Mohegan gaming performance "disappointing"

DECLINING PERFORMANCE AT MOHEGAN SUN RAISES

FINANCIAL ISSUES FOR THE FUTURE

Despite a story in last week’s Columbian which had Mohegan tribal leaders declaring a Cowlitz casino at La Center still “viable,” the project’s principal financial backer continues to face declining performance from its major gaming properties, the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut and from their casino at Pocono Downs in Pennsylvania.

According to “The Day” in New London, CT, “The Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority reported Thursday that their profits plunged by more than half in the third quarter of its fiscal year compared with the same period last year.” Another performance measure showed a 13.8 percent decrease in the quarter compared with last year.

Mitchell Etess, chief executive of the gaming authority and Mohegan Sun, called the performance, “disappointing,” and in a later interview said, “It really is a lack of consumer confidence and a change in people’s spending habits.”

Mohegan Tribal members receive annual payments from tribal gaming activities which are expected to reach $59 million this year. However, Chief Financial Officer Leo Chupaska said of next year’s member distribution, “I think I can safely say it will be less than the current year.”

The information was disclosed during a quarterly conference call with tribal gaming leaders and interested financial parties. The tribe is currently carrying a debt load of some $ 1.6 billion.

Opposition Resolution To Go?

Will the Mystery Guests Please Sign In?

Mayor Jim Irish will lead a workshop in La Center Wednesday night to lay groundwork

for getting rid of a resolution the city council approved three years ago, officially placing the city on record in opposition to a Cowlitz casino.

For whatever reason, Irish has become fixated with the resolution opposing the casino, and wants it off of the books. Why? Well, now he's got a city council that just might do it. The reason? He actually told a reporter last month that a group of businessmen had approached him saying they want to begin doing business at the La Center junction with Interstate 5, but not if the anti-casino resolution remains. Now, this is very curious for a couple of reasons: First, the mayor won't name the businessmen. And second, there is nothing apparent about the existing resolution that would discourage new business from coming to the junction. Nothing. Nada.

That might be enough to send amateur sleuths looking for another reason the mayor wants to get rid of the opposition resolution. Could it be that if the reconstituted city council got rid of the annoying resolution approved by the old anti-casino council, it might get the Bureau of Indian Affairs thinking La Center is now open to the idea of a casino?

But how many times has our mayor declared that he doesn't want an Indian casino, so that doesn't sound right. ...even if he does regularly support pro-casino positions and developer initiatives. So what are we to believe?

If we just want to "talk" to the Cowlitz Tribe, maybe to negotiate something, is it good strategy to give them what they want even before we begin talking? Jim?

The question before the council is this -- do we really want a mega-casino out by our Interstate? If not, let's keep the opposition resolution. After all, we'll never know the names of those phantom business people, anyway.

DRUGS INVOLVED IN BARNETT CRASH

DRUGS INVOLVED IN BARNETT SEATTLE PICKUP MISHAP




In case you missed it, the Columbian newspaper reported earlier this week that drugs were involved in the November auto crash in Seattle that seriously injured would-be Cowlitz casino developer, David Barnett, 49. According to the King County Sheriff’s report, at 6 a.m. November 16, Barnett was riding the back of his pickup truck, which was being driven by his live-in girlfriend, when the vehicle left the roadway and crashed into a rock wall. Barnett was apparently thrown from the vehicle and sustained serious head injuries when he hit the pavement, and was taken to Harborview Medical Center for treatment.



Barnett’s girlfriend, 36-year old Sarah S. Rutyne explained to sheriff’s deputies that she and Barnett had been using crack cocaine and methamphetamine along with Hydrocodone, Oxycodone and Percocet prior to the accident. Toxicology reports from blood tests were positive for both parties. According to the report, Barnett had been attempting to break in the truck’s rear window just prior to the accident.



Rutyne told officials that she and Barnett had met in “rehab” where both were recovering alcoholics and in treatment. No charges have yet been filed in the case.



Barnett is the son of former Cowlitz Tribal Chairman John Barnett, now deceased. Between 2000 and 2001, David Barnett took options on land at the La Center interchange with Interstate 5. In March 2002, the tribe applied to have 150 acres taken into trust by the federal government. No decision on that application has been reached.

OREGON GAMBLING TREATMENT TAKES HUGE BUDGET HIT

State programs in Oregon designed to help problem gamblers will be sharply curtailed beginning this month due to falling lottery revenues. According to the Oregonian, treatment and prevention services will no longer be provided to some 265 persons through programs funded by lottery profits. Those profits have fallen off by some 20 percent from their high in 2008, due largely to a smoking ban in bars and taverns and the generally lagging economy.



The Oregon State Legislature has set aside one percent of lottery profits for problem gambler treatment, without regard to the form of gaming. The state program will now operate on a budget of $ 9.4 million when some $ll.3 million had been anticipated for the period 2009 – 2011. More than 1,900 Oregonians received treatment from these programs last year through lottery proceeds.



In the State of Washington, a full five percent of adult residents have had gambling problems. Through the Cowlitz Tribe’s now defunct agreement with Clark County, the Tribe was offering $50,000 a year to assist with casino gambling problems.

Year End Thank You

On behalf of all of us at "Citizens Against" Reservation Shopping"(CARS), a huge thank you for your ongoing interest and support of our efforts to stop the casino proposed by the Cowlitz Tribe for the I-5/ La Center junction. This battle is far from over. At the same time, casino developers are no closer to winning approval for a La Center casino than they were six years ago when they first applied. We are in this to win, and with your support, we mean to do just that.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!!

CARS News Brief

Nearly eight years have passed since the Cowlitz Tribe first applied to put land at the La Center-Interstate 5 interchange into trust—and the federal government still has not made a decision. Here’s a quick year-end update.


Cowlitz trust application in limbo
A February 2009 U.S. Supreme Court decision (Carcieri v. Salazar) continues to cloud the future of the proposed Cowlitz casino. The ruling bars the Secretary of the Interior from taking land into trust for any tribe not under federal jurisdiction in 1934, when the Indian Reorganization Act was signed into law.

Since the Cowlitz Tribe was not acknowledged by the federal government until 2002, it appears it may not have land taken into trust until an administrative or legislative fix is found.

Both houses of Congress have introduced Carcieri-related legislation, but it does not appear to be going anywhere fast. Administratively, the Department of the Interior has not responded to a request for a list of tribes affected by the Carcieri decision, and dozens of tribes remain in limbo with unanswered trust land applications.


Off-reservation policy under review
The Obama Administration has announced that it is reviewing policies for off-reservation gaming applications. The Cowlitz application is considered off-reservation.

Bush Administration policies restricted tribes from developing off-reservation casinos that were not within a reasonable commuting distance of the reservation. Also, as the distance between a tribe’s reservation and its proposed trust land acquisition increased, so did the weight federal decision-makers gave to concerns of state and local governments.

The Cowlitz Tribe has no reservation, so it is difficult to say how a possible loosening of Bush Administration policies would affect the Cowlitz application. However, several federal determinations—and an earlier Cowlitz claim—have stated that the Tribe’s geographical, historical and cultural nexus is along the Cowlitz River, well to the north of the proposed casino site.


Tribal housing opens in Toledo
The Cowlitz Tribe hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony earlier this week at its newly renovated senior housing project in Toledo, Wash., next to the historic Cowlitz Mission and cemetery. Toledo is about 60 miles north of Vancouver in the heart of the Tribe’s aboriginal homeland. CARS has long argued that this is where any tribal casino should be located as well.

The $5 million project turned the nuns’ quarters and classroom annex of the old St. Mary’s school into apartments for low-income seniors. According to an article in The (Longview) Daily News, only 10 or 12 Tribe members have signed up to move into the facility’s 32 units.

An April TDN article credited the Cowlitz Tribe with “starting a building boom in southern Lewis County” and said the Tribe was planning to build 30 single-family homes in Toledo as well.

The projects are funded with federal housing grants and economic stimulus money.


Casino developer injured
Seattle-based Cowlitz casino developer David Barnett, son of the late Cowlitz Tribe Chairman John Barnett, was seriously injured in a single-vehicle accident near his Shoreline home last month.

Barnett was apparently thrown from the bed of a pickup truck driven by his girlfriend. The King County Sheriff’s Office was investigating the incident as a possible case of vehicular assault.

Problem Gambling: Making Criminals of Trusted Employees

The Cowlitz Tribe filed its initial applications for trust land in 2002 and for a mega-casino and resort in 2004. Thanks in large part to a consistent outpouring of community sentiment against the proposal, the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) has yet to make a final decision.

News on the Cowlitz proposal has been sparse recently, but stories illustrating casino-related problems abound. What follows is one that stands out.

Indian casino expert and author Jeff Benedict calls them the "eight uglies":

Suicide, divorce, foreclosure, bankruptcy, white collar crime, robbery, embezzlement, theft.

According to Benedict, these go hand-in-hand with the presence of out-sized casinos both on and off American Indian reservations.

In Oregon this month, the news media reported two separate cases of employee theft attributed to problem gambling. On October 16, Oregonian reporter Lisa Lednicer reported that 56-year-old Sandra Jena Klingman of Canby pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four years in prison for stealing more than $519,000 from Paul Schatz Furniture in Tigard, over a two-year period.

The Canby woman had worked for Schatz for 12 years and had no prior criminal record. The newspaper quotes owner Paul Schatz as remarking, "It's a betrayal of trust, that's the hardest thing. That someone we treated like family could look us in the eye every day. But that hasn't undermined our trust in our employees."

On the same day, Norma Orndoff of Klamath Falls was reported by the Herald and News Record to have pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated theft and three counts of identity theft. She was sentenced to three months in jail and 5 years probation for stealing from her employer, a local roofing and siding company.

Both women were ordered to make restitution and undergo gambling treatment.

Studies indicate that problem gambling doubles within 50 miles of a large casino.