Cowlitz Tribe and Mohegan Tribe committed to casino project

Thursday, May 7, 2015

Cowlitz Tribe Chairman Bill Iyall, right, presents Mohegan Tribe Chairman Kevin Brown with gifts during a visit by the Mohegans to Washington in February. Photo from Facebook

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The Cowlitz Tribe of Washington traveled to Connecticut to meet with leaders of the Mohegan Tribe on Wednesday.

The two tribes are working together on the Cowlitz Casino and Entertainment Resort. Despite litigation and procedural delays, they are committed to breaking ground on the facility later this year.

“We got held up for six years, that’s the difference,” Cowlitz Chairman Bill Iyall said at a meeting on the Mohegan Reservation, The New London Day reported.

Artist's rendering of the proposed Cowlitz Casino and Entertainment Resort. Image from Cowlitz Indian Tribe Environmental Impact Statement

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The Mohegans are helping with pre-development and planning costs. The tribe will manage the casino for seven years once it opens, the paper reported.

"It would have been cheaper and easier to walk away,” Mark Brown, a Mohegan council member and former chairman, said at the meeting, the paper reprorted. "But morally, that wouldn't have been the right thing to do."

The casino will cost between $400 million to $500 million, the paper said. It will be located on a 152-acre reservation that the Bureau of Indian Affairs placed in trust in March

In December, a federal judge backed the BIA's legal basis for acquiring the land for the Cowlitz Tribe. Opponents are taking the case to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The main issue is the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Carcieri v. Salazar. In that case, the justices said the BIA can only place land in trust for tribes that were "under federal jurisdiction" as of 1934.

Get the Story:
Cowlitz tribal officials pay visit to Mohegan partners (The New London Day 5/8) $P DOI Solicitor Opinion:
M-37029: The Meaning of "Under Federal Jurisdiction" for Purposes of the Indian Reorganization Act (March 12, 2014) Related Stories:
Cowlitz Tribe aims to start construction on casino later in year (04/28)
Cowlitz Tribe remains confident of casino bid despite litigation (03/23)
Cowlitz Tribe eager to start work on long-delayed casino project (03/13)
Cowlitz Tribe celebrates as BIA finally puts gaming site in trust (3/10)