What you're not being told by those who seek to exploit IGRA and Indian circumstances...
It is clear that Bay Mills filed its claim in order to obtain a casino by exploiting a loophole in the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act that allows tribes to conduct gaming on lands taken in trust after the passage of IGRA if the land is obtained in settlement of a land claim. Bay Mills seeks to parlay its situation into a casino on land 300 miles from its reservation to which it has no historic connection. Many of the reasons why this is so wrong are presented in the statement of George Bennett from the Grand Traverse Band. However, the the Bay Mills claim was clearly filed because of the IGRA loophole.
The Charlotte Beach claim did not originate with Bay Mills. It was the product of a Detroit area attorney who developed it specifically as a vehicle to obtain an IGRA casino. This attorney approached the Sault Tribe first with the claim, but we turned him down. He then took the claim to Bay Mills, who joined him up on his scheme. This attorney, Robert Golden, then represented Bay Mills in both court cases. The goal never was to recover the Charlotte Beach lands.
From its inception, the federal case had the air of a collusive suit. The federal complaint was filed on October 18, 1996. On October 10, 1996 – barely a week before suit was filed – one James F. Hadley purchased land within the Charlotte Beach claim area. A few months later, on March 19, 1997, Hadley, representing himself, entered into a settlement agreement with Bay Mills. Mr. Hadley just happened to own some land in Auburn Hills, a Detroit suburb, that he was willing to give Bay Mills in return for clearing his title to the Charlotte Beach lands, and he was also willing to sell Bay Mills land adjacent to that Auburn Hills parcel. The settlement was conditioned upon the Secretary of the Interior taking the Auburn Hills land into trust. The district court entered a consent judgment incorporating the settlement terms on March 28, 1997.
The goal was, of course, a suburban Detroit casino. Bay Mills soon filed an application to have the Auburn Hills land taken into trust for gaming purposes. The application languished in the Interior Department, which later decided that the IGRA loophole for a land claim settlement required ratification of the settlement by Congress. When it became apparent that the trust approval was not forthcoming, Bay Mills moved on to pursue a different casino site, and the consent judgment with Hadley was set aside on August 16, 1999.
Despite mounting opposition to the lawsuit by the Charlotte Beach landowners, Bay Mills tried to obtain other settlement agreements that would result in a casino. They focused on land in the small community of Vanderbilt, Michigan and developed several settlement proposals for obtaining the land. These proposals generally provided for the creation of a settlement fund with which the tribe would purchase a casino site. The final such proposal was circulated at the end of 1998.
Most landowners firmly opposed settlement, and they moved to dismiss the federal case because the Sault Tribe was not a party. In order to defend against this motion, Bay Mills attempted to show that the Sault Tribe was not properly recognized as a tribe and so had no rights in the property.11 Thus Bay Mills tried to prove that we were not a tribe in order to pursue its casino.
The district court dismissed the federal case on December 11, 1998. the 6th Circuit affirmed this decision. Bay Mills later lost the state case in the Michigan Court of Claims, lost on appeal in the Michigan Court of Appeals on April 23, 2001, and was denied review by the Supreme Court on March 18, 2002.
Long before the Supreme Court delivered the final blow, Bay Mills had switched from the courts to Congress in search of its casino. The site has changed – first Auburn Hills, then Vanderbilt, now Port Huron – but the goal has always been the same. Bay Mills ginned up a claim, entered into a suspicious settlement with a person who bought into the claim as a defendant eight days before suit was filed, attacked the Salt St. Marie Tribe’s very existence, and now seeks to put one over on Congress, all in pursuit of its goal. This is hardly a track record that Congress should reward.
From testimony presented to the
U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs
U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs
- Where in the world is "Charlotte Beach?"
- Michigan Courts tossed out Bay Mills tribe's land claims to Charlotte Beach subdivision
- Was it a law firm that first proposed Charlotte Beach land claims idea?
- Is the Bay Mills Tribe using Charlotte Beach land claims solely to leverage developer's off-reservation casino plans?
Transcripts - Senate Committee on Indian Affairs; Hearing on S 2986 - October 10, 2002
1 comment:
all these rumors are false and were conjured up during the 2007 bay mills election to get mr. parker voted out i suggest this site learns to find facts and not just let peons post random stuff
Post a Comment