Monday, November 22nd 2010, 4:00 AM
Gov. Paterson is set to ink a deal with a Wisconsin Indian tribe on Monday to build a full-blown Catskills casino that's closer to New York City than Atlantic City or Foxwoods.
Though Albany insiders have claimed the deal is DOA because the feds don't allow off-reservation gambling, recent behind-the-scene developments may make Catskills gaming a reality.
The Stockbridge-Munsee tribe, which welcomed Henry Hudson to Albany 400 years ago, has been secretly negotiating with the U.S. Department of Interior for months, said the tribe's lawyer, Donald Miller.
"We have gone to great lengths to explain to Interior that this is a unique situation. It is an off-the-reservation gaming application, but it's also a settlement of a land claim," Miller said.
Miller said the deal under discussion would settle the tribe's decades-old land claim against the State of New York, while paving the way for the new casino.
The pact calls for the land to be transferred to the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe, then held in trust by the Department of Interior.
"We've been making substantial progress," Miller said.
More receptive now
The feds are under pressure from non-Indian casino owners to stop giving gaming licenses to tribes for off-reservation casinos.
In 2008, Interior Department officials nixed a similar pact signed in 2004 by then-Gov. George Pataki.
Miller said the Obama administration has been more receptive to supporting off-reservation gaming, recently allowing the North Carolina-based Cherokee Nation to build a casino in Oklahoma.
Interior spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff declined to comment, saying officials "have not seen the final ... agreement."
New York Sen. Chuck Schumer is to attend today's ceremony, throwing his clout behind a deal that needs the approval of his former Senate colleague, Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar.
The proposed Catskills casino is expected to employ thousands of people and generate millions of dollars for the state, which is guaranteed a share of the revenue - starting with 18% and rising to 25%. The tribe also would pay state and local taxes and give Sullivan County $15 million a year.
The casino would be in the Town of Thompson, 10 miles south of Monticello Raceway and 90 miles northwest of the city.
Opening a casino in the Catskills would mark the tribe's return to the woodlands their ancestors once called home.
The Stockbridge-Munsee community was formed in the late 1700s, after white settlers pushed the Mohicans out of the Hudson Valley and the Munsee tribe out of Sullivan County.
The Mohicans, who fought with colonists in the American Revolution, and Munsees settled in Stockbridge, Mass. They later moved to upstate Madison County, where the Oneida Nation gave them a small reservation.
New York State bought most of their land, but then sold it for a huge profit. The deal was considered illegal because it did not have federal approval.
The tribe, forced to move to Wisconsin, sued the federal government in 1951, charging it failed to protect them. In 1986, it sued the state for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.
The pact would resolve both of those land claims.
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