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After casino boom, tribes move to difersify

UMATILLA, Ore. — The vast gray-brown bluff over looking the Columbia River is wind-swept and empty, save for a pile of rusted irrigation pipes and hundreds of Canada geese that flock to nearby wetlands. A rutted dirt road winds aimlessly across the flat scrubland.

By Gillian Flaccus of The Associated Press Montana Standard

Yet Les Minthorn, treasurer and tribal elder of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla, doesn’t see desolation. He sees a planned $400 million gas-fired power plant that will bring in mil lions of dollars, attract new industry and play a critical role in diversifying a tribal economy now almost entirely dependent on gambling.

“ One of the driving forces behind these projects and development is to see another revenue stream besides casino revenue,” said Minthorn. “ I think the hand writing’s on the wall for all of us. Those of us who have the opportunity to do something with our land or infrastruc ture will all have to do something.”

The Umatilla tribe saw unemployment drop from 37 percent to 17 percent and tribal coffers swell from $7.5 million to more than $87 million following the 1995 debut of its Wildhorse Casino Resort.

But now, concerns about the future of gambling and the sustainability of tribal economies are forcing the Umatilla — and dozens of other tribes nationwide — to pursue long-term, multimil lion-dollar investments in everything from aeronautics to digital mapping.

More than 200 tribes — just over one-third of all fed erally recognized tribes — operate casinos in 29 states, said Jacob Coin, executive director of the California Nations Indian Gaming Association. Those casinos bring in an annual total of $10.6 billion.

But a lengthy legal dispute over whether states can regulate tribal gaming, as well as lobbying by Las Vegas interests for nonIndian gaming in California, has many tribal leaders anxious about the industry’s future. The result is a boom in nongaming development on tribal lands funded, in large part, by casino revenues.

“ There is a sense of urgency in Indian land to diversify tribal economies, which is why we’re seeing tribal leaders invest in all forms of enterprises, from airline assembly plants to minimarts to shopping centers,” said David Pallermo, spokesman for the California Nations Indian Gaming Association. “ We’ve had tribes in California buy and take over ownership of banks.”

In Banning, Calif., the economic diversification of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians has an added urgency because Las Vegas gambling interests want to see California legislation that would allow large-scale gambling on non-Indian land.

That, plus any increase in gambling regulations or a shift in public opinion, could threaten the tribe’s casino revenue, said Robert Martin, tribal council member.

“ Tribal gaming is controlled by a political body,” he said. “ It could be controlled so much by this political body that it could become unprofitable. I think the tribes have been very wise to assume that this is not something fixed and permanent.”

Next month, the 1,000member Morongo tribe will open a $26 million bottling plant for Arrowhead Mountain Spring Water, a subsidiary of Nestle Waters North America. The plant will create about 1,800 local jobs, he said.

The project is part of an aggressive diversification plan that began in 1997 after Casino Morongo opened. Other Morongo holdings include one of the largest Shell gas stations in the country, two restaurants, a mail order business and a travel center, said Waltona Manion, tribal spokeswoman.

These new enterprises are significant because tribes have direct control over the projects and are able to reap the benefits — unlike the past when tribes would lease land to developers and receive only a small royalty.

http://www.mtstandard.com/newsnational/nnews1.html

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