County Wants To Avoid Gambling With Tribe Spokane Indians Asked About Possible Casino Plans

Fri., June 11, 1999

By Tracy Ellig tracye@spokesman.com

The Spokane Tribe wants 145 acres it owns on the western edge of Airway Heights taken into trust by the federal government, but a tough-talking letter from Spokane County commissioners is getting in the way.

Once taken into trust, the land would be exempt from property taxes. The tribe wants to put some sort of commercial development on the land, such as a mall.

But in February, commissioners sent a letter to the Department of Interior objecting to the tribe’s trust application on the grounds that the land might be used to build a casino. The commission also wondered who would have jurisdiction over the property once taken into trust and if zoning and building regulations would be followed.

The Interior Department is holding up the tribe’s application until it sees evidence the county’s concerns are addressed, said David Lundgren, an attorney for the Spokane Tribe.

On Thursday, representatives of the tribe tried to assuage the commissioners’ concerns.

Tribal council members Alfred Peone and Greg Abrahamson told commissioners the tribe currently has no plans to build a casino on the property.

“We contacted WalMart a couple of times, but they didn’t seem that interested,” Abrahamson said. “We’ve thought about a small mall, but we haven’t gotten that far yet.”

Given that, Commissioner Kate McCaslin asked if the tribe would be willing to say it won’t ever build a casino on the land in its trust application.

“I don’t know if we’d want to say `ever,”’ Abrahamson said. “If Washington opened up gambling all the way, we’d like to compete.”

Currently, only tribes can operate large-scale casinos. However, the tribes’ monopoly on casino gambling has eroded in recent years with the advent of small, nontribal casinos that can offer 15 tables of card games.

The Kalispel Tribe won approval last fall to build a $17 million casino on land it owns just a few miles from the Spokane property. The casino has yet to be built.

The Kalispel land was also taken into trust. However, the tribe needed a separate approval from the Interior Department and the governor to build the casino. All three county commissioners opposed the Kalispel casino plan.

Given the Spokane Tribe’s assurances that a casino was not in their immediate plans, commissioners seemed willing to consider redrafting their letter to the Interior Department.

However, the commission asked the tribe to first write a letter outlining what kind of jurisdiction the county and other local governments would have over the property once it was taken into trust.

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