Patrick 'close' to new casino compact
This and a lot more local political news today.
- See more at: http://www.capecodtoday.com/article/2013/02/27/17354-patrick-close-new-casino-compact#sthash.rNO2MifY.dpufPatrick 'close' to new casino compact with tribe
By BOB SALSBERG, Associated Press | February 26, 2013
BOSTON (AP) — Gov. Deval Patrick said Tuesday he was nearing a revised casino agreement with the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe but planned to run the major elements of the deal by federal officials before submitting it for final approval.
The governor is hoping to avoid a repeat of the events of last year, when a compact he signed with the tribe was approved by the Legislature, only to be rejected later by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The compact was nixed in part because the bureau felt the state was demanding too large a share of the tribe's future gambling revenues.
Patrick said during an impromptu meeting with reporters that he believed his administration was close to finalizing a renegotiated compact with the tribe, which has proposed a $500 million resort casino in Taunton, though he did not provide specifics of what the agreement might include.
"We're in negotiations, we've got the model," Patrick said.
"We're trying to work through with the tribe and we have hope, I think it's either by the end of this week or early next week, to be able to go down to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and show them the framework so that we get some preliminary feedback from them and we don't go through the process that we did the last time, thinking we had a deal that was going to satisfy them," the governor said.
Cedric Cromwell, tribal chairman of the Mashpee, also predicted in a statement on Tuesday that a new compact — fair to both the tribe and the state — would arrive in the "very near future."
The 2011 law that legalized casino gambling in Massachusetts allows for up to three resort-style casinos in separate geographical areas of the state, but gave preference to a federally-recognized Native American tribe in the southeastern region, provided the tribe met several requirements including a signed compact with the state.
The Mashpee's efforts have reached a critical juncture, with some lawmakers and officials in southeastern Massachusetts growing impatient with the tribe's progress and expressing concern that the region will fall behind other parts of the state in casino development.
The Massachusetts Gaming Commission could decide as early as next month whether to open up the bidding for the regional casino license to commercial developers. Such a move could deal a significant setback, if not a fatal blow, to the tribe's hopes of exclusivity in the region.
The Mashpee, which has no land of its own, also faces the formidable task of winning federal land-in-trust approval for the 146-acre site of the proposed Taunton casino. To that end, it received a favorable preliminary advisory opinion earlier this month from the federal Office of Indian Gaming that said the land appeared to qualify as an "initial reservation," which could allow the tribe to conduct gambling at the site in the future.
"We have made unprecedented progress toward opening our destination resort casino in Taunton, including notice from the federal government that our lands qualify for gaming under federal law," Cromwell said.
Another potential legal hurdle for the tribe is a 2009 U.S. Supreme Court decision, in a Rhode Island case, that limits the government's ability to hold land in trust for tribes that were recognized after 1934. The Mashpee Wampanoag tribe won federal recognition in 2007.
The compact agreed to by the tribe last year called for it to return 21.5 percent of future gambling revenues to Massachusetts, the highest figure ever negotiated between a state and Native American tribe.
In rejecting the agreement, the bureau said the revenue allocation was too generous to the state and would undermine the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which says gambling should primarily benefit tribes.
Governor, Mashpee Wampanoags working to get casino deal back on track
BOSTON —
With regulators on the cusp of opening up the southeast region of the state to commercial casino developers, Gov. Deval Patrick said his administration and the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe have a “framework” of a compact they plan to show federal officials in the hopes of avoiding another rejection.
“We’re in negotiations,” Patrick told reporters on Tuesday. “We’ve got a model we’re trying to work through with the tribe, and we have a hope – I think it’s either by the end of this week or early next week – to be able to go down to the BIA and show them the framework so that we can get some preliminary feedback from them and we don’t go through the process we did the last time of thinking we had a deal that was going to satisfy them. It’s hard.”
After Patrick and the Legislature approved a gaming compact with the Mashpee that would have sent 21.5 percent of tribal gaming revenues to the state, the Bureau of Indian Affairs rejected the deal, saying the state had no right to offer hunting and fishing rights and other concessions on its end of the deal.
“We're looking at national policy, what the Bureau of Indian Affairs has approved. We're looking at where we're at with gaming in the Commonwealth. We're looking at the meaningful concessions that we can support to get to a revenue-share level that can be supported at a national level at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and obviously supported at the Legislature-level at the Commonwealth, and also at my tribal council level,” Mashpee Chairman Cedric Cromwell told the News Service in January.
The Mashpee are hoping to build a resort casino in a Taunton office park. In December, the Gaming Commission tabled discussion of whether to start the licensure process for other, commercial developers in the southeast region, giving the tribe until March 15 to show progress has been made in securing the necessary land-in-trust agreement from the federal government and on the compact. The commission plans to revisit the discussion at its Thursday, March 21 meeting, the first after the deadline.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs is reviewing the Mashpee’s land-in-trust application and learned earlier in February that the Department of the Interior deemed the application “qualified to be processed under the initial reservation exception.”
The federal government’s rejection of the first gaming compact along with the uncertainty over whether and when the bureau might approve a land-in-trust application motivated some to push for the commission to set a hard deadline for the tribe to have its paperwork in order or open up the southeast to commercial ventures.
“We’re in negotiations,” Patrick told reporters on Tuesday. “We’ve got a model we’re trying to work through with the tribe, and we have a hope – I think it’s either by the end of this week or early next week – to be able to go down to the BIA and show them the framework so that we can get some preliminary feedback from them and we don’t go through the process we did the last time of thinking we had a deal that was going to satisfy them. It’s hard.”
After Patrick and the Legislature approved a gaming compact with the Mashpee that would have sent 21.5 percent of tribal gaming revenues to the state, the Bureau of Indian Affairs rejected the deal, saying the state had no right to offer hunting and fishing rights and other concessions on its end of the deal.
“We're looking at national policy, what the Bureau of Indian Affairs has approved. We're looking at where we're at with gaming in the Commonwealth. We're looking at the meaningful concessions that we can support to get to a revenue-share level that can be supported at a national level at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and obviously supported at the Legislature-level at the Commonwealth, and also at my tribal council level,” Mashpee Chairman Cedric Cromwell told the News Service in January.
The Mashpee are hoping to build a resort casino in a Taunton office park. In December, the Gaming Commission tabled discussion of whether to start the licensure process for other, commercial developers in the southeast region, giving the tribe until March 15 to show progress has been made in securing the necessary land-in-trust agreement from the federal government and on the compact. The commission plans to revisit the discussion at its Thursday, March 21 meeting, the first after the deadline.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs is reviewing the Mashpee’s land-in-trust application and learned earlier in February that the Department of the Interior deemed the application “qualified to be processed under the initial reservation exception.”
The federal government’s rejection of the first gaming compact along with the uncertainty over whether and when the bureau might approve a land-in-trust application motivated some to push for the commission to set a hard deadline for the tribe to have its paperwork in order or open up the southeast to commercial ventures.
With regulators on the cusp of opening up the southeast region of the state to commercial casino developers, Gov. Deval Patrick said his administration and the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe have a “framework” of a compact they plan to show federal officials in the hopes of avoiding another rejection.
“We’re in negotiations,” Patrick told reporters on Tuesday. “We’ve got a model we’re trying to work through with the tribe, and we have a hope – I think it’s either by the end of this week or early next week – to be able to go down to the BIA and show them the framework so that we can get some preliminary feedback from them and we don’t go through the process we did the last time of thinking we had a deal that was going to satisfy them. It’s hard.”
After Patrick and the Legislature approved a gaming compact with the Mashpee that would have sent 21.5 percent of tribal gaming revenues to the state, the Bureau of Indian Affairs rejected the deal, saying the state had no right to offer hunting and fishing rights and other concessions on its end of the deal.
“We're looking at national policy, what the Bureau of Indian Affairs has approved. We're looking at where we're at with gaming in the Commonwealth. We're looking at the meaningful concessions that we can support to get to a revenue-share level that can be supported at a national level at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and obviously supported at the Legislature-level at the Commonwealth, and also at my tribal council level,” Mashpee Chairman Cedric Cromwell told the News Service in January.
The Mashpee are hoping to build a resort casino in a Taunton office park. In December, the Gaming Commission tabled discussion of whether to start the licensure process for other, commercial developers in the southeast region, giving the tribe until March 15 to show progress has been made in securing the necessary land-in-trust agreement from the federal government and on the compact. The commission plans to revisit the discussion at its Thursday, March 21 meeting, the first after the deadline.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs is reviewing the Mashpee’s land-in-trust application and learned earlier in February that the Department of the Interior deemed the application “qualified to be processed under the initial reservation exception.”
The federal government’s rejection of the first gaming compact along with the uncertainty over whether and when the bureau might approve a land-in-trust application motivated some to push for the commission to set a hard deadline for the tribe to have its paperwork in order or open up the southeast to commercial ventures.
The Mashpee have potential rivals in the region. The Aquinnah Wampanoag sought a license under the 2011 gaming law’s provision for American Indian tribes, but voters in Freetown and Lakeville rejected the idea for a casino in their towns.
KG Urban Enterprises, which hopes to build a casino along the New Bedford waterfront, has sued the state and named both tribes as “intervener” defendants in an attempt to block a portion of the gaming law that dealt with tribes. KG complained it “contains numerous explicit, race-based set-asides that give federally recognized Indian tribes a categorical advantage over all other applicants in seeking a commercial gaming license in Southeastern Massachusetts.”
When the Department of the Interior rejected the original compact, Patrick said it was “deeply disappointing on a number of levels,” saying the state had negotiated carefully and in good faith, and said it was “extraordinarily fair to both sides.”
“We’re in negotiations,” Patrick told reporters on Tuesday. “We’ve got a model we’re trying to work through with the tribe, and we have a hope – I think it’s either by the end of this week or early next week – to be able to go down to the BIA and show them the framework so that we can get some preliminary feedback from them and we don’t go through the process we did the last time of thinking we had a deal that was going to satisfy them. It’s hard.”
After Patrick and the Legislature approved a gaming compact with the Mashpee that would have sent 21.5 percent of tribal gaming revenues to the state, the Bureau of Indian Affairs rejected the deal, saying the state had no right to offer hunting and fishing rights and other concessions on its end of the deal.
“We're looking at national policy, what the Bureau of Indian Affairs has approved. We're looking at where we're at with gaming in the Commonwealth. We're looking at the meaningful concessions that we can support to get to a revenue-share level that can be supported at a national level at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and obviously supported at the Legislature-level at the Commonwealth, and also at my tribal council level,” Mashpee Chairman Cedric Cromwell told the News Service in January.
The Mashpee are hoping to build a resort casino in a Taunton office park. In December, the Gaming Commission tabled discussion of whether to start the licensure process for other, commercial developers in the southeast region, giving the tribe until March 15 to show progress has been made in securing the necessary land-in-trust agreement from the federal government and on the compact. The commission plans to revisit the discussion at its Thursday, March 21 meeting, the first after the deadline.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs is reviewing the Mashpee’s land-in-trust application and learned earlier in February that the Department of the Interior deemed the application “qualified to be processed under the initial reservation exception.”
The federal government’s rejection of the first gaming compact along with the uncertainty over whether and when the bureau might approve a land-in-trust application motivated some to push for the commission to set a hard deadline for the tribe to have its paperwork in order or open up the southeast to commercial ventures.
The Mashpee have potential rivals in the region. The Aquinnah Wampanoag sought a license under the 2011 gaming law’s provision for American Indian tribes, but voters in Freetown and Lakeville rejected the idea for a casino in their towns.
KG Urban Enterprises, which hopes to build a casino along the New Bedford waterfront, has sued the state and named both tribes as “intervener” defendants in an attempt to block a portion of the gaming law that dealt with tribes. KG complained it “contains numerous explicit, race-based set-asides that give federally recognized Indian tribes a categorical advantage over all other applicants in seeking a commercial gaming license in Southeastern Massachusetts.”
When the Department of the Interior rejected the original compact, Patrick said it was “deeply disappointing on a number of levels,” saying the state had negotiated carefully and in good faith, and said it was “extraordinarily fair to both sides.”
Gov. Patrick Finalizing Compact With Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe
2 days ago
The governor is trying to avoid a repeat of last year’s event, when an agreement he signed with the tribe was approved by the Legislature, only to be rejected later by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Patrick told reporters on Tuesday he hoped to complete negotiations with the Mashpee by the end of this week or early next week. His administration would then seek “preliminary feedback” from the bureau on the major elements of the compact.
The tribe has proposed a $500 million resort casino in Taunton. The state’s 2011 casino law gives preference to a federally-recognized Indian tribe in the southeastern region. {Associated Press)
http://wbsm.com/patrick-finalizing-compact-with-mashpee-wampanoag-tribe/
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