Long before the compacts were signed, and even as they were spending millions on campaign advertising that made promises they were planning not to keep, the elected leaders of the Tohono O’Odham Nation of southern Arizona were laying the groundwork for a casino deep in urban Maricopa County. Years before voters would trundle off to their polls to earnestly log their votes on behalf of doing the right thing, Tohono council members were out scouting land in Glendale and elsewhere, plotting how to accomplish the wrong thing. Documents unearthed in the course of a federal lawsuit filed by other tribes against the Tohono O’odhams depict a calculated plan to betray the spirit of the compromise at the heart of Prop. 202. More than a year before the vote, according to court filings, executives of the tribe’s development company were discussing the feasibility of a West Valley casino.Get the Story:
Doug MacEachern: Tohono O’odhams were gaming state over casino all along (The Arizona Republic 4/7)
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