Tag: Middleborough

Those who support the proposed Middleborough casino like to say that Glenn Marshall’s downfall doesn’t matter because everything is in writing. Scott Ferson, a spokesman for the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, put it this way recently in The Standard-Times of New Bedford:

The agreement is between the tribe and the town, not one person on either side, and there is a great deal of integrity in the agreement. The commitments that are made by the tribe in the voice of Glenn Marshall stand.

Now comes Alice Elwell, who writes in The Enterprise of Brockton that, in fact, enthusiasm for the casino was very much based on personal assurances made by Marshall — or, as the headline puts it, his “secret promises.” Among them:

• Marshall promised local business leaders that he would “help” if the casino harmed restaurants in town. Selectman Wayne Perkins says this would have taken the form of “comp points” — scrip given to casino visitors that could be used at Middleborough businesses, which in turn could trade them in for cash.
• Marshall promised to assist the town with police and firefighting expenses.
• He told several people to “come see me” over their concerns about how the casino would affect their quality of life.
• He promised the chairman of the Middleborough Housing Authority that he would “help” with programs for senior citizens.

Elwell writes: “It is unknown if the residents would have supported a casino in their town had they known of Marshall’s criminal background. But in the months leading up to the historic town meeting vote, Marshall made several promises that were not included in the written contract with the town.”

And she quotes tribal council member Cheryl Frye as saying that anyone who’s concerned about whether the tribe will honor promises made by Marshall should come on in and talk it over.

Is there a legal argument to be made that town meeting approved the deal on false pretenses? I don’t know. That would probably be a stretch. But there’s really no end to this, is there?

My standard disclosure.

Oh, the hell with it. I’m going to keep posting on the Middleborough casino as long as there’s news to report. And there is: The Cape Cod Times’ Stephanie Vosk tells us that yet another investor has run afoul of the law.

Vosk points to a 1997 story in the Detroit Free Press, which found that, 20 years earlier, casino developer Herb Strather paid a $500 fine and performed community service as punishment for offering a police officer a new pair of shoes in return for special consideration on a drunken-driving arrest. You can’t make this stuff up.

Yesterday, of course, we learned that investor Sol Kerzner was accused of bribing a South African government official in 1986 in connection with a casino deal there. Kerzner was not convicted, and the charge was later dropped.

Meanwhile, Peter Kenney keeps beavering away on Cape Cod Today as he attempts to track $675,000 in Wampanoag money used by disgraced former tribe leader Glenn Marshall to buy a horse stable in Mashpee.

Finally, I’ve got a commentary on all this in today’s Providence Journal.

My standard disclosure.

Yes, I know I said I was going to try to hold off on the daily updates, but it just keeps on coming, doesn’t it?

The Cape Cod Times today moves the focus of the story up to where it really belongs: on the Big Money folks behind the plans to build a casino in Middleborough. Stephanie Vosk reports:

Sol Kerzner, one of the top investors for a proposed Mashpee Wampanoag casino, was accused in 1986 of bribing a government official in South Africa to obtain exclusive gaming rights.

Kerzner was never convicted and the charge was dismissed in 1997, but it has followed him each time he has tried to back a casino, both here and abroad.

Gov. Deval Patrick, who may or may not have already made up his mind about casino gambling, needs to understand that this is what life is going to be like if he says “yes.” Tribal leaders resigning in disgrace; hazy ties to imprisoned sleazeballs like Jack Abramoff; unproven charges against shadowy financiers; and a constant drumbeat of questions for elected officials about how much they knew, and how much they should have known. Is this really what you need, Governor?

Also, Steve Bailey has a terrific column in the Boston Globe. A highlight: “This has always been less about sovereignty than about the rush by the tribe and its deep-pocketed financial backers, just as elsewhere around the country, to cash in on the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, one of the worst pieces of legislation ever to come out of Congress.” Yes indeed.

Update: The Times’ George Brennan reports on another member of the Mashpee Wampanoags — Maurice Foxx, chairman of the state’s Commission on Indian Affairs — whose bio had once falsely claimed he’d served as a Marine in Vietnam. Foxx says he’s not sure how the bogus information ever made it into the record. Funny how that happens.

My standard disclosure.

Since I already believed the Middleborough casino was dead, I suppose it would be silly of me to argue that it somehow got deader today. But it did.

The Enterprise of Brockton and The Standard-Times of New Bedford report that the Pokanoket Wampanoag tribe, based in Rhode Island, has sent letters of protest to Gov. Deval Patrick and the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs contending that the proposed Middleborough pleasure palace — which would be operated by the Mashpee Wampanoags — encroaches on their own tribal lands.

The Pokanoket are seeking federal status as a tribe, which the Mashpee won earlier this year. If the Pokanoket succeed, I think we can assume that the lawsuits will start flying.

Kyle Alspach writes in The Enterprise:

Clyde Barrow of UMass-Dartmouth said the Bureau of Indian Affairs will definitely take the claims into consideration.

At the very least, this will add extra time to the approval process, he said.

“The BIA will have to determine whether or not [the claims] are accurate,” said Barrow, who studies casinos through his Center for Policy Analysis.

So what about it? Do the Pokanoket and Mashpee lands overlap? Here is David Kibbe, writing in The Standard-Times:

Last year, legislation was filed in the Rhode Island General Assembly supporting their [the Pokanokets’] recognition. The bill said the tribal community “has existed in the vicinity of their ancestral lands in North-Central and Eastern Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts since prior to the first European contact…. The Pokanoket Tribe of the Wampanoag Nation entered into treaties and warred with the colonial governments, in particular the Great New England War of 1675-1676 aka the King Philips War.”

Middleborough, in case you didn’t know, was a major battleground in King Philip’s War.

My standard disclosure: I’ll be making an unpaid speaking appearance at a fundraiser this fall for Casinofacts.org, an anti-casino group based in Middleborough.

Except for major developments, this should be the last one for a while.

• The video from yesterday’s “NewsNight” is now online.
• The Cape Cod Times interviews new tribal chairman Shawn Hendricks. More to the point, the paper reports that about 150 dissident tribal members are moving ahead with an effort to recall the entire leadership, including Hendricks.
• According to the Boston Daily blog, the casino money guys never did a background check on disgraced former tribal chairman Glenn Marshall. According to the Times, they won’t do one on Hendricks, either.
• Peter Kenney has a moving account of Monday night’s tribal meeting, and of the return to the fold of the five members whom Marshall had ordered “shunned.”

Finally, Steven Bingham, a formerly shunned member who is adopting a high profile in the wake of Marshall’s implosion, says something very intriguing, according to The Enterprise of Brockton. Reporter Alice Elwell writes:

He said the federal land trust for a reservation could be in jeopardy if any illegal acts are uncovered.

“Everything has to be questioned at this point,” Bingham said.

Bingham said he does not want to stop a casino, but the contract with Middleboro only benefits the investors, “not the tribe, not Middleboro.”

Presumably nothing can be done about that without voiding the agreement with Middleborough and starting over. Isn’t that interesting?

Update: I missed this, but Bingham has already said that if the recall of tribal leaders succeeds, the agreement with Middleborough is null and void. And let’s not forget that three of the five selectmen are facing recall next month.

A disclosure: I’ve accepted an invitation to speak at a fundraising event being organized by Casinofacts.org, the anti-casino group in Middleborough. It hasn’t been scheduled yet, but I thought I should disclose that immediately. For the record, there’s no speaking fee.

I’ll be on New England Cable News’ “NewsNight” today at 7 p.m., talking about Glenn Marshall’s meltdown and the fate of the Middleborough casino with host Jim Braude.

Here’s your morning roundup of casino-related developments:

• Marshall is out as chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, with members refusing even to give him the 30-day grace period he had requested (Cape Cod Times).
• Marshall’s legal woes continue (Cape Cod Times).
• His false claims of war heroism will be reported to the FBI (The Day of New London, Conn.).
• More questions about how tribal funds were spent (Cape Cod Today).
• Officials of neighboring towns ask the Patrick administration to move slowly on the casino (Boston Globe).
• But Gov. Patrick blows the biggest decision of his tenure, reportedly deciding to endorse casino gambling (WBZ-TV). Perhaps this is just a pre-Labor Day trial balloon?
• Hal Brown spins like crazy (Casino-friend.com).

Obviously the Middleborough casino will never be built. The big-money players will move on once they realize that this will be tied up in the courts for years. Dissident tribal members are already suing in federal court. Middleborough casino opponents vow to keep fighting. The Jack Abramoff connection must be explored more deeply. In that context, New Bedford’s going to start looking better and better.

But casino gambling will be bad news anywhere, and I hope Patrick comes to his senses before making this official.

Update: This is hilarious. WBZ Radio (AM 1030) reports that Patrick’s office is denying that the governor has made up his mind, but WBZ-TV (Channel 4) is standing by its story.

Boston Magazine has posted on its Web site a profile of disgraced former Mashpee Wampanoag leader Glenn Marshall, slated to appear in the September issue.

Tough timing — the article went to press before last week’s implosion. But writer Geoffrey Gagnon does have more on Marshall’s ties to Jack Abramoff, the former Washington lobbyist now in prison for his corrupt dealings. Gagnon writes:

Marshall doesn’t apologize for the fact that some of his efforts involved questionable characters, chief among them the notorious Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, with whom the tribe signed on in 2003….

Never major political donors before then, the Mashpee and their lobbyists started giving generously to select congressmen. Following Abramoff’s lead, they donated at least $20,000 to California Congressman Richard Pombo, who had taken over the committee charged with managing tribal issues. They also secured some face time with North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan, who, in his capacity as vice chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, pressed the Interior Department in the fall of 2003 to finally rule on the long-delayed status of the Mashpees’ application.

Abramoff is now serving time in federal prison for bilking other tribes and corrupting public officials. (The Mashpee were never implicated in any wrongdoing.) And though Abramoff himself became political kryptonite for the lawmakers and organizations he did business with, a couple of his lieutenants, Kevin Ring and Michael Smith, still work with the Mashpee.

Fortunately for Ring and Smith, they get a good character reference — from, uh, Marshall. “Kevin and Michael are very bright young men,” he tells Gagnon. “If they had done anything wrong, they would have been indicted — they wouldn’t be working for us. These are good guys.”

Of course, Ring’s and Smith’s reputations shouldn’t be smeared just because of their former association with Abramoff. But the Abramoff connection is something that needs to be thoroughly investigated before anyone breaks ground on a casino in Middleborough.

Middleborough Selectman Adam Bond and others who think the casino is still on track should take a look at today’s Cape Cod Times. K.C. Myers reports that long-simmering anger over the way disgraced tribal leader Glenn Marshall has managed the Mashpee Wampanoags’ finances and cast out those who disagree with him is about to explode at a special meeting tomorrow night.

Marshall’s dealings with “wealthy investors” to bring a casino to Middleborough are also the subject of a federal lawsuit brought by dissident Wampanoags. That suit was almost certainly given new life because of what’s happened over the past week.

In the Boston Globe, Christine Wallgren reports that officials from 17 surrounding communities and two regional planning agencies will meet tomorrow with Gov. Deval Patrick’s economic-development czar, Dan O’Connell, to ask that Patrick make no decision on casino gambling until the issue has been thoroughly studied. From the context, I’d say they want it studied to death. Good.

At Cape Cod Today, Peter Kenney keeps pounding away at Marshall, and opines that he’s still calling the shots behind the scenes. Well, maybe not after tomorrow night.