Glendale, tribe to meet about casino

A torn Glendale City Council has directed staff to open talks with the Tohono O’odham Nation, the southern Arizona tribe that’s been trying for nearly five years to open a casino and resort near the Westgate Entertainment District.

The move, which came during a council workshop on Oct. 15, does not change the city’s official opposition.

Rather, it launches a factfinding mission to help council members analyze the project’s potential impact on the city. The idea is to discern fact from fiction in a complicated dispute blurred by political mudslinging.

Tangled together only by lawsuits, city and tribal leaders have not sat down to talk since the council voted to oppose the tribe’s plans in 2009.

The opposition came less than three months after the tribe unveiled its plans.

“We have been knocking on that door for some time,” Tohono O’odham Nation Chairman Ned Norris Jr. told The Arizona

Republic after the Oct. 15 council workshop.

Council members Norma Alvarez, Ian Hugh and Sam Cha- vira favor the casino project. Council members Gary Sherwood and Yvonne Knaack remain opposed but backed the idea of talks to gather information.

“I think it’s criminal that we’ve only had 45 minutes of conversation on this in the past five years with the nation or with anyone,” Sherwood said.

Glendale has spent nearly $3.5 million to stop the creation of a reservation and casino near 91st and Northern avenues, but those efforts have nearly hit an end.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently closed one case, which Glendale filed when the U.S. Department of the Interior agreed to declare the tribe’s West Valley land as a reservation, a necessary step to allow gaming on the property.

The court asked the Interior Department to clarify its decision.

The Tohono O’odham Nation is using a federal settlement that allowed it to add unincorporated land to its reservation to make up for tribal land damaged by a federal dam.

Glendale’s other case in the 9th Circuit is on hold until the Interior Department releases its analysis.

Glendale is but one obstacle for the tribe, which is fighting two Valley tribes and the state in the 9th Circuit in another case.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would block the casino, although it hasn’t been taken up in the Senate.

Mayor Jerry Weiers and Councilman Manny Martinez said the city should wait until the Interior Department rules and other obstacles are cleared.

Martinez said he feared upsetting allies and giving the impression that the city could change course.

“There are a lot of powerful people out there that are going to remember this,” he said. “If we were to say now that this is OK, this could come back to bite us.”

Glendale has worked with the Gila River Indian Community, which runs casinos in the Valley, to fight the Tohono O’odham Nation.

Leaders and lobbyists from both tribes and the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, which has also sued to stop the Tohono O’odhams, packed the council’s workshop room on Oct. 15.

Gila River Lt. Gov. Stephen Lewis said he wasn’t concerned that Glendale was changing its position. He said it was a balanced approach to fact-finding.

Even if Glendale changes course, he said the tribe would continue good relations with the city.

“It goes back to how we are as a people,” he said. “We are about being good neighbors.”

Glendale staff will work with the Gila River and Tohono O’odham tribes, as well as other gaming and tribal experts, in the fact-finding process.

The arguments for and against the casino in Glendale have mainly hinged on whether its presence would help or hurt nearby shops and restaurants at Westgate.

Sherwood said a casino could help keep tourists in the Glendale area after games.

Sherwood has floated an idea to negotiate with the Tohono O’odhams to pay a bed tax or offer some extra financial support.

Knaack said part of the problem was how the city first learned of the Tohono O’odhams’ plans.

“When this all came to light, we found out about it in the newspaper,” she said. “Had the approach been more open and better, we might not be sitting here like we are.”