BA residents petition City Council to fight casino plans

BA residents petition City Council to fight casino plans
By SUSAN HYLTON World Staff Writer

BROKEN ARROW - Residents flooded the City Council chambers Tuesday night to voice their intense opposition to a planned Indian casino in their neighborhood.


Lori Pettus said residents were "completely blind-sided" when they read a Tuesday Tulsa World story in which a city official confirmed that the Kialegee Tribal Town was planning to build the Red Clay Casino there.

"I believe that the citizens of Broken Arrow and our Broken Arrow government must fight back, even in the face of this barrier of sovereign immunity," Pettus said. "I am asking that the City Council immediately arrange a public forum where citizens can express concerns and ask questions of the secretive operatives bankrolling this gambling enterprise."

Such actions could include petitioning the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the National Indian Gaming Commission, he said.

Cawley said the city should determine whether the Kialegee Tribal Town, a branch of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, has any tribal jurisdiction over the land in question and whether the land has been approved for gaming.

The property is at the southwest corner of Olive Avenue (129th East Avenue) and Florence Street (111th Street), just north of the Creek Turnpike.

Pettus said she thinks the casino would be a menace to the community.

"Casinos attract desperate and decadent people - prostitution, drug dealing, burglary, drunk driving, organized crime," she said.

The casino will be built adjacent to neighborhoods and a prekindergarten that is being built up the street, Cawley said.

Resident Robert Martinek said he thinks the casino would have adverse effects on property values and would increase the city's costs for providing police, fire, sewer and street improvements.

"My request would be to the mayor and City Council that we do everything we can to vet the legality of what this tribe is wanting to do," Martinek said.

Lester said the city would "move forward and get some answers either from federal regulators or whoever to make sure your concerns are addressed as best we can."

Councilman Craig Thurmond said he had discussed the issue with U.S. Rep. John Sullivan, R-Okla., and that the congressman told him residents could contact him about their concerns.

Attorney Luis Figueredo said by phone Tuesday that the casino investors, for whom he is working, are Florence Development Partners. That group consists of the tribe and the property owners, which land records list as Marcella Giles and Wynema Capps.

Figueredo would not comment on how the casino is being financed but said it would be built on allotted land, which has the same legal standing as land in trust.

The land was allotted in 1903 to Tyler Burgess, a full-blood Muscogee (Creek) who is on the Dawes Rolls. Giles and Capps are Burgess' granddaughters.

Florence Development Partners, a domestic limited-liability company, was formed on April 5, records show. The registered agent is Vicki Sousa of Langley, the tribe's attorney.

A compact between the state and the Kialegee Tribal Town was approved on July 19 for Class III gaming on Indian lands.

Figueredo said the tribe does not have any other casinos. News reports over the past decade indicate that the tribe met resistance in Georgia and Texas when attempting to go into the casino business in those states.

Most recently it was reported that a developer was proposing to sell land to the tribe in Georgia and that the tribe was considering moving its headquarters there if the Bureau of Indian Affairs approved a trust application.

But Figueredo said the tribe did not authorize the trust application, a statement that could not be immediately confirmed with BIA officials.

Under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, gaming is allowed on land in "Indian Country," and allotted land would fit that definition, Figueredo said.

The tribe plans to open in March a temporary facility that would consist of about eight to 12 prefabricated buildings with slot machines.

A permanent building would be completed around the beginning of 2013.

Mayor Mike Lester prefaced Pettus' remarks to the council by saying that the plot in question is either on restricted land or land held in trust. Records show that it is restricted land, which also is referred to as allotted land.

"In either case, the city has no jurisdiction," he said.

Jared Cawley, a resident who is an attorney, said it disappoints him that city councilors think they have no authority to take any action.

"I can assure you - you are not helpless," he said. "There are actions you can take to stop this from happening."