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By Cole Boehler
Editor and Publisher
The plugs on over 350 state-regulated gaming machines on the Flathead Reservation have been pulled. The machines, the income they produced and the jobs they supported are gone.
So are the Class III gaming machines - poker and keno - operated by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, and the jobs and income they created.
I lived in Polson on the reservation for five years and still count many friends there, some who operate licensed business. Two of my sisters and their families make their livings on the reservation in Polson and Ronan.
There no doubt will be negative economic effects rippling through these communities, businesses and families. That is too bad and could have been avoided.
When it came time to renegotiate the compact between the tribes and the state that allowed and regulated Class III gaming, the tribes' opening position called for the state to grant it total jurisdiction over all gaming on the reservation.
Such an agreement would have allowed the tribes to offer any games it chose - including all Las Vegas games such blackjack, roulette, craps and baccarat - and would have given it the authority to set any or no wager or prize limits. The tribes would have been able to open any facility anywhere on the reservation running as many games as they wished.
Further, it would have granted the tribes total jurisdiction over nearly 40 non-tribal licensed business owners as well. The tribes could in essence have dictated all terms to non-tribal operators including hours of play, type of games offered, prizes and wagers, who would be able to own the games, how revenue would be shared, what tax rates would be and how enforcement would be conducted.
Ultimately, under the tribes' proposal, the tribes could have, by simple decree, ended gaming for non-tribal members and offered it exclusively through tribal enterprises, though we're not suggesting this would have been their likely course of action.
The Governor has stated he has no legal authority to allow wildly expanded tribal gaming, and further stated before his election and numerous times since then, that he opposes the expansion of gambling anywhere in the state. That position also represents the view of his constituency as polling indicates Montanans, too, oppose gambling expansion Montana-wide, on or off-reservation, by a three-to-one margin.
The Governor's office did offer the tribes the opportunity to run more machines than they do now, take even bigger wagers and offer even bigger payouts, and offered to share gaming and fuel tax revenue with the tribes amounting to over $700,000. The state also offered to freeze the number of non-tribal licenses and the number of non-tribal machines. Finally, an open-ended extension of the current compact and a limited extension was put on the table.
None of these offers elicited even a counter-offer from the tribes. They started with an all-or-nothing position and ultimately never moved one inch.
While gaming business associations, including the Montana Tavern Association, carefully observed the proceedings, and while they have members on, and surrounding, the reservation, they have no legal standing in the negotiations, so could not be offered a seat at the table. The MTA could only provide armchair after-the-fact observations, and they have essentially been expressions of regret that it came to this.
But in this writer's eyes–and I emphasize, speaking for myself only - it is clear a lot of people will be hurt and that the blame for this rests mostly with the tribes.
While it may be an acceptable negotiating strategy to simply ask for everything in your opening gambit, refusing to move from that opening position seems to be the exact antithesis of "negotiation." The state, apparently in good faith, made several counter proposals, but the tribes would counter nothing. That appears to be the very definition of "bad faith" negotiation.
And that is why the tribes must take responsibility for the impasse and the ultimate outcome–the harm they have done to businesses and to the people– tribal and non-tribal–living on the reservation.
If it is true that the tribes are, by federal law, allowed to continue to operate their Class II gaming machines and bingo, that alone will never provide for the income, development or jobs they seek.
So, to this writer, it appears that they not only shot over 30 non-tribal businesses through the heart, but they have also shot themselves at least through the foot.
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Gambling Control Division Adminstrator Gene Hunting included this item in a recent communication: "We are having a little problem with people not realizing that the new machine labels are permanent. A few are peeling them off when they withdraw machines." Okay now, "permanent" means "permanent." Leave 'em on!
Source: The Montana Tavern Times, Jan., 2007, published monthly by Continental Communications, 125 W. Granite St., Suite 102, Butte, MT 59701.