The die is cast.

The Mohegan are the winners in the great ” will a tribe get a commercial casino in Massachusetts”  gambling soap opera.  The Mohegan have done their due diligence by working closely with the town of Palmer to meet the requirements in the bill.  They are federally recognized, and have land in trust….you know all the right stuff.  No need for  boondoggles and phoney deals to reassure their investors who happen to be Sol and Len, the South Africans who (along with the Detroit group) backed the Mashpee Wampanoag in Middleboro. Must be nice to have a strategy.

And another potential coup is that there’s nothing to prevent  the South Africans from bidding and developing the 539 acres of  land they own in Middleboro, that has been processed with environmental clearances.  Why shouldn’t they get a license? Considering that the ( sovereignty ) resort  casino that was our deal evaporated because the Administration did not act quickly to get our land into trust…nor did they have sense enough to ask Ted Kennedy for help. To say the crew was in over their heads is an understatement, cause we’re sure paying the price now.

And the Malaysians are not exactly the kind of investors the Commonwealth is interested in doing busines with….too messy.  Ask the Seminoles.

Point 2.  No tribe seeks a commercial casino because it is unprotected.  Only the investor, the state and in our case, the Council get’s a paycheck.  That’s why land in trust is the bible of Indian gaming and state governments hate it because they can’t do anything about it but ask the tribes for whatever they can get…

Well the balls in the Governor’s court ain’t it? If we had a strategy even when the LIT process was derailed…we would have stood a chance.  But we didn’t.

And Cedric and his jackpot in the Boston paper…with all that weepy clap trap about how his people have suffered.  How would he know? He doesn’t know the first thing about his own family…being new to the tribe and all.  He’s  only been a member for 5 years….course that’s another story and its a screecher.  How he got on the rolls and all.

Meanwhile remember our new status.  Without land in trust we’re a tribe with a guillotine hanging over our heads.

Great. Sort of our own Tale of Two Cities…Mashpee and Middleboro.

The newspaper headline is accurate until you read closer. The Governor is basically saying the tribe will have a casino…when it gets land into trust. But it won’t be one of the states  3 commercial licenses . To the lawmakers, who do not want us to have a special commercial license, it tells them not to worry.

What Rep. Cabral does not understand is that our lack of  land into trust, will not delay the state’s commercial casino process.  Just that simple.  The state will move forward without including the set aside commercial license for the tribe because it can. And if  the tribe ever gets it’s land into trust, the tribe  automatically builds the casino on its sovereign land  without state sanction.

But remember, LIT is almost a dream now and valuable time slipped away under the deceptive leadership of Cedric Cromwell. It was years before he, Aaron,  Mark or any of them understood that they should have pursued the LIT  effort  before the Congress turned against Indian Gaming.  Now the state Legislature is just as anti Indian gaming ” set aside” and threatens  to derail the bill.  The Governor certainly does not want to do that dance. And a weak rudderless tribe that has been involved in two casino boondoggles, Fall River and Raynham..can’t be very helpful.

Cedric tried to make Genting think he’s in the state gaming deal by pontificating in committee hearings on Beacon Hill and with the Raynham publicity stunt. Then he makes speeches before the BIA ( that has about as much respect for us of late as, well, God knows what). Genting wanted Cedric to meet with the Governor to strike a deal. Who Duval Patrick ? Can’t you just see that? The last thing Genting wants is for us to have a sovereignty casino because it benefits us…not them.

Cedric threatened the state, and the Governor and waved sovereignty at them like a weapon. It was a wet noodle.  Our sovereignty is elusive. But for confused tribal members…it kept hopes of a casino alive.  His false double talk is a disgrace to our ancestors and the tribal members who fought for decades to get the Mashpee recognized.  Our people are struggling.  We have people in charge whose self interest is overwhelming.

Whenever Cedric’s foolishness backfires he starts talking about Hybrids and swears the tribe is in the state commercial gaming bill.

We could be in the bill…but as a kind of afterthought. It would state the obvious….tribal casino with  LIT, which frees the state to give licenses to someone else.  Cedric sounds ridiculous thanking the governor and planning for a Compact without LIT.  Part of the smoke and mirrors.  But it won’t fool Genting.

Guess who already has the process 90% complete and shovel ready? The original investors with 539 acres of property that is part of our LIT package  in Middleboro. Wow.

Governor backs Mashpee tribe casino

As Gov. Deval Patrick prepares a plan for three potential casinos in the state, he believes any future gambling legislation needs to account for a Mashpee Wampanoag-run gaming operation.

Patrick took a stand on the tribe’s role in an expansion of gambling in response to a letter this week from five Southeastern Massachusetts legislators to Senate President Therese Murray, D-Plymouth, and the governor. In the letter, the lawmakers urged the governor not to give preference to a Native American tribe in obtaining a casino license in Southeastern Massachusetts.

On Friday, a key member of Patrick’s administration wrote back to the lawmakers, stating that if the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe is able to resolve its land-in-trust issue with federal authorities, then the tribe will be legally entitled to have a casino on tribal lands.

“We believe it is important that any gaming legislation account for and address this tribal gaming reality,” wrote Gregory Bialecki, state secretary of Housing and Economic Development Secretary.

Earlier this month, state Rep. Antonio Cabral, D-New Bedford, and four other representatives from Bristol County told lawmakers that they were worried about the time it will take for the Mashpee Wampanoag to go through the legal wrangling necessary to place tribal land in federal trust for a casino.

To place land in federal trust, the tribe must address a 2009 U.S. Supreme Court ruling known as the Carcieri decision that restricted the ability of the U.S. Department of the Interior to take land into federal trust for tribes recognized after 1934.

The Mashpee Wampanoag received federal recognition in 2007.

“Providing a Native American preference for obtaining a casino license would incur significant risk for the Commonweath,” the lawmakers’ letter states.

“This decision would likely entangle that process in years of litigation.”

“I want to see a casino built,” Cabral said Friday night in a phone interview with the Times. “We need to create revenue and jobs.”

State lawmakers will be taking up the topic of expanded gaming laws next month.

Last year, lawmakers backed a proposal to allow three resort casinos and two slot parlors at state racetracks. Patrick effectively killed that plan when he rejected the slot parlors, citing “no-bid contracts” for track owners. The gambling legislation would have divided the state into three regions and permitted one casino in each. The Southeastern Region would have included Bristol and Barnstable counties.

New proposals that will be debated next month will probably stick with the three-region approach, according to Bialecki’s letter.

Setting aside three areas “is the best way to maintain valuable market capacity and maximize short- and long-term job creation and economic development opportunities for the entire Commonwealth,” Bialecki wrote.

He went on to write that the Mashpee Wampanoag “will be legally entitled to conduct gaming on their tribal lands upon successful resolution of their land-in-trust application with the federal government.”

In an email message to the Times on Friday night, Cedric Cromwell, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council chairman, thanked the Patrick administration for recognizing the tribe’s “inevitable right.”

“We appreciate the acknowledgment from Secretary Bialecki and Governor Patrick that the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe has the inevitable right to conduct gaming in our ancestral homeland of southeastern Massachusetts,” Cromwell wrote in the email.

“We look forward to negotiating a compact with the governor as soon as possible that will guarantee revenues to the Commonwealth, and to breaking ground on a destination resort casino that will bring much-needed jobs to southeastern Massachusetts.”

But Cabral said the region faces “a cruel irony” because the Legislature could approve casino gambling, then face a long wait for the federal government to take Mashpee Wampanoag land into federal trust for a casino.

Wanda  Lord was supposed to get us grants. Now we’re told  she’s a consultant making $250 k a year  to look over grants staff  find themselves to keep their programs going.  And on top of it all, the woman says it takes her 3 months to review them before she okays them. What a  scam.  Most grant writers work off a commission.  In other words, they get the tribe the grant, and they help administer it for about 10%.  No one pays someone to be a consultant on grants and not bring a damned thing in…..but the Cromwell administration.   Reliable  Sources say the woman has not brought one grant to the tribe….but keeps getting paid as a consultant.  It’s called no deliverables.  No tangible product. Nada. Nothing.

This is why the original investors spent the money on professionals because,  people, who claim to be leaders,  lie and don’t know what they’re doing and screw things up very nicely. The last two years are a testament to that premise.

Okay now look at this.

More “ No Delieverables “

Cedric Cromwell makes  $68.00  and hour.

Aaron Tobey made $41.00 in 2010 and now he makes $52.00 an hour .

What have they done for us ?

Marie Stone and Mark Harding make close to what Aaron makes and they only show up for Council meetings where they collect another $100 a meeting, and on Fridays to get their pay check. Marie cannot produce the audio records from the time they took over in early Febuary 2009 until present.  We know why.  Ain’t no records.  Just pictures of her banging the gavel…frantically.

The Assistant District attorney should be very interested in that being that the state has jurisdiction over us since we are not sovereign. …with no land in trust.

We are not the Seminoles of Florida ( even though we used to share the same lawyers….back in the day when we were ballers…they were fired by  Mark Harding who hired real estate lawyers in their place). Course the Seminoles own all the Hard Rocks and are opening casinos in Saudi Arabia with their own money while our people languish.

Many of our people do not make $68 a day let alone an hour.  We could give every LEGITIMATE FAMILY IN OUR TINY TRIBE $2,000  a month and fair better than paying outsiders to push us over the cliff.

Cities with populations in the millions do not pay their political leaders hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and their budgets are in the billions….but then again we’re billionaires ain’t we?

No cash flow.

Illegal measures to sell off our donated housing land.

No Economic Development plan to put our people to work.

And now there’s this little matter of the Federal Charter of Incorporation.

Stay tuned.

George Carney, owner of Raynham Park, said Monday that discussions with the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe over the future of his dog track are all but dead.

Carney, who last month said he had talked “two or three” times with the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe about the track, said Monday the two sides haven’t communicated in close to six weeks. The tribe has been exploring possible sites in southeastern Massachusetts for a gaming facility, including in Middleboro where a casino deal fell through last year.

“I’ve been led to believe they have another location they think is better,” said Carney, who didn’t say what that site might be. “It’s not the end of the world. Not the end of my world, I should say.”

Carney said he is in no other discussions. He said he thinks people are hesitant to enter into any agreement before any decisions regarding legalized gambling are made on Beacon Hill.

Meanwhile, Carney said he wasn’t concerned that state racetracks have been given just a six-month extension to simulcast greyhound and horse racing. In the past, those approvals were for one year.

“It’s one less problem I have for the next six months,” he said.

Gov. Deval Patrick last week signed a bill for the six-month extension, just days before the current agreement was set to expire on Sunday.

If the long-debated bill clearing the path for casinos in Massachusetts passes in the coming months, Carney said he has “been led to believe” one addressing simulcasting will also be attached.

Since voters in 2008 decided to ban live dog racing, simulcasting has served as the lifeblood for the park and its 200-plus employees.

Carney has been an ardent supporter of a legalized gambling bill, which could include provisions for casinos as well as slot parlors at existing racetracks.

But any discussions of incorporating a partner or selling Raynham Park – whether as a possible casino site or otherwise – are on hold at the moment, Carney said.

Massachusetts political leaders are said to be trying to cut a final deal legalizing casino gambling after years of noisy disagreements doomed earlier efforts.

Patrick, House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Therese Murray – all Democrats who support some kind of expanded gaming – hope to agree to the broad outlines of a plan before a bill is filed.

The goal is to avoid the caustic rhetoric that pitted Patrick against DeLeo over the issue of allowing slot machines at some of the state’s four racetracks. That clash killed hopes for a casino deal last year.

This time, the three are doing much of their negotiating out of public view. They’re also taking their time to cut a

This story is 9 months old but it confirms what we have been telling you.  We are in a very bad deal.  The administration has borrowed and spent upwards of $24 m ( at 15% ) from the Malaysians in a deal gone bad.  That’s almost double what the original investors spent over a 10 year period.  We have nothing to show for it.

Look at the Mohegan.  They will be done with debt to their investors in a few years. The South Africans and a host of people many from Detroit were also our investors . They gave us the same reasonable payment plan given the Mohegan, over 20 years.  Our deal was 6% of gross receipts  go to investors over 20 years. Fair enough.  That was how we would repay them for the millions invested in a 539 acre resort casino.  Think about it.  We would have honored our agreement to Middleboro, and our people would FINALLY have an opportunity to build   a foundation for a better future.  Now the Malaysians regard us as a one night stand. The administration just forgot to tell us no doubt.

Foxwoods’ Malaysian investors gamble on New York casino

By David Collins

Publication: The Day

It’s a small world when it comes to gambling industry kingpins.