Southwest Michigan Tribes frustrated in casino attempts

Observer Staff

2/28/2006 12:00:00 AM

LANSING (AP)-Three Indian Tribes have been trying to open casinos in southwest Michigan for years.

They blame their delayed openings, in part, on rival gambling operations that want to prevent new competition from grabbing a share of Michigan's $2 billion casino business.

Michigan has 20 casinos, including 17 run by Indian Tribes. At least a half-dozen others are in the planning stages.

"The opposition is really the competition these days," said Tom Shields, whose Lansing-based firm, Marketing Resource Group, helps handle public relations for the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians and the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi Indians.

The Pokagon Tribe, after years in court, recently won a federal court challenge and expects to open a casino near New Buffalo in 2007.

The Gun Lake Tribe-which began its formal quest for a casino near Wayland in 2001-is still in court. So is the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi Indians, which wants to open a casino near Battle Creek.

Anti-gambling groups have filed lawsuits to keep the casinos from being built. Supporters of the Tribes still waiting for casinos say they believe established casino owners have helped the anti-gambling groups in a quest to prevent new casinos from opening.

They point to the newly renovated Blue Chip Casino in Michigan City, Ind., which would be less than 15 miles from the one in New Buffalo the Pokagon Tribe wants to open.

Blue Chip is owned by Boyd Gaming of Las Vegas, Nev., which bought the casino from Kevin Flynn in 1999. Boyd Gaming retained Flynn as a consultant, and recently paid him an additional $5 million because the New Buffalo casino did not open within a five-year window.

Boyd Gaming says the additional money was paid because the casino was worth more based on the lack of competition. The money was not paid to reward Flynn for lobbying against new competition, Boyd Gaming spokesman Rob Stillwell said.

"That's not our style," he said. "We operate in some of the most competitive markets in the world. Sometimes, competition is good for business."

But it appears Flynn did take some steps to help make sure he would get the extra money from Boyd Gaming. Flynn's firm hired the Lansing lobbying firm Cusmano, Kandler & Reed Inc. to lobby against some Michigan casino projects.

William Kandler, a lobbyist at the firm, said Flynn's group was concerned about certain potential casino locations and the expansion of gaming. The lobbying contract is no longer in effect, Kandler said.

The Nottawaseppi Huron Band is working to complete an environmental impact study of the effects its casino would have on the surrounding area. The band also has faced court challenges from local anti-gambling groups.

Like the Pokagon Band, the Nottawaseppi Tribe already has a compact allowing it to open a casino in place with the state of Michigan, signed in 1998.

The Gun Lake Tribe-officially known as the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians-does not have a signed state compact but has gained federal recognition.

The Gun Lake Tribe's application to take land into trust won preliminary approval from the federal government in 2004. But it took another 14 months for the U.S. Department of Interior to give the final OK-a delay Tribal leaders call unprecedented and unjustified.

Now the Tribe's plans are being challenged in federal court. An anti-gambling group called Michigan Gambling Opposition, or MichGO, has sued to stop the development, saying the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs should have done a more thorough environmental impact statement before agreeing to take 147 acres in Allegan County's Wayland Township into trust for the gaming complex.

MichGO spokesman Todd Boorsma says his group is a grass-roots operation, trying to raise at least $150,000 by this summer to fight the Gun Lake project in court.

"We operate on a paper-thin budget," Boorsma said.

Gun Lake leaders suspect that some of its opposition does not face such budget problems.

An anti-gambling group called 23 is Enough has raised more than $160,000 through a political action committee in the past two years. Donors included Richard DeVos Sr., co-founder of Ada-based Alticor Inc., and his son, Republican gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos.