URBAN CASINOS WOULD PUT LANDLESS TRIBES ON EQUAL FOOTING WITH WEALTHY ONES

Casinos in urban areas would put poor and landless tribes on equal footing with wealthy ones

By Joe Findaro

Sunday, December 13, 2009 at midnight

A growing number of Indian tribes across the country are seeking to build casinos in urban areas far from native lands. Though no such proposals have been made public in San Diego County, the administration of President Barack Obamma is considering whether to make is easier for such projects to be built.

In September, five U.S. senators, including both of California’s, wrote the secretary of the interior opposing “taking off-reservation lands into trust for gaming purposes.”

In fact, while the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act generally prohibits gaming on lands acquired in trust after 1988, in some cases it allows gaming on lands “presently unconnected with an Indian tribe.” It expressly permits trust acquisitions where they are: (1) in the tribe’s best interest, not detrimental to the local community, and the state’s governor concurs; (2) restored tribal lands for a tribe restored to federal recognition; or (3) part of an initial reservation for a newly recognized tribe.

The five senators do not speak for the entire Senate. Indeed, other U.S. senators have expressed support for off-reservation gaming in certain circumstances. In October, New York’s senators wrote the secretary of the interior that the “concerns (of our colleagues) are not satisfied by an overly inclusive blanket ban” on off-reservation gaming. These senators wish to help the Catskills region, where off-reservation casino applications have significant local support, are approved by state law and have received extensive environmental review. Economic redevelopment and job opportunities are significant factors in the senators’ support. They argue that applications should be viewed on individual merits rather than prohibited by some one-size-fits-all blanket restriction.

And just last month the two Massachusetts senators wrote the secretary of the interior on behalf of the landless Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, which is in the process of seeking an “initial reservation.” These senators made the critical point that for “landless tribes in particular a trust land base is important for housing, education, health care, public safety and job training and economic development.” And, they wrote, tribes “should not be penalized due to pressures from those who seek to limit legitimate Indian business development.”

In California’s Bay Area, the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians, a landless, restored tribe, is seeking a reservation in Richmond. The tribe has worked diligently with local governments and spent years in a cumbersome environmental review process. If Scotts Valley has satisfied all the requirements set forth under federal law, then the Department of the Interior has an obligation to take every possible step to help this landless tribe.

In Southern California, Los Coyotes Band was invited by the city of Barstow to develop a gaming project that would bring desperately needed revenue to both the city and Los Coyotes. The local community strongly supports the project. The tribe has no viable economic development opportunities on its current reservation, which is landlocked among state forests, and which received limited electricity only in the last decade.

Yet tribes that have become wealthy from gaming are opposing Los Coyotes, arguing they lack ancestral ties to Barstow.

The Obama Administration has a duty to bring real change to Indian Country – a duty to ensure that all tribes are given a reasonable opportunity to provide for their people. Poor, landless and disadvantaged tribes must be put on a level playing field with wealthy tribes. Congress must insist that the secretary of the interior, as trustee for all tribes, formulate policies without unwarranted interference from those seeking to impede economic development and job growth for Indians.

Findaro, an attorney in Washington, D.C., represents Indian tribes. For a time early in the decade, he represented the Jamul Indian Village.

Indian Country Today-December 13, 2009