HURON NEWSLETTER
March 4, 1998

Tribal attorney David McCullough said: "We are not abandoning the cemetery site. That's always been a fall-back site."

Wyandotte Tribe, Unified Government agree to terms for Woodlands casino

By RICK ALM and JOHN T. DAUNER - Staff Writers
Date: 03/04/98 22:15

Local governments in Wyandotte County would share at least $2 million a year in gambling revenues if an American Indian casino opens at the financially ailing The Woodlands racetrack.

Under terms of an agreement disclosed Wednesday, the Wyandotte Tribe of Oklahoma and its corporate casino partners would pay the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kan., the larger of $2 million or 5.9 percent of the gross proceeds from all casino gambling, horse and dog racing, food and liquor sales and other activities.

Long-term plans also call for a hotel, restaurant and nightclub on the site.

Bruce Rimbo, Woodlands president and general manager, said Wednesday that a permanent casino probably could not open before late 1999.

But others involved in the project said that under the best of circumstances, gambling in temporary facilities could be offered, before the end of this year.

Cemetery site on hold

If the deal falls through at any stage, the agreement does not bar the tribe from pursuing its earlier announced plan to construct a high-stakes bingo hall or full-scale casino in downtown Kansas City, Kan., on the grounds of the Huron Cemetery.

That historic tribal burial ground dating to the 1840s is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Mike Matson, a spokesman for the governor, said Wednesday that a pending lawsuit over the cemetery plan "remains the unanswered question in this whole scenario.

"The governor continues to await word from the court on whether the Wyandotte Tribe of Oklahoma can do what they intend to do."

Until that ruling is made, said Matson, "All other questions are premature."

Tribal attorney David McCullough said: "We are not abandoning the cemetery site. That's always been a fall-back site."

The Interior Department last year approved the tribe's petition to conduct gaming at the 2-acre cemetery site.

But the Unified Government, Graves and several Kansas tribes sued to block any commercial use of the cemetery.

That lawsuit also challenged the tribe's status as a Kansas reservation-based U.S. tribe. If the tribe loses that case it would also lose its bargaining edge to build a gambling parlor at its "alternative" site at The Woodlands, which the city government, the local Chamber of Commerce and others have now heartily endorsed.

A related matter that surfaced Wednesday was a belated awareness among Kansas officials of the Wyandotte Tribe's purchase in 1993 of about 10 acres of land in Wichita, and whether approval of gambling in Kansas City, Kan., would set a precedent for a second Wyandotte tribal casino there.

Bearskin confirmed his tribe still owns the Wichita land which the tribe intended at one time to develop as a casino in partnership with a group of doctors and other local investors.

Bearskin said the Wichita plan had been dormant for some time, but he refused Wednesday to rule it out.

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