Kenosha project would help improve Menominee’s dismal health situation

It looks like casino competition would do more than create good jobs and provide multibillion-dollar economic benefits to Wisconsin. It would also help Wisconsin’s least healthy county, and the country’s fourth-poorest Tribe, improve its dismal health picture.

Check out this news release on the topic, or you can read excerpts below:

MENOMINEE CASINO WILL HELP STATE’S LEAST HEALTHY COUNTY

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Kenosha project would help poor Tribe overcome major health challenges as 2008 Wisconsin County Health Rankings put Menominee Reservation at the bottom – again

KESHENA, Wis. – Just weeks after a UW-La Follette School of Public Affairs study determined that the Menominee Indian Tribe’s proposed Kenosha casino could help the impoverished Tribe improve its dismal health picture, a new report has found Menominee County continues to suffer the worst health conditions in the state.

The University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute’s recently released 2008 Wisconsin County Health Rankings ranked Menominee County, which shares its borders with the Menominee Reservation, at the bottom of 72 Wisconsin counties in terms of overall health outcomes and determinants.

Menominee Tribal Chair Lisa Waukau said the new health rankings underscore the benefits of the Kenosha project and the important role it will have in addressing the significant unmet needs of the Menominee, the fourth-poorest tribe in the country.

“Approving the Menominee project will go a long way toward improving the health and well-being of our Tribe,” Waukau said. “Menominee ranks last in the state in terms of mortality, general health status, unemployment, children living in poverty and other factors that have a devastating impact on the health of our community. In addition to creating thousands of good jobs and providing major economic benefits to Kenosha and the State of Wisconsin, the project will generate the revenue our Tribe needs to emerge from this dangerous downward spiral and build a better future for the Menominee people.”

For more, click here.

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Menominee Take Quest for Fair and Lawful Kenosha Project Review to Court

Not surprisingly, the Department of Interior – at the direction of Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, a well-known opponent of off-reservation gaming – has denied the Menominee Tribe’s request to temporarily suspend review of the proposed Kenosha casino until a new Administration takes office.

Now the Tribe is taking the next step – in court.

November 7, 2008

Dear Supporters and Friends:

Late last month, we told you that the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin had formally requested that the Department of Interior temporarily suspend its review of our proposed Kenosha casino. We had learned that Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne was looking to reject our long-pending Kenosha application based on his personal opposition to off-Reservation gaming, and we asked that further review be postponed until a fresh Administration takes office.

The Department has denied our request. As a result, we are taking stronger action.

The Menominee Tribe today filed a federal lawsuit asking a judge to halt the flawed federal review process for the Kenosha project. The lawsuit alleges that Department officials have improperly changed the rules for approving off-Reservation casinos based on Secretary Kempthorne’s personal views. It asks a judge to declare those changes invalid and prevent the Department from using them to reject our application.

The decision to take legal action against the Department was difficult, but we believe it is the best opportunity to make this job-creation and economic development plan a reality for our Tribe, for Kenosha and for Wisconsin. Our trust application is thorough, well-documented and complete. It has the strong support of the local community and the solid recommendation of the Department’s professional staff who say it meets every point of law required for approval.

The Menominee have worked in good faith with the Department for nearly five years, but the Department is not working in good faith with us. Even after we showed how our project fits Secretary Kempthorne’s new rules, we learned from his people that it didn’t matter, he was going to reject the application anyway. That’s illegal, unfair and unacceptable.

Please know that the Menominee Tribe greatly values the strong support the Kenosha and Southeast Wisconsin community have given our project and our Tribe – that’s one of the reasons we are doing everything we can to make the Kenosha casino happen. We believe the court will agree with our position and ensure a fair and honest review of our proposal based on the law. And we are confident that if our project gets a fair and lawful review, it will be approved.

Lisa Waukau, Chair

Laurie Boivin, Vice Chair

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Change in D.C. means likely change in Potawatomi’s big-money lobbying corps

The presidential campaign was all about “change,” and with a new party set to take the helm, the Potawatomi will likely be looking at change themselves. Changing from GOP to Dem lobbyists, that is.

The latest federal lobbying reports show the Forest County Potawatomi shelled out another $170,000 between July 1 and Sept. 30 to two heavy-hitting DC lobbying firms – Quinn Gillespie & Associates and Barbour Griffith & Rogers.

Combined, the two firms have made more than a half-million dollars from Potawatomi this year alone – lobbying everyone from Congress to the Department of the Interior to the Executive Office of the President of the United States (!) on matters related to gaming reform and land-into-trust issues. The goal is to get the federal government to deny the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin’s Kenosha casino project, effectively stamping out competition for Potawatomi’s Milwaukee gaming hall and sentencing Menominee, the country’s fourth-poorest tribe, to generations of continued poverty. (You can read more about Menominee’s economic and social struggles in this study by UW-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs.)

But it looks like Quinn Gillespie and Barbour Griffith may soon be looking for new work. Lobbying firms don’t come any more Republican than these two – we’re talking Bush confidantes and former Bush Cabinet advisors. It’s doubtful that they’ll have the pull to accomplish much of Potawatomi’s monopoly work under a Democratic president, a Democrat-controlled Congress, and a Democrat-appointed Interior Secretary.

So now that we’re past the election predictions, we’ll make a prediction of our own. We predict that in their never-ending bid to kill the Kenosha casino, hold Menominee down and preserve their own monopoly, the Potawatomi will start combing the K street corridor (and opening its checkbook) for D-leaning lobbyists. Look for some new Potawatomi lobbyists to register in January or February and file their first reports in March. And we’ll be sure to tell you when they do.

Frankly, we think the new Administration will see through Potawatomi’s monopoly game. Healthy competition makes businesses stronger – and economic studies prove that’s the case with the Milwaukee and Kenosha casinos.

By the way – Quinn Gillespie and Barbour Griffith aren’t the extent of Potawatomi’s D.C. lobbying army. During the most recent reporting period, the Tribe also spent $15,000 with Malcolm Chester, an Illinois-based pro who lobbied Congress and the Bureau of Indian Affairs on the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (the law that allows Tribes like Potawatomi and Menominee to establish off-Reservation casinos in the first place.) Less than $5,000 went to another lobbying firm, Sonosky, Chambers, Sachse, Endreson & Perry.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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