7.29.07EDITORIAL: Casinos, casinos - everywhere except Port Huron
A week ago or so, a business trip took Al Monette to Standish, a town on Saginaw Bay north of Bay City.
"The talk of the town was a new casino coming to Standish," said Monette, who lives in Marysville and works in St. Clair. "It was all people up there were talking about. ... It made me wonder if the Port Huron area is the only place in Michigan that isn't allowed to have a casino."
Ain't it the truth, Al?
Michigan has 17 casinos, including three in Detroit, several in the Upper Peninsula and a string of them up and down the west side of the state. There are casinos just about everywhere in Michigan except the Thumb.
More casinos are on their way. A look:
- This week, a $160 million casino is scheduled to open at New Buffalo in the extreme southwest corner of the state. The state's 18th casino, owned by the Pokagon band of the Potawatomi tribe, is creating 3,500 jobs. The 124,000-square-foot gaming hall reportedly includes 3,000 slot machines, 85 table games and a poker room with 19 tables. The development off Exit 1 of Interstate 94 also features a 160-room hotel and six restaurants.
- Last week, the Legislature gave preliminary approval to Gov. Jennifer Granholm's deal with the Gun Lake band, another branch of the Potawatomi nation. Plans call for a 198,000-square-foot casino with 2,500 slots and 80 table games in Wayland Township, about 20 miles south of Grand Rapids. It is expected to create 1,800 jobs.
- Earlier this month, a federal appeals court issued a ruling that clears the way for the Huron band of Potawatomi to build a $270 million, 226,000-square-foot casino off Interstate 94 near Battle Creek. It will include 2,500 gaming devices - about as many as one of the Detroit casinos - and it will generate 2,500 jobs.
- Finally, the Saginaw Chippewa - the tribe that was awarded a reservation beside the Black River in Port Huron 200 years ago this autumn - broke ground earlier this month for a casino on the Saganing reservation a few miles outside of Standish. Plans call for a 32,000-square-foot casino with 700 slots, 40 table games and 300 jobs.
- Meanwhile, efforts to bring a casino to Port Huron plod on.
The agreement of August 2002 called for Bay Mills to surrender a long-standing claim to property in Charlotte Beach, a 110-acre subdivision on the St. Marys River south of Sault Ste. Marie. In exchange, Bay Mills would get a "reservation" on the Thomas Edison Inn property in Port Huron.
The Stupak-Miller bill was sent to the House Natural Resources Committee, where it has the support of the panel's Democratic chairman, Nick Rahall of West Virginia, and the senior Republican, Don Young of Alaska.
Usually, if a committee's leaders support a bill, its prospects are excellent. Not so in this case, where it appears someone has bottled up the Port Huron measure.
I have been told that's the work of Rep. Dale Kildee, D-Flint, who in the past has received generous support from the Saginaw Chippewa, owners of the Soaring Eagle Casino in Mount Pleasant.
Why would a West Virginian and an Alaskan care about Port Huron?
Rahall and Young apparently were convinced to support the casino by fair-trade arguments.
Casinos in Detroit and the Sault, for example, compete with gaming halls just across the border in Ontario. Why shouldn't Port Huron be given the same opportunity?
There are, after all, casinos just across the St. Clair River in Point Edward and Sarnia. The larger community already has gambling. Is there some reason why Americans cannot be allowed to share the jobs and the profits?
If it seems a compelling argument, it hasn't swayed the opposition.
Past efforts to win congressional approval have been squashed by a Democrat (Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada) and a Republican (Rep. Mike Rogers of Brighton).
Two years ago, the dirty work was done by Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, the powerful and some would say scurrilous House majority leader.
Why would a Texan care about Port Huron?
Hmm. Just a guess here, but DeLay did benefit handsomely from his friendship with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who's now in a federal prison. Abramoff, in turn, collected about $14 million in fees from the Saginaw Chippewa.
The Saginaw and Grand Traverse bands, which operate profitable casinos, strongly oppose a Port Huron rival.
Other influential opponents include Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who wishes to smother anything that resembles competition from Port Huron.
Kilpatrick is following a long-standing tradition with his wariness of anything that might benefit Port Huron and the Thumb at Detroit's expense.
Perhaps the most extreme - and ludicrous - example of this tradition occurred in the aftermath of the Great Thumb Fire of 1881. U.S. Sen. Omar Conger and other Port Huron residents undertook an ambitious relief effort to help the victims. Detroiters quickly set up a rival relief effort.
Why compete over charity?
Politicians in both towns feared an invasion of homeless, penniless refugees, and merchants wanted to ensure that survivors rebuilt with supplies bought at their shops. The story of this remarkable if rather grim competition was told two years ago in a wonderful essay written for the Michigan Historical Reviewby Philip G. Terrie, a professor of American culture studies at Bowling Green State University.
There are reasons to wonder if Port Huron has been the target of almost conspiratorial efforts to keep it a backwater.
Michigan has 15 traditional public universities, for example, but none are located in the Thumb. Indeed, Miller's district is one of the few in the nation without a four-year public college.
The late John Wismer - a Port Huron native whose brother, Harry, founded the New York Jets football franchise - often lamented his failure to establish a commercial TV station in his hometown in the 1950s. The networks weren't interested, he said, because they saw Port Huron as the scum floating on Detroit's pond.
Perhaps the best example of Port Huron as a backwater: In the 187 years since St. Clair County was founded, a sitting president never has set foot here.
This is true even though presidents routinely fly in and out of the Selfridge Air National Guard base, a 10-minute drive from the county line. And we are talking of a community of more than 170,000 people. Rest assured there is not a more populous county anywhere in the nation that has been similarly snubbed.
It may smack of sour grapes or an inferiority complex, but one gets weary of hearing the refrain: Port Huron? Pffft.
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