Another Indian casino for Sullivan County?

Cayuga deal filled with uncertainties

By FRITZ MAYER

NEW YORK STATE — When Governor Eliot Spitzer announced on May 22 that he supported a deal with the Cayuga Indian Nation and two New York counties, many of the details remained to be worked out. Chief among them was the location of a proposed Cayuga gaming casino. According to the deal, it will be built “somewhere in New York State.”

A government official told the Albany Times Union that Spitzer wanted to see the casino located in Seneca or Cayuga counties in central New York, near the ancestral homeland of the tribe.

However, Daniel French, a lawyer who represents the Cayugas, said the Catskills “makes the most sense” as a location because in 2001, state lawmakers passed legislation allowing up to three casinos to be built in the area. None has so far opened, but the Mohawk Casino proposed for Monticello Raceway is awaiting final approval from Dirk Kempthorne, the U.S. secretary of the Interior.

Under the proposed Cayuga deal, the tribe could only open a casino in a community that wanted it, and that community would get a portion of the revenues. The state would receive about $120 million per year.

Various parties have attacked the deal because it settles a land claim that had already been dismissed in federal court.

In 2001, the Cayuga Tribe and the Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma jointly won a lawsuit saying that the New York State owed the two tribes almost $248 million because the state illegally purchased more than 64,000 acres of land from the tribes in central New York. However, in April 2005, that judgment was overturned, and the lawsuit, which had originally been filed 25 years earlier, was dismissed. At the time, the court said the tribes had waited too long to regain the land, and that the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case.

However, Christine Pritchard, a spokesman for Spitzer, said the dismissal of the suit did not necessarily end all action by tribes with land claims in the state. She said tribes could still file land-into-trust applications with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in Washington, D.C., as the Cayugas have done, and that left uncertainties about jurisdiction of lands that are claimed or have been purchased by the tribes.

The deal between the Cayugas and the counties left out the Seneca-Cayuga tribe in Oklahoma, and in fact specifically banned that tribe from operating a casino in New York State. According to an article in The Syracuse Post Standard, Spitzer and Senators Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton specifically signed off on that aspect of the deal.

The chief of the Oklahoma has threatened a lawsuit over the matter. Anti-gambling groups have also threatened lawsuits.

The deal needs to be approved by lawmakers in Seneca and Cayuga counties, as well as Albany and Washington, DC, before it can move forward.

If the Cayugas opt for a casino in the Catskills, that would need special approval by the BIA for an off-reservation casino. Kempthorne has expressed concern about granting approval for off-reservation casinos.

However, the deal calls for the tribe to establish a reservation on 10,000 acres of land in Seneca and Cayuga counties. BIA approval for a casino there might be easier to obtain.