Casinos: all dressed up and nowhere to go

By DAVID HULSE

ROCK HILL, NY — The Indians are ready, the builders are ready, but unfortunately for supporters of Indian casino gaming Sullivan County, the lawyers are ready, too.

That was the essential message delivered to some 300 participants at the second annual Catskills Casino Conference on September 24.

The Sullivan County Chamber of Commerce sponsored conference was a day-long affair featuring presentations from the current three front-running tribes seeking casino approvals, as well as panels of speakers from Atlantic City and Niagara Falls detailing legal, social, and economic issues.

But the bad news came early in the morning’s first panel discussion, amongst the lawyers. The message came from Cornelius Murray, the attorney representing casino opponents’ message of unconstitutionality. Murray said that while a lower court ruled against him in July, “that was just the first inning of the ballgame.”

Appeals to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, the state Court of Appeals, and possibly the U.S. Supreme Court, could take another four years.

If the state legislature were to approve a gambling referendum to legalize gambling constitutionally, “I would go away,” Murray added, but that process, requiring the approval of two separate sessions of the legislature, would take longer than the anticipated legal route.

George Skibine, director of the Office of Indian Gaming Management for the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, added to the uncertain outlook by detailing a lengthy environmental impact study (EIS) process that tribes may be asked to follow on a case-by-case basis. The St. Regis Mohawks have already begun the process. Skibine said his agency’s review of an EIS would take about six months.

Additionally Skibine noted that in almost every case following its approval and action to take lands into trust for tribal gaming, the BIA has been sued.

State Senator Bill Larkin applied a bit of salt to the wounds, harkening back to a large roadside billboard he recalled seeing first in 1973. “The casinos are coming,” it said.

Larkin recalled when the state senate in 1997 was poised to approve a referendum, and the issue was pulled from the agenda. The alternative solution, he said in acid tones, has been “billable hours,” for the attorneys involved.

Larkin predicted that a constitutional amendment would win voter support said, “the people of New York deserve an opportunity to decide.”

The continuing delays were admittedly embarrassing for Bob Kelly, Park Place Entertainment vice president for construction. “I’m talking about the same project for three years in a row,” he said.

There was a brighter element for casino supporters in Larkin’s announcement that apart from the Indian gaming issue, some 1,800 video lottery terminals (VLT’s) are expected to be installed at Monticello Raceway by the end of the year. The VLT’s are operated under the authority of the state lottery and their arrival is expected to produce more than 350 new jobs at the track.

From Sullivan County government’s standpoint, the attached Indian casino project has been a problem, as the sponsoring Cayugas and Empire Resorts have not been willing to meet the $15 million annual “host benefit” payment in lieu of taxes that Sullivan has negotiated with the Mohawks and Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans.

Cayuga spokesman Clint Halftown said the raceway project is not on the scale of the larger projects the other tribes are planning and should pay accordingly. Another negotiation between the parties is scheduled and Halftown told The River Reporter that he was optimistic that the parties could come to a mutually acceptable agreement.

On the other side of all this came the remarks of Mark Goloven, Senior Regional Economist for JPMorgan-Chase who recalled, while detailing them, that other casino projects in communities around the region have always been undertaken to jump start a local economy. “It’s different in Sullivan County. Sullivan County has been growing already,” he said.

In the “Information River Valley,” his reference to the Hudson Valley area, there has been continued growth during the recent recession. Sullivan has grown 50 percent faster than the rest of the state, with growth in jobs and new homes. “If the casinos come, you’re going to benefit…but even if not, the county will continue to grow as a magnet for people swelling northward. Sullivan County is back!” he said.