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http://www.azcentral.com/news/0128casino.shtml

Fort McDowell wants state's OK to expand gambling operation

By Carol Sowers
The Arizona Republic
Jan. 28, 2000

The Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation is considering bold
steps to prop up casino revenue that has slipped
from $300 million to $255 million since the neighboring
Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community opened its
first gambling hall in late 1998.

Clinton Pattea, who will be installed Feb. 8 as president
of the 906-member tribe, plans to ask state gaming regulators
to allow the tribe to nearly quadruple its number of slot
machines and offer now banned games such as roulette
and blackjack.

Pattea's requests come as the state's 15 gaming tribes and
state officials begin preliminary talks today about new casino
operating agreements before current ones expire in 2003.

He also is itching to revive talks with the Los Angeles Dodgers
baseball team over the tribe's offer to build a $40 million spring
training complex to include six training fields and eventually a
12,000-seat stadium on 60 acres of tribal land.

"Five years ago, we were the only game in town," said Pattea, 68.
"Now, we have to think of innovative ways to get people out here."

Pattea won a four-year term Jan. 11, slipping past incumbent
Bernadine Boyd 112 votes to 96 in the first tribal election that
involved a direct vote of the people under a constitution adopted
Nov. 12.

Pattea wants state gaming negotiators to allow the tribe to increase
the number of slot machines at its Fort casino from 475 to 2,000 and
lift the ban on Class III, Las Vegas-style games such as roulette and
blackjack.

Gaming drew national attention to the tribe when on May 12, 1992,
tribal leaders led by Pattea defied attempts by federal authorities to
seize their gaming machines, holding out for nearly a month until
state authorities agreed to negotiate gambling contracts with the
state's tribes.

Pattea may have another fight on his hands now.

"The state won't approve quadrupling the number of machines on
Fort McDowell or the expansion into Class III gaming," said Paul
Walker, spokesman for the Arizona Department of Gaming.

Such posturing is typical in the early rounds of negotiations. But
Pattea says his bargaining power will be his tribe's reputation for
improving members' lives with casino profits. Since it opened the
casino in 1993, cash from slot machines, poker tables, bingo
and other games has paid for 90 reservation homes, a health
care center, park, and millions in other projects.

But dipping revenue since the opening of the Salt River Tribe's first
of two casinos in October 1998 has forced cutbacks, including
reducing annual gambling hall dividends of $36,000 to $30,000 for
each tribal member.

Profit-sharing at Fort McDowell helped prompt demands by Salt
River tribal members for their own cut of casino money. More than
1,500 residents have signed petitions demanding a share of the
profits, but tribal leaders are holding out.

Pattea worries that the casino jackpot will dry up and wants to renew
talks with the Dodgers and begin talks with a second team in hopes
of luring more people to the 24,000-acre reservation.

In November 1998, Fort McDowell offered to build the spring
training facility. But the Dodgers broke off talks nine months later
without saying what soured the deal. Pattea says it may have been
the tribe's reluctance to build team housing or a failure to "follow up"
with the Dodgers.

Boyd, tribal president when the deal fell apart, did not return phone
calls.

Now, Pattea says team housing could be phased in in the second or
third year of a proposed 30-year lease. The tribe has offered land
near the Beeline Highway and to underwrite construction costs in
exchange for a share of ticket and concession sales and a flood of
gamblers.

If the Dodgers decide to remain in their 50-year-old training facility in
Vero Beach, Fla., or go elsewhere, Pattea says the tribe will angle
for other teams and continue plans to build a long-discussed golf
course, hotel and recreational vehicle park.

Some reservation residents say the community is split, 50-50, over
locating a spring training camp on its land, but opponents wouldn't
comment on the record.

John Oisf, 60, says the spring training camp is "probably good for the
economy."

Like others, he wants the once impoverished tribe's new prosperity to
last.

"You don't see many guys out here picking up beer cans anymore,"
he said.
 

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