Feds nix Monticello casino
The St. Regis Mohawk Tribe is regrouping after the federal government denied its request to take land in Sullivan County into trust in order to build a casino.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne informed the tribe of his decision in a letter Jan. 4.
Charles Degliomini, a spokesman for Empire Resorts, which would build the casino in conjunction with the Mohawks at Monticello Raceway, called the decision, “arbitrary, capricious and plain laughable.”
“It”™s another case of Washington cowboys knowing what”™s best for American Indians,” he said.
Gov. Eliot Spitzer and the St. Regis Mohawk tribe agreed to a gaming compact last February in which the state would receive 20 percent of revenues from slot machines for the first two years, 23 percent for the next two years, and 25 percent thereafter.
That agreement was part of a compact with the Mohawks, granting the tribe authority to build and operate a gaming facility adjacent to Monticello Raceway. A 2001 state law allowed for three Indian-run casinos in the Catskills, although none has been built yet.
However, the tribe needed federal approval to take the land into trust, since it lies hundreds of miles away from the nearest Mohawk tribal land.
The letter from the Department of the Interior denied the tribe’s application to place 29.31 acres at the Monticello Raceway into trust for the purposes of building a casino in accordance with the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 (IGRA).
The request was denied, according to the letter, based upon regulations promulgated under IGRA relating to the need of the tribe for additional land, the purposes for which the land would be used, and the distance of the land from the tribe’s reservation.
Degliomini said the tribe would file a lawsuit in response.
However, he said the Mohawks best bet in getting federal approval would be to wait until January 2009 when a new presidential administration takes office.
“This is more politics than anything else,” he said.