Chippewas in Wisconsin Sue For Casino Rights
Despite the obvious benefits reaped elsewhere in the country by casino growth, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has slowed development of a new casino in southeast Wisconsin to the point that two Chippewa tribes are now suing in federal court.
The Bad River and St. Croix Chippewas have been working on establishing a casino in Beloit, Wisconsin for six years. This has meant following a long and arduous process of federal filings and rulings.
The established procedure is that the tribe must first prove the casino would be in the tribe's best interest while proving to have no deleterious effects on the community. Then the federal government would have to declare the land used for the casino to be sovereign to that Indian nation.
However, The Chippewas accuse the Bureau of essentially reversing the order of the process as a method to deny Beloit its casino. Since the government would now have to declare land to be tribal before the need and value of the casino could be considered, the tribes believe that U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne can and has used his position to prevent the casino's licensing based on what suit claims are "personal negative views".
The lawsuit seeks both a restraining order and a long-term injunction to prevent the reversal in process.
The city of Beloit is strenuously in favor of building the casino. City manager Larry Arft stated, "We need this project as much as the Chippewas."
The casino would include a hotel with 500 rooms, a water park and theatre complex. It is estimated the project would create 3000 permanent jobs, and draw several million visitors a year.
Industry analyst Harold Pike remarked, "This project is essential to the economy of the area for both the tribes and citizens of Beloit and surrounding communities. The government has an established system of judging these cases and should stand by what has worked."
