the tribe hopes to break ground this year.
“It’s also great news for the city of Taunton,” Cromwell told the AP. “It advances the tribe’s mission of moving forward with the destination resort casino.”
While the tribe celebrated the approval, it will most likely come as a disappointment to Foxwoods.
Foxwoods, which lost an election in Milford in November by a margin of 65 percent to 35 percent, thought it had found a way to get back in the game, this time in the southeastern gaming zone, whose licensing approval process is running behind the other two zones.
According to Foxwoods CEO Scott Butera, interviewed by the Boston Globe, “We would like to be in Massachusetts. “We’re looking at a number of opportunities.”
There were unconfirmed reports that Foxwoods was talking to Fall River Mayor Will Flanagan about a casino proposal for that city. Butera wouldn’t confirm such rumors, but did say that his company is interested in the southeastern part of the state. Since the gaming commission required that casino proposals be submitted for the other two gaming zones by December, that pretty much limits Butera’s company to the southeast zone.
Flanagan’s reply when asked about negotiations tends to fuel the speculations: “Given the sensitivity of this, I can neither confirm nor deny if we are in discussions at this time.”
The mayor did say that he thought his city’s voters would support a casino. That would be a strong selling point for any casino developer, given that the voters of West Springfield, East Boston, Milford and Palmer all turned thumbs down to their casino proposals. Only three communities, Everett, Revere and Springfield, have approved of such proposals. All three of those cities have high unemployment, are mainly urban and are considered economically disadvantaged. Fall River has a similar economic profile.
Foxwoods might hope for a city with a different profile from Milford since it spent $1,313,575 to persuade that city’s voters compared to $27,822 spent by the opposition, Casino-Free Milford, and still lost by a nearly two-to-one margin.
The southeastern zone was late coming to the party because that region of the state was originally set aside for the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, in an attempt by lawmakers to discourage a fifth casino that wouldn’t have to pay state taxes. A federally recognized tribe is allowed to operate a casino in a state that allows gaming by applying to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
However, the awarding of the license was contingent upon the tribe meeting several requirements in a timely manner, one of them being that it put land into federal trust. It has met its other requirements, including obtaining a gaming compact from the state, and winning an election of Taunton voters. The Bureau of Indian Affairs continues the process of determining whether the land in Taunton is eligible to be put in trust, but approval of the gaming compact by the BIA was very crucial.
An additional complication is the possibility that the 2009 Supreme Court ruling in Carcieri v. Salazar would prevent the tribe from putting land into trust. That decision said that tribes recognized after 1934 cannot put land into trust. The Mashpees only achieved federal recognition several years ago.
Because of the tribe’s delays, the commission in April opened the bidding to commercial developers, while not precluding the possibility of eventually awarding the license to the tribe.
Up until now, however, only KG Urban, a New York-based company that wants to build in New Bedford, had paid the $400,000 licensing fee. New Bedford’s mayor, Jon Mitchell, in written and public comments has said he is not convinced that a casino would benefit his city. KG Urban also has a federal lawsuit pending that challenges the constitutionality of the set aside for the tribe.
Because Foxwoods already paid the $400,000 application fee, it would not be required to do so again. Other also-ran developers who could follow suit include Rush Street Gaming and Hard Rock International.
Meanwhile, the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) seeks to have a lawsuit filed against it by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick in the Bay State’s Supreme Judicial Court moved to a federal court.
Patrick’s lawsuit seeks to establish that the tribe is prevented from operating a casino on Martha’s Vineyard, arguing that when the tribe accepted a land deal in the 1980s that it agreed to put itself under land use rules of state and local government.
The tribe argues that the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act approved in 1988 superseded that agreement.
The state attorney general, Martha Coakley, would have to agree to move the venue.
The tribe opening a casino is not imminent, however. The chairwoman who promised to open a Class III casino last fall, Cheryl Andrews-Maltais, was defeated for reelection by Tobias Vanderhoop, who has not said he plans to do the same. However, both incoming and outgoing chairmen agree that the tribe should defend its right to open a casino.
In a separate but related development, two gadflies who helped bring financial mismanagement of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe to light, causing its chairman to go to federal prison, and themselves to be awarded by being officially “shunned” for seven years, are back, and making many of the same claims about the current administration of Chairman Cedric Cromwell.
The members, Michelle Fernandes and Stephanie Tobey-Roderick, helped bring down the chairmanship of Glenn Marshall for corruption and embezzlement in 2006, but paid for it by losing their rights as tribal members for the ensuing period.
Rather than being blamed for bringing down Marshall, the two maintain that they should be thanked. Now they accuse Cromwell of not operating with enough transparency, which is ironic since he ran on a platform of more transparency. They are gathering signatures to force the tribal government to reveal how much the tribe has borrowed and how it is spending the money. They need 100 signatures.
They point out that such information is normally available to citizens of non-tribal governments, but is kept under wraps by the tribe.
Some reports put the tribe’s debt at $70 million.
Although Cromwell has refused to comment on the effort, the tribal council’s secretary, Marie Stone, offered this comment to Cape Cod Online: “We know the haters are out there spreading their lies. I think it’s disgusting they are so shallow that they’re willing to tear our family apart.”
