April 16, 2005
Casino downsizing
Governor scales back casino plan
By John Milgrim
Ottaway News Service
[email protected]
Albany – Gov. George Pataki yesterday abandoned his legislation for five casinos in the Catskills and instead will push for just one.
The surprise reversal is a result of the U.S. Supreme Court's March 29 decision limiting the sovereign rights of Indian tribes, forcing the administration to "re-evaluate" its deals with four of the tribes.
The decision effectively kills immediate plans by Empire Resorts to build casinos at Monticello Raceway and the Concord Hotel, the Wisconsin Oneidas to open a casino in Mamakating and the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans' plan for a casino in Bridgeville.
Pataki, however, will soon submit separate legislation to authorize the St. Regis Mohawks to build a casino at Kutsher's Sports Academy near Monticello, and settle their decades-old land lawsuit against the state, said Pataki spokesman Todd Alhart.
He will also work to renegotiate casino and land deals with the other four tribes in his original proposal, Alhart said.
The five-casino plan, proposed as legislation earlier this year, was meant to settle land-claim lawsuits five tribes filed against the state. The plan granted the tribes land rights in the state as well as casinos. Pataki floated it to Sullivan County with an ultimatum – five casinos or none.
"In spite of his good-faith effort to obtain legislative agreements, it has become clear it would not be productive to continue to advance the settlement legislation," Alhart said. "The governor is withdrawing the settlement legislation."
Pataki's decision caught some Sullivan officials off guard.
"It would have been nice if the governor's office had called and let me know," Legislature Chairman Chris Cunningham said.
The five-casino plan was the subject of an exhaustive series of hearings and legislative actions in Sullivan and the state Legislature. It divided local communities and pitted Indian tribes against each other.
"Of course we are disappointed," Seneca-Cayuga Councilman Scott Wood said. "We would have liked to have seen all the tribes and nations get their deals. But, as it stands right now, we have to be mainly concerned with ours."
Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-Hurley, applauded Pataki's move as the right way to bring casino development to Sullivan.
"The community has had ample opportunity to review and comment on it, unlike the governor's abandoned push to bring five casinos to the county without any substantive review of community sentiment, environmental or transportation impacts," Hinchey said of the single Mohawk casino plan.
State Sen. John Bonacic, who backed the five-casino plan once Sullivan lawmakers voted for it, said Pataki still wants five casinos in the Catskills. Now, however, he can negotiate land-claim settlements with better deals for state taxpayers.
"He doesn't want to give away all the land he had before," said Bonacic, R-C-Mount Hope. "He doesn't have to."
Some of the four tribes have already agreed concessions need to be made. That's not the case for them all.
"We negotiated our land claim agreement in good faith, and we expect that the governor and the state Legislature will stand by it," Robert Chicks, president of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans, said in a prepared statement:
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat with the power to kill Pataki's proposals, said he believed there might be support for the Mohawk casino and settlement plan in his house.
Dick Riseling, of Casino-Free Sullivan, who spoke for the anti-casino group at several hearings, reacted with cautious optimism on news the casinos had been reduced from five to one.
"It's a lot of progress," he said, "but we're not sure at all whether this ends the development of all casinos. We will be engaged in strategy sessions this weekend, but our position is still anti-casino."
Thompson Supervisor Tony Cellini, who lobbied for five casinos in his town, says after 35 years, he'd be happy just to see a shovel in the ground for just one.
"There still will be 2,500 union jobs to start with and year-round jobs after that," Cellini said. "We'll be the test market."
Staff writers Steve Israel, Victor Whitman and Barry Lewis contributed to this report.
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April 16, 2005
Bill Supporting Indian Casinos Is Held Back
By PATRICK D. HEALY
LBANY, April 15 - Gov. George E. Pataki withdrew pending legislation on Friday that would have allowed five Indian-run casinos to be built in the Catskills and settled tribal land claims. A spokesman said the settlements need to be renegotiated in light of a recent federal court ruling that would make it harder to win passage of Mr. Pataki's bill.
The governor continued to support the state-brokered settlements with each of the five tribes, a spokesman said, as well as the plans in those settlements to build the five Las Vegas-style casinos in the Catskills, which Mr. Pataki has championed as an economic stimulus for the mountain resort region.
Mr. Pataki plans to reopen negotiations with the tribes shortly in hopes of revising the settlement pacts and clearing the path for the casinos.
The undoing of the settlement legislation, which took years to negotiate, stemmed from the March 29 ruling by the Supreme Court, which held that the New York Oneida tribe could not purchase property to expand its tax-exempt holdings and assert Indian jurisdiction when that land had been outside its reservation for decades.
The court decision, combined with longstanding concerns about the proposed casinos' effects on the environment and traffic, was expected to create a much more difficult political landscape for Mr. Pataki. While one of the five proposed casinos was expected to go forward because it is not affected by the court decision, the fate of the other four remained in doubt.
A lobbyist who is monitoring the casino debate said on Friday that he had been told by the governor's office that Mr. Pataki would stop advancing the five-casino plan, and would seek legislative approval only for the one casino involving the Akwesasne Mohawks. This lobbyist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he conducts business with the governor's office, also said it was his understanding that the other four casinos, while not completely scuttled, would not be advanced soon.
But Todd Alhart, a spokesman for the governor, said the lobbyist was in error.
"The governor remains committed to the settlement agreements, which would allow the four tribes to operate casinos in the Catskills," Mr. Alhart said.
Mr. Pataki and state lawyers concluded on Friday that key provisions in the settlements would fail to win support from elected officials in the Catskills and legislators in Albany, Mr. Alhart said.
The thorniest issues that must be renegotiated, he added, were the size of settlement land that would fall under Indian jurisdiction, and the collection of sales and excise taxes on goods and services sold on those lands.
In recent weeks, lawmakers from some affected regions began complaining to Albany about the proposed settlements. Some were expected to voice criticism at planned legislative hearings on the pacts, which could have been embarrassing for the governor.
These local officials believed their influence with the tribes had been strengthened by the Supreme Court ruling, and did not want to cede more land and taxing authority than necessary.
"In spite of the governor's good-faith efforts to obtain legislative approval of these settlement agreement, it's clear now that there are certain provisions the affected government and the Legislature will not support," Mr. Alhart said.
Facing the various land claims, Mr. Pataki's political strategy had been to reach individual settlements with the five tribes and then obtain state approval for all of them in a single bill, which would conceivably gather momentum and pass intact. Both the State Legislature and Congress are required to sign off on the land settlements.
Because of the Supreme Court decision, however, the governor's office has felt obliged to alter course slightly. Within days Mr. Pataki plans to submit a new bill to carry out the settlement with the Akwesasne Mohawks, a tribe whose reservation is on the border of New York and Canada. State lawyers believe the Supreme Court ruling does not create stumbling blocks for that pact.
As for the other four agreements, Mr. Alhart said any timetable for new legislation depended on how soon all parties could agree on "revised settlement terms."
After the Sept. 11 attacks, state officials and lawmakers agreed to permit up to three casinos in Sullivan and Ulster Counties in hopes of drawing New York City gamblers to the struggling Catskills resort region.
Yet the casinos were never built. Late last year, however, the plan was given new life when the state reached tentative settlements over land claims with five tribes - one in Oklahoma, two in Wisconsin, one landless tribe in New York State and the Akwesasne Mohawks. All five traced ancestry back to New York, and each would run a casino to settle centuries-old claims that they had been deprived of their land.
Supporters of the casinos said they were confident that a compromise would be reached ending in casino approval.
"We believe the governor wants to go back to the table and work with these tribes to settle the land claims and stimulate the economy of the Catskills," said Josh Sommers, a spokesman for the Catskill Casino Coalition, a gambling organization.
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