With a critical deadline approaching, Oklahoma City residents in the vicinity of a proposed casino are rallying their neighbors to voice their opposition.
Friday is the last business day that the Bureau of Indian Affairs will take public input regarding the controversial casino proposed by the Absentee Shawnee Tribe to be located just 1.7 miles away from Remington Park.
The comment period officially ends Sunday, June 8th, so local leaders
are urging those who wish to participate in the public comment to get
their messages to the BIA by Friday.
State Rep. Mike Shelton, whose district contains Remington Park, will
help lead a community meeting Tuesday night to raise awareness of the
casino's enormous negative influence to the area and to remind residents
that their opinion won't matter after Friday when the BIA's 30 day
public comment period ends.
While local, state and federal officials are publicly opposing the casino, local leaders like Shelton, say input from citizens in the immediate area is crucial.
"The BIA must consider the will of the people, and we must clearly communicate that will, but we have only until Friday for that message to
count," said Shelton.
The public meeting will be held at Millwood Arts Academy at 6700 Martin
Luther King. Millwood is one of the school districts whose tax base would be devastated if the BIA allows the casino and the subsequent demise of Remington Park. The meeting begins at 6:30 PM.
Shelton, who represents District, said he urges all Oklahomans to convey
to the BIA the hurt that will visit the region if the federal agency permits the casino.
"There will be so many people, businesses, schools injured by this casino that is incomprehensible that the BIA would for even one moment consider allowing this proposal," said Shelton. They have a job to do, but so do the people who live and work here. That is why we must send a perceptible and unambiguous message to the BIA, the Department of the
Interior and even the President: do no harm to northeast Oklahoma City.
So it is vitally important that the public make its way out to Millwood Tuesday night to unite and focus our opposition."
LITTLE AXE — Thunderbird Casino, mired in a two-year financial freefall, may not generate any profit for the Absentee Shawnee Tribe until the casino pays several overdue debts, the tribe's governor said in her resignation letter this week.
The situation is so bad, outgoing Gov. Jennifer Onzahwah wrote, that when a gambler won a $1,920 jackpot Friday, the casino couldn't pay the prize until the next day.
"The casino has been left in dire straits!” Onzahwah wrote.
Onzahwah resigned abruptly Monday, six months into her two-year term, saying Lt. Gov. Scott Miller and other elected officials had undermined her.
"I believe that I've put up with your defiant attitudes long enough,” she wrote in a letter obtained Thursday by The Oklahoman.
Miller released a statement Thursday confirming Onzahwah's resignation and his ascension to her post. However, the statement didn't address Onzahwah's claims.
"I will attempt to address challenges that the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma may be facing,” Miller said.
Downfall began in 2005
In early 2005, the future appeared bright for Thunderbird Casino and its owner tribe.
Oklahoma voters had just approved a state question that expanded gambling in tribal casinos. The Absentee Shawnees' casino, then known as Thunderbird Wild Wild West Casino, used dancing girls and a marketing blitz to attract gamblers by the thousands to its remote location on State Highway 9 near Lake Thunderbird.
In June 2005, a newly elected governor fired the self-promoting casino manager, ended the marketing campaign and took over its operations himself.
Profits plummeted. The freefall worsened with the 2006 openings of two nearby megacasinos. The Riverwind and FireLake Grand casinos, both owned by other tribes, depleted the Thunderbird Casino's customer base.
Absentee Shawnee members had begun counting on quarterly $250 checks, courtesy of the casino. Those payments stopped last spring.
The casino is required to pay 6 percent of its electronic machine proceeds and 23 percent from its card table profits as taxes to the tribe.
Those payments have dropped by about 60 percent since 2005, according to the tribe's monthly newsletters.
Onzahwah's letter indicates the payments are in further jeopardy.
"It looks like taxes will be the last thing to get paid because we're still 60 days overdue on accounts payable,” the former governor wrote.
Onzahwah said tribe officials should explore closing the casino's restaurant and laying off non-essential employees.
"More cuts will have to be made here at the (tribal) complex,” she wrote.
That assessment follows a two-week study of the situation by Onzahwah and the tribe's chief financial officer and attorney general.
Onzahwah placed much of the blame on Miller, who assumed the governor's job upon Onzahwah's resignation.
With a critical deadline approaching, Oklahoma City residents in the vicinity of a proposed casino are rallying their neighbors to voice their opposition.
