Aquinnah selectmen sent a letter to the chairman of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) this week requesting a meeting to discuss the tribe’s plans to build a bingo hall.
“The town, in order to fulfill its regulatory and public safety functions, needs to understand the proposed scope and size of the facility and its potential impacts, including expected traffic volumes, whether the tribe intends to serve any form of alcohol and other related issues,” the letter says in part.
At a meeting Wednesday attended by two of the three selectmen, board members announced they would send the letter to chairman Cheryl Andrews-Maltais.
On Friday morning, town administrator Jeffrey Madison said the letter had been hand delivered to tribal headquarters.
Selectmen said the letter was written by town counsel Ronald Rappaport following an executive session on August 28.
Last month the gaming arm of the tribe announced plans to partner with an Oklahoma Native American gaming operation for the bingo hall.
Global Gaming Solutions, a hospitality enterprise owned by the Chickasaw Nation, is the new partner in the venture, the brief announcement said.
Few details were offered about the venture, but according to reports from tribal members who attended a membership meeting last month, Global Gaming Solutions has agreed to an initial investment of $12 million to build a 10,000-square-foot bingo facility that will employ 100 people.
Plans reportedly call for the bingo hall to be open year-round and located on a 17-acre piece of land that abuts State Road between Moshup Trail and Black Brook Road. The land was purchased in 2014 and accepted into trust on behalf of the tribe last year by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The property is still undeveloped.
The letter delivered to Ms. Andrews-Maltais on Friday makes it clear that this is not the first time the town has requested a meeting with the tribe to discuss the bingo hall.
“As you know, a number of months ago our respective counsel held a meeting and had followup telephone calls to discuss the tribe’s plans. At our request, our counsel proposed that a meeting occur among town and tribe officials . . . We again suggest that such a meeting is in the public interest.”
At the meeting Wednesday selectmen said that they had received no communication from the tribe regarding their course of action.
Two Aquinnah residents who attended the meeting expressed confusion about the latest developments regarding the proposed bingo hall.
“So you don’t know what the intention of the tribe is?” asked Marsha Shufrin.
“We don’t know anything,” selectman Jim Newman said. “There’s been no communication. We’re hoping that we can sit down with them and find out what’s going on, so that we can find out what we can do to help, with the idea that we want to cooperate with them.”
He added: “We’re going to need to see if they are going to want our services, and we are going to have to work that out totally separate from what we do today. They would get separate services from our organizations, but it would not be part of our budget. It would be totally different.”
Another person asked about assessing the proposed facility’s environmental and financial impact on the town.
“Well, I don’t mean to be trite, but their business plan is really none of our business,” Mr. Newman replied.
“At this point in time, it remains to be seen what we can ask for. This is a sovereign nation, this is federal land, so my belief would be that they will uphold federal standards,” he added.
Selectman Juli Vanderhoop did not attend the meeting but did later sign the letter along with Mr. Newman and selectman Gary Haley.
The tribe was cleared to operate a class II (bingo) gambling facility by a federal appeals court early this year after a protracted legal battle with the town and a taxpayer group came to an end. At the time Ms. Andrews-Maltais said a bingo facility would be up and running by this summer.
The press release from the tribe last month noted that the Chickasaw Tribe has designed and opened more than 30 casinos, including with electronic games.
On its website, Global Gaming Solutions features two multimillion-dollar horse racing resorts it has developed in Oklahoma and Texas.
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