Governor scales back casino plan - Monday 23rd of January 2006
Gov. George Pataki yesterday abandoned his legislation for five casinos in the Catskills and instead will push for just one.
The surprise reversal is a result of the U.S. Supreme Court's March 29 decision limiting the sovereign rights of Indian tribes, forcing the administration to "re-evaluate" its deals with four of the tribes.
The decision effectively kills immediate plans by Empire Resorts to build casinos at Monticello Raceway and the Concord Hotel, the Wisconsin Oneidas to open a casino in Mamakating and the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans' plan for a casino in Bridgeville.
Pataki, however, will soon submit separate legislation to authorize the St. Regis Mohawks to build a casino at Kutsher's Sports Academy near Monticello, and settle their decades-old land lawsuit against the state, said Pataki spokesman Todd Alhart.
He will also work to renegotiate casino and land deals with the other four tribes in his original proposal, Alhart said.
The five-casino plan, proposed as legislation earlier this year, was meant to settle land-claim lawsuits five tribes filed against the state. The plan granted the tribes land rights in the state as well as casinos. Pataki floated it to Sullivan County with an ultimatum five casinos or none.
"In spite of his good-faith effort to obtain legislative agreements, it has become clear it would not be productive to continue to advance the settlement legislation," Alhart said. "The governor is withdrawing the settlement legislation."
Pataki's decision caught some Sullivan officials off guard.
"It would have been nice if the governor's office had called and let me know," Legislature Chairman Chris Cunningham said.
The five-casino plan was the subject of an exhaustive series of hearings and legislative actions in Sullivan and the state Legislature. It divided local communities and pitted Indian tribes against each other.
"Of course we are disappointed," Seneca-Cayuga Councilman Scott Wood said. "We would have liked to have seen all the tribes and nations get their deals. But, as it stands right now, we have to be mainly concerned with ours."
Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-Hurley, applauded Pataki's move as the right way to bring casino development to Sullivan.
"The community has had ample opportunity to review and comment on it, unlike the governor's abandoned push to bring five casinos to the county without any substantive review of community sentiment, environmental or transportation impacts," Hinchey said of the single Mohawk casino plan.
State Sen. John Bonacic, who backed the five-casino plan once Sullivan lawmakers voted for it, said Pataki still wants five casinos in the Catskills. Now, however, he can negotiate land-claim settlements with better deals for state taxpayers.
"He doesn't want to give away all the land he had before," said Bonacic, R-C-Mount Hope. "He doesn't have to."
Some of the four tribes have already agreed concessions need to be made. That's not the case for them all.
"We negotiated our land claim agreement in good faith, and we expect that the governor and the state Legislature will stand by it," Robert Chicks, president of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans, said in a prepared statement:
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat with the power to kill Pataki's proposals, said he believed there might be support for the Mohawk casino and settlement plan in his house.
Dick Riseling, of Casino-Free Sullivan, who spoke for the anti-casino group at several hearings, reacted with cautious optimism on news the casinos had been reduced from five to one.
"It's a lot of progress," he said, "but we're not sure at all whether this ends the development of all casinos. We will be engaged in strategy sessions this weekend, but our position is still anti-casino."
Thompson Supervisor Tony Cellini, who lobbied for five casinos in his town, says after 35 years, he'd be happy just to see a shovel in the ground for just one.
"There still will be 2,500 union jobs to start with and year-round jobs after that," Cellini said. "We'll be the test market."
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