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City invites Wampanoag to talk of future
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By Aaron Nicodemus
NEW BEDFORD — The City Council has invited the Mashpee Wampanoag to sit down and discuss the tribe's future in the city, including the far-off possibility of a casino and entertainment complex. The tribe has accepted, although a date has not been set.
Councilor David Alves said the meeting between the council's Special Committee on Gaming, the Mashpee Wampanoag and a host of city agencies will occur within the next two weeks. He said he and Tribal Council Chairman Glenn Marshall are working out a date and time.
The Mashpee Wampanoag, who will become a federally recognized tribe on May 23, are seeking sites for a potential casino. So far, according to tribe spokesman Scott Ferson, the tribe has met privately with officials in Middleboro about a large town-owned parcel.
"We'd be happy to meet with the folks in New Bedford," Mr. Ferson said last week. "It's one of only two communities that have expressed a public interest, so far."
Last week, three tribal council members met with two Middleboro selectmen and the town manager in a private meeting, he said. While building on virgin land would be easier, Mr. Ferson said, the tribe would consider building on former industrial land that has to be cleaned to be redeveloped.
"It's harder to do, but it's something the tribe is interested in," he said.
City officials are expected to press the tribe to consider developing land in the Hicks Logan area, located just south of Interstate 195. The area includes the Revere Copper Products buildings at 24 and 26 North Front St. Revere recently announced it will close some time later this year, and place its property up for sale. (Revere Copper Products owns 13 acres of land on North Front Street that faces the Acushnet River.)
Another reason the Mashpee Wampanoag would consider the city is that after Mashpee, New Bedford is the community with the second-highest number of tribe members. The tribe numbers 1,461 members, according to Mr. Ferson. More than half, about 800, live in Mashpee, and about 180 live in or near New Bedford, he said. The tribe recently opened an office in the city's historic district to serve off-Cape members, he said.
Councilor Alves said that while bringing a casino to New Bedford is on his mind, the tribe might launch other initiatives in the meantime. He said he wants the tribe to consider New Bedford for those other projects as well.
"I'm looking beyond the casino," he said. "The (federal) Bureau on Indian Affairs is looking to help tribes pursue projects in other areas, like transportation ... and restaurants. With that in mind, I'd like to get them rooted in New Bedford."
To that end, Councilor Alves has invited the New Bedford Economic Development Council, New Bedford Redevelopment Authority, New Bedford Industrial Park Foundation, Chamber of Commerce, Greater New Bedford Career Center, the city's offices of tourism/marketing and planning to attend the meeting.
"We need jobs in New Bedford," Councilor Alves said. "We have people who want to go to work here in New Bedford. I think the number of people who applied for jobs at Michael Bianco is evidence of that. We've got a lot of people with a good work ethic."
Councilor Alves referred to the hundreds of people who applied for stitching jobs at Michael Bianco Inc. after a federal immigration raid swept 361 illegal workers from the factory on March 6.
Mr. Ferson said that federal recognition of the tribe does open up a number of business opportunities. There is federal money available for new tribes to launch initiatives in health care and for small business development, he said.
"The casino is very much a means to an end," he said. "We're looking to launch projects in environmental preservation, alternative energy, cultural and historic preservation, education and health care."
Other tribes in other parts of the country have launched business ventures, like a tribe that installed a glass walkway over the Grand Canyon, a western tribe that builds helicopter seats for the military and a Florida tribe that owns part of the Hard Rock Cafe chain of restaurants. A tribe-owned business would be classified as minority-owned and could qualify for government contracts and incentives, he said.
He qualified his talk about tribe ventures by saying that whatever initiatives the tribe pursues would have to be revenue generating and would not necessarily be funded with casino money.
Although Mr. Ferson said the tribe has enough financial backing to build a casino right away, there are a number of significant hurdles. For one, casino gambling is outlawed in Massachusetts, and would require a vote to legalize it by the state Legislature. Although Gov. Deval Patrick has met with Mashpee tribe members, the state Legislature has voted consistently against legalization.
If the state Legislature legalizes casino gambling, the Mashpee Wampanaogs will still have to navigate holding land-in-trust with the U.S Bureau of Indian Affairs. The tribe has said a casino should not be located on its Mashpee property, and that a casino would be built on land located within 50 miles of their Mashpee property.
Contact Aaron Nicodemus at anicodemus@s-t.com |
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