Let's Thank Governor Slot Barns!

Maybe Martha's Vineyard should get active and support REPEAL THE CASINO DEAL! to protect ALL Communities!









(NECN: Peter Howe, Woods Hole, Mass.) Say "Martha’s Vineyard" and you think of presidential getaways with the Obama and Clinton families, beautiful people on vacation with Carly Simon and James Taylor – and someday, soon, casino gambling, too?

That was the stunning announcement from the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe Tuesday that they've won the federal OK to build a so-called Class II casino – a gambling hall offering high-stakes bingo and electronic games and player-versus-player poker and card gambling, but no blackjack and only limited slot machines. The location would be a still-unfinished tribal community center now under construction within the 481 acres of tribally owned land on the southwest end of Martha's Vineyard. In a public statement, Aquinnah chairwoman Cheryl Andrews-Maltais said, "We are thrilled" by a letter from the National Indian Gaming Commission’s acting general counsel stating, according to her, that the Aquinnah have the federal legal right to offer gambling.

Vineyarders interviewed at the Woods Hole ferry terminal in Falmouth, though, were anything but thrilled.

"On the Vineyard, I think it would be really inappropriate," said Susie Herr of West Tisbury. "We have enough traffic without a casino." Bob Pieringer of Oak Bluffs agreed: "Living on the vineyard, I just don't think it would be appropriate."

Mark Makuch, who splits his time between Oak Bluffs and Willington, Conn., was more vehement: "This is one change that it's easy to know everybody knows would be terrible -- a terrible idea. I live in Connecticut, where we have two casinos. A lot of people's lives have been ruined. Nobody's happier. A lot of kids abandoned in cars. Nothing good has come of it."

The Aquinnah tribe's announcement stunned state officials, who had no idea it was coming and have argued the Aquinnah forfeited their right to a casino in 1983 as part of a land settlement, and aides to U.S. Rep. William R. Keating had no information, either.

Media spokesmen for the U.S. Interior Department and National Indian Gaming Commission did not respond to repeated requests for comment Tuesday on what they told the Aquinnah and what if anything the commission has formally ruled on. The Aquinnah announcement, first reported by Mark Arsenault in The Boston Globe and Boston.com, referred to an opinion letter from the commission’s acting general counsel, but it was not immediately clear if the tribe would also need a formal vote from the commission and if that has occurred.

One point of leverage for Governor Deval L. Patrick and legislators: The Aquinnah would have to negotiate a "compact" with the state specifying what taxes they would pay on gambling profits and other terms. The state has come to terms on a compact with a different tribe, the Mashpee Wampanoag, over a casino that tribe is trying to build in a Taunton industrial park it is seeking to have the Interior Department declare to be tribal land. Patrick’s administration – which has argued it thinks the Aquinnah forfeited their right to seek a casino in 1983 – had no comment Tuesday on whether the governor would pursue a compact with the Aquinnah.

Locals are vowing to do whatever they can to fight it. Loretta Wolozin, one of the just 90 registered voters in Aquinnah, formerly known as Gay Head, said, "It can’t happen. It would be an intrusion on the nature of the Vineyard. They’re going to have to get through the local [approval], and there will be some very strong local associations that will be anti that move in Aquinnah and on the island."

With videographer John E. Stuart

http://www.necn.com/11/12/13/Possible-big-twist-in-Mass-casino-race/landing_business.html?blockID=857447&feedID=11126


Wampanoag tribe says it has federal approval to build casino on Martha’s Vineyard


The Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah today declared it has won federal approval to open a casino on its tribal land on Martha’s Vineyard, introducing a surprising new wrinkle to the state’s unsettled gambling industry. The tribe pledges to now move ahead with a plan to convert an unfinished tribal community center on the island into a temporary casino, until a permanent facility can be built.“As the People of the First Light, we are responsible for preserving the atmosphere and beauty of the Island,” said the tribe’s chairwoman, Cheryl Andrews-Maltais.

“Any gaming facility we operate will blend in with the rest of the Island, and the tribe will work with local businesses to ensure the casino’s positive economic impact on our neighbors in the larger Island community.” The Aquinnah are evaluating options for a potential partner in developing an island casino, said Andrews-Maltais, in a telephone interview today.“We do have many options on the table,” she said. The tribe will go forward “as soon as possible” with the temporary facility.



 “I would love to be able to set up a poker table tomorrow, but that’s not going to work,” Andrews-Maltais said. “It’s going to take several months.” She said the tribe’s vision for a permanent casino would be a “boutique facility,” smaller than commercial gambling resorts being proposed on the Massachusetts mainland.

The Aquinnah have been in a long battle with state officials over tribal gambling rights. Tribal gambling is approved and regulated under federal law, the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, known as IGRA.

Federally recognized tribes, such as the Aquinnah, generally can host gambling as a means of economic development without a state casino license. But Massachusetts officials have long insisted that the Aquinnah gave up their federal IGRA rights in a land settlement in the 1980s, when the tribe agreed to abide by state law on its sovereign territory.

The Aquinnah, based on the island, are a separate tribal government from the Mashpee Wampanoag, who are seeking federal approval to build a casino in Taunton. The Mashpee have a different set of legal challenges to overcome, primarily that they don’t control any sovereign Indian land. Tribal casinos can only be built on Native American reservations or land held in federal trust on a tribe’s behalf.

Under state law, a limited number of commercial casinos will be licensed through a competition controlled by the state gambling commission; the Aquinnah tribe did not apply for a state license. The Aquinnah turned to the federal government for clarification of its rights, and on Oct. 25 received a legal analysis from Eric Shepard, acting general counsel of the National Indian Gaming Commission, the federal regulatory agency that oversees tribal gambling.

“It is my opinion that the specified lands [on the Vineyard] are Indian lands as defined by IGRA and are eligible for gaming,” Shepard wrote to the tribe, according to a copy of the 5-page letter provided by the Aquinnah.“The tribe has consistently asserted that we have the right to game on our lands in Aquinnah,” Andrews-Maltais said.

“These approvals affirm our position. We are thrilled.”

“We have continued to assert and try to explain to people the differences between federal Indian law and how it relates to us, but it seemed it was going to take a lot more convincing…so we felt it was really necessary to get those determinations through the federal system so there was absolute clarity so we can start all over again with some real negotiations with our rights well in hand,” she said.

The tribe’s initial plans are for what tribal gambling law calls a Class 2 facility, which permits games such as high-stakes bingo, poker, and some varieties of slot machines. To run a wider variety of Las Vegas-style games, such as blackjack and roulette, the tribe must negotiate with Governor Deval Patrick on an agreement known as a compact.

In general, compacts provide tribes certain benefits in exchange for a share of gambling revenue. The tribe this morning renewed a request to open negotiations with the Patrick administration, “which previously refused to negotiate with Aquinnah on the mistaken belief that the tribe had given up any rights to game,” the tribe stated.


“With the question of the eligibility of our lands qualifying under IGRA resolved, we hope that our two governments can now return to the negotiation table and work out a fair agreement under applicable federal law,’’ the tribe stated.

- See more at: http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2013/11/12/native-american-tribe-says-they-have-federal-approval-build-casino-martha-vineyard/kzAH46jtPW8Bc260XYlrRK/story.html#sthash.VRbPfSOe.dpuf