The Bush Administration finally got one right. The two tribes planning the casinos in Sullivan County are from far away -- the Mohawks are from the northern reaches of New York State, and the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe based in Wisconsin. Of course, whites forced the original tribe from the area, the Lenni-Lenape, from their native land. The Lenni-Lenape are now scattered and have never been given tribal status by the United States. While recognizing the terrible treatment of native peoples by our government, there is no need to allow an environmental disaster like a casino adjacent to the Catskill Forest Preserve.
Middletown Record: Sullivan casino plans denied
Feds reject tribes' proposals for Raceway and Bridgeville
MONTICELLO — The decades-old quest for casinos in Sullivan County could be over.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne yesterday denied land-into-trust applications from the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe, which proposed a casino at Monticello Raceway, and from the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans, which sought to build one in Bridgeville.
In denial letters to 22 tribes across the United States, all sent yesterday, Kempthorne expressed concern for how casinos might negatively affect tribal communities, causing American Indians to move hundreds of miles away from their reservations for work at gambling facilities, he said.
"The Tribe's application fails to carefully address and comprehensively analyze the potential negative impacts on reservation life and does not clearly demonstrate why these negative impacts should be outweighed by the financial benefits of tribal ownership of a remote gaming facility," a letter from Interior Department said.
NYTimes: Interior Secretary Rejects Catskill Casino Plans
Newsday: US officials reject Catskill casino plans
Albany Times-Union: A setback for Catskills casino plans
Decision curtails off-reservation gambling halls
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment