Milwaukee Newspaper: Department of Interior Should Judge Kenosha Project on Merits and Law

Excellent editorial in this morning’s Milwaukee Business Journal.

Casino should get fair hearing

The Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin took a very unusual step last week when it went after the very agency that will decide if it will be able to develop an $808 million casino and entertainment complex in Kenosha.

But the tribe does deserve a fair hearing into whether it should be able to open the casino at the site of the Dairyland Greyhound Park. The site must be put into federal trust, a requirement for the development of an Indian gaming facility.

Tribal chair Lisa Waukau wrote a letter to George Skibine, acting assistant secretary of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, saying that U.S. Department of Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne will respond to political pressure to issue a “hasty, arbitrary and capricious end-of-term disapproval of our long-pending application.”

The tribe now wants that decision to be delayed until the next administration takes office.

In the past, Kempthorne has made clear his opposition to off-reservation Indian gaming and his department already has rejected 11 applications to allow such projects and ceased review of another dozen.

The Menominee tribe said a rejection by the current administration would be based solely on Kempthorne’s personal opposition to off-reservation gaming “rather than any legal basis for denial.”

That is not right. The casino proposal should be judged on its own merits and applicable federal law.

Hear, hear.

Show your support for the Kenosha project and casino competition by signing the online petition.

Respected Professor Calls for U.S. to Approve Kenosha Casino

As the Menominee Tribe asks the federal government to suspend review of the Tribe’s Kenosha casino application until a new administration takes office, today’s Small Business Times “Milwaukee Biz Blog” features a thought-provoking piece by Professor Dennis Dresang, director of the Center for Wisconsin, State, Local and Tribal Governance for the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison.

Dresang is one of the authors of a new study that points to the U.S. government’s termination of the Menominee Tribe’s federal recognition from 1954 to 1973 as the root cause of the economic and social ravages the Tribe continues to face today.

You can read the article here.

Call on the government to do the right thing – sign the online petition for casino competition in Southeast Wisconsin.

Menominee Ask Federal Government to Leave Kenosha Decision to New Administration

See the letter from Menominee Tribal leadership below. You know, it’s amazing that with the U.S. economy in such a downturn, the politicians apparently still can’t do the right thing and approve a project that will create 3,000 good jobs and launch a $1 billion construction project in a region that has experienced major job and business losses.

On the positive side, it’s clear from the letter – as well as the Tribe’s media statement and its letter to the BIA – that Menominee isn’t going to give up the fight.

Dear Supporters and Friends:

As the Bush Administration enters its final days, we have been informed that Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is looking to reject our long-pending Kenosha casino application. While Secretary Kempthorne's personal opposition to off-reservation gaming is well-known, such a denial would go against the strong recommendation of Bureau of Indian Affairs' professional staff, who have studied the Menominee application in detail and say it should be approved. It would go against the wishes of the Kenosha community, which has twice voted in favor of the casino. And it would go against all of the laws and regulations governing land-into-trust decisions in our country.

To try to stop a capricious, end-of-term rejection - and to ensure our project is judged on its significant legal merits, not anyone's personal politics - our Tribe has asked the Department to temporarily suspend consideration of our application until a fresh presidential Administration takes over in January. We are committed to seeing the Kenosha project through. We believe a new Administration offers the best chance to stop one individual's personal beliefs from unfairly overriding the Bureau officials who recommend approval based on the law and a thorough review of our submission.

We hope the Department grants our request for a temporary suspension, but we are nonetheless prepared for other outcomes. Please know that the Menominee Tribe has a number of avenues at its disposal to fight an improper rejection, and we are strongly committed to pursuing them and making the Kenosha project a reality. We stand firmly by our plans and their major benefits for Kenosha, for the Menominee and for Wisconsin.

We continue to be grateful for the overwhelming welcome and strong support the Kenosha and Southeast Wisconsin community has given our project and our Tribe. In the end - even if we must battle an illegal and politically motivated denial - we are confident that the facts and the law will determine the Kenosha project should and must be approved.

Lisa Waukau, Chair

Laurie Boivin, Vice Chair

Show your continued support for the Kenosha project and casino competition by signing our online petition.

UW Research on Menominee’s Unmeet Needs Gains Media Attention

There’s a good story in today’s Kenosha News on the UW/La Follette School study. Here’s the first part:

Study: Local casino would aid tribe
Menominees say revenue is necessary for them to thrive

BY JOE POTENTE jpotente@kenoshanews.com

A recent study by a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor says a Kenosha casino would help to reverse many of the negative effects that the Menominee Nation has suffered since the federal government terminated the tribe in the 1950s.

The report, commissioned and paid for by the tribe, was submitted to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs in response to questions about the proposed casino’s effects on the tribe’s unmet needs, a project spokesman said Thursday.

Dennis Dresang, a professor in the UW-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs, wrote that revenue from the Kenosha casino would make “a significant, measurable difference for the Menominee in their struggle to overcome the shattering economic and cultural aftereffects of termination.”

Without the revenue, Dresang said, the tribe’s ability to care for its nearly 8,500 members is severely compromised.

You can read the full story here.

Sign our online petition and say yes to casino competition in SE Wisconsin.

UW Study Finds Kenosha Project Could Right Federal Government’s Wrongs

WisPolitics has a great story this morning about a study of the Menominee Tribe conducted by the researchers at the University of Wisconsin’s prestigious La Follette School of Public Affairs. The story – and the study itself – is especially good reading for anyone who doesn’t realize the economic and social turmoil the Menominee have suffered at the hands of the federal government.

Take a look:

The Menominee Nation continues to struggle economically 50 years after the federal government decided to terminate its status as a recognized tribe and the best option to improve its plight is an off-reservation casino, according to a new report compiled by three UW-Madison researchers.

The study was paid for by the tribe, which is seeking federal approval to turn a Kenosha dog track into a casino. The Forest County Potawatomi have opposed the project, which has been pending before federal regulators for some time.

Co-author Dennis Dresang said the researchers went into the study with no preconceived notions and the study was not influenced by the tribe's desire to win approval for an off-reservation casino.

He said because the tribe is not near any population centers, it has few other options besides an off-reservation casino to generate the kind of money needed to address its needs. Dresang said one other option for the tribe could be exploring more ecotourism considering some of the natural resources in the area. But that would also mean turning culturally important areas into a tourist destination, which some Menominee would be hesitant to do.

"They don't want another Wisconsin Dells springing up in the area," Dresang said. "But even that, considering what a casino-convention center near Chicago is going to generate, man, that's just a no-brainer."'

According to the report, the tribe was prospering in the 1950s with a successful sawmill and a fully functioning government, a law enforcement agency, infrastructure and schools. Because of that success, the federal government targeted the Menominee for an experiment to end rights and protections based on past treaties and strip the tribe of its federally cognized status. Dresang said the experiment was considered a reward at the time for the Menominee's success, but came to be viewed as a mistake.

There’s also a video summary of the study featuring Professor Dresang, as well as a news release from the La Follette School.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF8t-zdtyEw

As the federal government continues to review the Menominee’s Kenosha casino application, the La Follette School research is yet more proof of the project’s major benefits for Wisconsin.

Say yes to the Kenosha casino and casino competition in Southeast Wisconsin by signing our online petition.

We talked late last week about the utter hypocrisy of the Potawatomi – who have spent millions to hurt the Menominee Tribe and its Kenosha project – being founding members of a group committed to increasing economic opportunities for poor tribes. That group, the Native American Trade Network, has its big kickoff in Washington today, and here’s the statement we released on the irony of it all.

FOREST COUNTY POTAWATOMI PUT HYPOCRISY ON FULL NATIONAL DISPLAY
IN WASHINGTON, D.C., PUBLICITY STUNT
* * *

Multiyear, multimillion-dollar effort to stifle poor Wisconsin tribe’s economic development project is polar opposite of new claim

Evan N. Zeppos, spokesman for the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin’s proposed entertainment center and casino in Kenosha, Wis., today issued the following statement regarding the Forest County Potawatomi’s membership in the newly created Native American Trade Network. The Network, launched today at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C, bills itself as a partnership of some of the nation’s wealthiest tribes with the goal of increasing economic opportunities for disadvantaged tribes. The Potawatomi have been vocal opponents of the Kenosha project, which would compete with Potawatomi’s lucrative off-reservation casino in Milwaukee.

“It is reprehensible that the Forest County Potawatomi would stand up in our nation’s capital and claim to be in favor of spreading economic opportunity to disadvantaged tribes.

“Potawatomi’s D.C. appearance is a blatant and duplicitous publicity stunt that conveniently sidesteps the millions of dollars they’ve poured into ads, lobbyists and other political and legal chicanery to preserve the casino monopoly that has made them rich. To now declare they want to help less-fortunate tribes is laughable at best, shameful at worst and supreme hypocrisy any way you look at it.

“If Potawatomi’s leaders really cared about disadvantaged tribes, they’d take a walk across the Mall after their photo-op and ask the BIA to approve the Kenosha casino and its life-changing boost for an impoverished tribe. Unfortunately, with a record of shameful conduct that directly opposes the noble intentions of the Native American Trade Network, the Forest County Potawatomi seem to be content spreading something less admirable than economic opportunity.”

###

Speak out against Potawatomi’s hypocrisy and in favor of fair casino competition in Southeast Wisconsin by signing the online petition.

What Potawatomi is spreading doesn’t smell like “economic opportunity”

We thought it had to be the latest headline from The Onion.

But we did some checking around after several Casino Competition for Wisconsin supporters e-mailed us this news flash today, and it’s apparently true.

That’s right. The same Forest County Potawatomi Community that has spent millions upon millions upon millions of dollars to kill the proposed Kenosha casino – a much-needed economic development project that will help lift a very poor, very large Wisconsin tribe out of extreme poverty – is now part of a national consortium dedicated to (emphasis ours) promoting economic development for ALL tribes.

Huh?

According to a press release issued by a Washington, D.C., PR firm, the Potawatomi will travel to Washington next week to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the richest tribes in the nation as they launch the “Native American Trade Network.” The media is invited – of course – and the group’s executive director says the network’s purpose is to “spread economic opportunity in Indian Country.”

Potawatomi’s spreading something, all right – but it’s not economic opportunity. After all, how many “economically advantaged” tribes that truly care about helping their struggling counterparts would:

• Organize front groups -- one, two, and possibly a third – to oppose an impoverished Tribe’s economic development plan.
• Spend more than $1 million on a massive, extremely negative campaign to defeat such a plan at the polls.
• Bus their own casino employees to a hearing to speak out against the other Tribe’s economic development efforts.
• Fund a flawed economic study falsely attacking the other Tribe’s project.
• Spend millions on lobbyists trying to hurt the other Tribe’s efforts in the State Capitol, the U.S. Capitol and even the Executive Office of the President of the United States.
• Drop big bucks on a glitzy TV ad campaign attacking another successful Tribe for helping a disadvantaged Tribe rise out of poverty.

What is Potawatomi doing? Are they really committed to helping disadvantaged tribes? If so, they’ll stop fighting competition. They’ll embrace the Kenosha project and all it would do for a fellow Wisconsin tribe and for Wisconsin as a whole.

But we’re not holding our breath.

Promote real support for disadvantaged Tribes by signing our online petition.