In his letter, McCallum says Wisconsin now has 17 casinos, a total of 22 separate sites where electronic games of chance are operated and in excess of 16,000 electronic games of chance in operation statewide.
"I remain convinced that meaningful economic development--for the tribes, the region and all the state's citizens--is not accomplished by the expansion of gambling," McCallum says.
Anticipating McCallum's opposition, the three northern Ojibwe bands backing the casino filed a lawsuit last week in Federal District Court in Washington, DC, challenging the authority of governors to prevent off-reservation gaming by tribes with reservations in remote, sparsely populated areas. The law, part of the Federal Indian Gaming RegulatoryAct, provides that the concurrence of the governor is required before gaming can occur on trust land outside a tribe's reservation.
In February, the three Wisconsin Chippewa Tribes' application for off-reservation gaming was approved by the US Department of Interior. Congress cannot delegate to governors either Federal policy-making authority or the special trust obligation the United States has to Native Americans to governors, "who are often adverse to the interests of Indian tribes for political reasons," the lawsuit argues.
If they do not win their lawsuit, the casino's supporters appear to be at the end of their nine-year quest.
Their 1992 application came just a year after the $40-million St. Croix Meadows Greyhound Racing Park opened on a 120-acre site in Hudson. With tribal casinosalready flourishing in the Midwest and providing stiff competition for parimutuel tracks, St. Croix, like many other tracks, immediately ran into financial trouble because of poor attendance and lack of betting-- problems that have plagued the facility ever since.
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