The
Santee Casino Controversy
Reported by Bill
Kelly, STATEWIDE Correspondent
Indian gaming is now part of life in Nebraska. The Santee Sioux tribe opened
a small casino just over a month ago. The State quickly tried to shut it down.
A judge refused to do that. Meanwhile, the U.S. Justice Department continues
to look at the legal issues while the tribe maintains that they're following
the law. The tribe didn't open the casino to create a controversy. They did
it to improve their economy. The casino has 69 slot machines and it's created
14 jobs. Gambling is a path some tribes have taken to prosperity. The Santee
Sioux are willing to take a chance that it will pay off for them as well.
From here, the village of Santee looks like a neat, quiet
little town. Well-kept houses sit alongside the southern bank of the Missouri
River on the border with South Dakota, but this isn't a typical small town.
There's no real main street and only a couple of businesses. The newest enterprise
is a casino.
[Butch Denny, Santee Tribal Chairman:] "This casino could
be the thing that saves this tribe."
The Ohiya Casino wouldn't fit in on the Vegas strip. It doesn't
compare to the casinos you'll find in Nebraska's neighboring states. For now,
gamblers play video slot machines. Winners don't hear the rush of cascading
coins. They get credits and casino workers pay them. The tribe claims these
machines fall into the Class II category of games and that means they're already
legal on the reservation, but they do want more profitable Class III gambling,
traditional slots and table games. The chances for that rest in the hands of
lawyers and judges.
[Denny:] "We're a sovereign nation and it's really pretty
simple. We're another nation within a nation basically. The State has no jurisdiction
over us unless we want them to have."
[Gov. Ben Nelson:] "Well, my response to that is I can't
permit you to do something that I believe is contrary to the law."
Their decision to open the casino has put the Santee tribe
in the middle of a controversy, but that's not why they did it.
[Denny:] "We needed to create some jobs."
Jobs are hard to come by on the Santee Reservation. Unemployment
is higher than 70%.
[Denny:] "So we have a lot of people without jobs. When
you have a lot of people without jobs, you have a lot of other problems that
come with that."
The Santee Reservation is isolated. One road connects the
village with the rest of the world. The nearest town of any size is Yankton,
South Dakota 50 Miles away. It's not exactly a prime location for industry.
[Denny:] "So we needed to do something and we have the
choice between a casino or nuclear waste. Them are the only two things we can
do here. And so we chose a casino."
Thelma Thomas used to be in charge of the Nebraska Indian
Community College. Now she runs the Santee tribe's casino.
[Thelma Thomas, Casino Manager:] "The tribe's goal is
to put everybody to work in the village that wants to work and is willing to
work."
And there are plenty of people willing to work in Santee.
More than 60 people applied for jobs when the casino opened.
[Thelma Thomas:] "That's tremendous. That's, you know,
12 jobs for 12 people who didn't have them before and that's a tremendous feeling.
It's a sad feeling when you have to sit and interview 65 people and you know
you're only gonna' select six. They all need jobs. They're all unemployed."
If the casino succeeds, it may mean more money to spend on
education and social programs. The school in Santee needs a new roof. That would
cost $200,000, money that's hard to find in a tight education budget. There
are also social needs that can't be met and tribal leaders want to do more.
[Rick Thomas, Social Services Director:] "You hear of
a lot of hardships. You hear a lot of sadness. And if you don't have the money
to reach out to their needs, you know, you feel inadequate, you feel stress
and the tension that a lot of our families feel, you know."
Rick Thomas says the tribe is facing federal budget cuts,
and they didn't have much to begin with. He has a long list of ways they could
use more money for healthcare.
[Rick Thomas:] "Emergency medical services, nurses, nurses'
aides, more outreach into the community.
The wish list will have to wait. But the jobs are here now.
And Thomas says that will make the biggest difference in life on the reservation.
[Rick Thomas:] "I see a couple working down there, you
know, that haven't had a job for quite a while, you know. I know their family.
You know, they got four or five children, you know, and that's really gonna'
come in handy, you know, for them to be able to have the opportunity to be employed,
you know, and be able to receive the goodness of life, you know. I think a lot
of people are tired of second best, you know. You know, and if our people are
second best, then it's our children who get the crumbs, you know, and I think
that's something we've been dealing with with a lot of unemployment, you know,
is to be able to have something nice and call that ours."
Can a room full
of slot machines turn around the fortunes of an economically depressed tribe?
If you need proof, talk to John Blackhawk.
[John Blackhawk:] "If I remember correctly, prior to
gaming we were at about 60% unemployment and with employment -- although I have
not done any checks recently -- we're at about 10%. It fluctuates. And it's
went down. And, of course, it's risen a little but not by tremendous amounts,
2 or 3%."
The Winnebago tribe of Nebraska owns WinnaVegas Casino near
Sloan, Iowa. It's just south of Sioux City. More than 600 people work there
and it's brought millions of dollars to the tribe.
[Blackhawk:] "I remember us operating the tribal government
on $150,000 to $200,000 general fund budget that we had, which was mostly lease
incomes from ag leases that we were able to utilize. So from 200,000 to the
tribal government now having an operational budget of about 4 million -- 3 1/2
to 4 million. Tremendous difference."
The money is slowly transforming the Winnebago Reservation.
A new senior center opened a couple of months ago. It's a nice place to gather
for activities and a hot meal.
[Cook:] "We make about 60. We do 28 trays that go out
like meals on wheels and we serve about 40 here."
They're building a new future on the reservation. New homes
for a new era. This 12-plex will open soon. More single family homes are planned.
[Blackhawk:] "If you see your neighbor who was unemployed
now being employed, now being able to maybe have a car or maybe have some nice
things, and those types of things, it's motivation for you to want to be able
to do something. So that's been real helpful."
WinnaVegas Casino has brought jobs and money to the Winnebago
tribe, but there are also new challenges. New casinos in Council Bluffs have
cut into business at WinnaVegas.
[Blackhawk:] "Well, I think we've been impacted by the
other gaming that's come on line to the tune of approximately 20%. It threatens
us if it continues. The thing is to turn that around."
New competition has hurt. They've had to lay off more than
100 employees, but they aren't giving up.
[Norma Stealer, Winnavegas Manager:] "We're hoping to
regain a certain percentage of that and still maintain a good operation that
people are going to enjoy coming to."
They hope to draw more customers from outside of Omaha. This
busload of gamblers is from Norfolk. WinnaVegas is also expanding and remodeling.
They're building a new bingo hall and adding more parking and more games. As
the casino grows, so does the economic base of the Winnebago tribe. This hotel
is being built in Omaha by Ho-Chunk, Incorporated, a development company started
by the tribe and funded with casino revenue. They already own one new hotel
near their casino in Sloan, Iowa and plan to build another in Lincoln.
[Lance Morgan, President, Ho-Chunk, Inc.:] "Most tribes
traditionally for economic development have focused on bringing in manufacturing
and other types of low-skill jobs onto the reservation but that model has kind
of failed."
Lance Morgan gave up a promising law career to return to his
tribe and help build a better future.
[Morgan:] "I mean, the tribe really recognized the need
to diversify and they recognized that probably a few years ago and that's why
they set up Ho-Chunk, Inc. And that's why we ended up here in Omaha and Lincoln
and Sioux City, because that's where the money is."
Morgan says the Winnebago tribe is investing more than $4
million in Nebraska and Western Iowa through Ho-Chunk, Incorporated, and the
company provides a place for members of the tribe to learn about business.
[Morgan:] "We've gone from a company that had one employee
in December of 1994 and in a few months we should cross the 50 employee mark,
and we should double that again by sometime next year. That's a significant
development."
Morgan sees some similarities between what the Winnebago tribe
has achieved and what the Santee tribe wants.
[Morgan:] "They really are just getting underway. They've
not had any real gaming before. They have a huge amount of social needs that
they need to address right away. And the Winnebago tribe was at that stage probably
for the first two and a half years or so after they opened the casino."
It will be difficult
for the Santee tribe to duplicate what the Winnebago tribe has done. Their reservation
is more isolated and there's more competition now. Tribal Council member Ike
Denney sees an uncertain future and he isn't pinning all of his hopes on the
casino.
[Ike Denney, Santee Tribal Council:] "Sure it's gonna'
help. It's gonna' put some people to work, but yet it's not gonna' make the
big bucks like WinnaVegas or Fort Randall across the river or the bigger casinos,
you know, that's doing Class III that got your blackjack tables, your poker
tables, and your one-armed bandits. We're not gonna' be gettin' them big gamblers
in here to spend a lot of money."
This little casino has been the center of attention lately,
but that's not why it's here, and it's not here because the tribe wants to pick
a fight with the Governor and the Attorney General. It's here because tribal
leaders got tired of unemployment and hopelessness. It may not be much now,
but it's a start.
[Rick Thomas:] "There's pride. Can you imagine when they
say, we're gonna' hire eight people to go to work. Geez, you see the smiles
on peoples' faces. You run through 67 interviews. Everyone will have hope that
there's gonna' be a job. Then we hire four more and people that are on the waiting
list say, geez, my time is coming so hire three more the following week. You
know, it just builds that pride back up again."
Reporting for Statewide, I'm Brad Penner.
Captioning by Nebraska
Captioning Center, Lincoln, Nebraska .
Indian gaming is now part of life in Nebraska. The Santee Sioux tribe opened
a small casino just over a month ago. The State quickly tried to shut it down.
A judge refused to do that. Meanwhile, the U.S. Justice Department continues
to look at the legal issues while the tribe maintains that they're following
the law. The tribe didn't open the casino to create a controversy. They did
it to improve their economy. The casino has 69 slot machines and it's created
14 jobs. Gambling is a path some tribes have taken to prosperity. The Santee
Sioux are willing to take a chance that it will pay off for them as well.