Indian Gaming > Editorial: Go slow on Pawlenty's urban casino deal

March 07, 2005

Editorial: Go slow on Pawlenty's urban casino deal

"Judy Roy, tribal secretary of the Red Lake Nation, confessed to a certain "heaviness of heart" Friday as she helped announce a casino partnership agreement with Gov. Tim Pawlenty. She welcomed the possibility that, after 16 years of Indian gaming that's been confined to tribal lands, her tribe would finally have access to the economic engine of a metro-area casino. But, she said, she's saddened by the division within the state's Indian community being caused by a state pact with only three of the state's 11 native bands.

Many Minnesotans must have that qualm and more about the accord that's been struck between the governor and the Red Lake, White Earth and Leech Lake bands of Ojibwe, which the governor now sends to the Legislature. The "Gaming Fairness Partnership Agreement" looks decidedly unfair to the smaller Sioux and Ojibwe bands that operate the state's most successful casinos, under pacts negotiated with the state in 1989 and 1991."

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Editorial: The gov's casino/Proceed with caution (The Minneapolis Star Tribune 3/5)
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