Spitzer Backs Plan for Indian Casino in Catskills

[Doondoo]

Gov. Eliot Spitzer has approved plans for a $600 million Las Vegas-style casino in the Catskill Mountains for the St. Regis Mohawk tribe and agreed to lead the effort to gain federal approval. His decision is the biggest leap yet in a 30-year struggle to bring gambling to the faded resort area.

The governor signed a letter on Sunday concurring with an initial federal determination made in 2000 that the proposed casino at the Monticello Raceway would benefit the Mohawks and the residents of Sullivan County. He and the three governing chiefs of the Mohawks also signed a gambling compact that would provide the New York State government with up to 25 percent of the annual revenues from 3,500 slot machines at the casino, an amount estimated at more than $100 million a year.

Proponents contend that the casino would revive the economy of the old borscht belt, attracting six million visitors a year and generating 3,000 jobs and tens of millions of dollars in revenue. In a series of concessions by the tribe, the Mohawks have agreed to provide $20 million a year to the county and to Monticello to offset the impact of the casino and to collect and remit taxes from sales of liquor, cigarettes and other retail items at the casino.

But the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sullivan County Farm Bureau and several other groups filed a suit in federal court in Manhattan last week challenging the casino on environmental grounds. And the project still needs final approval by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, the former governor of Idaho, who opposes Indian casinos on nonreservation land. The Mohawk casino would be built more than 400 miles from the tribe’s Akwesasne reservation, which straddles the Canadian border near Messena, N.Y.

Still, the Mohawks were optimistic about the project yesterday, and Governor Spitzer said he would lobby Mr. Kempthorne in person when he is in Washington next week for the national governors meeting.


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/nyregion/20casino.html?ref=nyregion