For the first time since the mid-nineties, the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) is looking at favorable odds in its bid to build a high-end casino in southeastern Massachusetts.
For months now, Wampanoag tribal chairwoman Beverly Wright has been telling her constituents and at least one federal agency that the tribe's finances are in terrible shape, riddled with debts from failed business ventures.
A general store, a delicatessen and a shellfish hatchery -
they were all supposed to add up to profits for the only federally
recognized Indian tribe in the state, the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head
(Aquinnah).
A federal mediator yesterday waded into the dispute between
officials in Aquinnah and the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah)
over the tribe's plans to form its own police force.
The question of whether claims of sovereignty entitle the Wampanoag
Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) to skirt local and state laws will be
decided in Dukes County superior court, rather than a federal district
court in Boston where lawyers for the tribe wanted the case tried.
U.S. District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodlock heard the case of
Aquinnah building inspector versus the Wampanoag Tribal Council of Gay
Head Wednesday and questioned whether the federal court has jurisdiction
over the civil action. The outcome of the case will determine whether
the town has zoning jurisdiction on tribal lands.
After spending much of the last two years in political hot water over gun-toting rangers, sheds with no building permits and the stewardship of a beloved general store, the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) now finds itself in a state of inner turmoil, its members at odds with each other.
The dispute over the right of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head
(Aquinnah) to arm its rangers with handguns and establish its own police
force is now being hashed out in the offices of the state attorney
general in Boston, where state officials are acting as facilitators.
The Aquinnah building inspector filed a lawsuit this week against
the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) to test the question of
whether the tribe must follow local zoning rules.
"A genuine controversy exists on this issue requiring judicial
guidance," wrote Aquinnah town counsel Ronald H. Rappaport in the
complaint.
In the view of Aquinnah police chief Doug Fortes, the turning point came in the fall of 1999, when rangers from the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay
Head (Aquinnah) came back from a trip to the Oneida Indian Nation in upstate New York, packing a half dozen Glock nine-millimeter semi-automatic pistols.
