Opinion

Opinion: Land-into-trust clouds Mashpee Wampanoag casino

Monday, May 14, 2012

"In the May 8 edition of the Taunton Daily Gazette, Michael Speller, a spokesman for Arkana, the local subsidiary of the Malaysian Genting Syndicate, the financial backers of the Mashpee tribe’s efforts to establish a gambling facility within Taunton, remarked in regard to the proposed casino “that the first of four phases can be built within 15 months.” That same day in an article appearing in “Massachusetts Live,” Stephen P. Crosby, chairman of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission remarked, “it will be three to five years before a casino is up and running” in Massachusetts. Here we are faced with a rhetorical dichotomy. Which, if any, of the two conflicting statements are true in regard to the Mashpee?

To begin, we ask what are the regulatory and legal obstacles facing the Mashpee in order to have lands taken into federal trust in Taunton, that is, the Secretary of the Interior assuming the title to lands purchased by the Mashpee within Taunton to be held for the benefit of the Mashpee? There are significant issues facing the tribe in this endevour."

Get the Story:
James P. Lynch: Mashpee Claims vs. Regulatory and historical reality (The Taunton Daily Gazette 5/14)