Study shows Kenosha casino would benefit Menominees

MADISON — The Menominee Tribe’s proposed Kenosha Entertainment Center and Casino project represents the biggest opportunity ever to help lift the tribe out of poverty, according to recently completed study by a University of Wisconsin-Madison think tank.

“This proposal is in a class by itself in ways the tribe may try to generate some revenue. (Menominee County and reservation) is a beautiful area with a sustainable yield forest, but the available resources put limits on the tribe’s ability to generate income. An off-reservation casino can provide a jumpstart for them,” said professor Dennis Dresang, La Follette School of Public Affairs director.

Commissioned by the tribe, the school’s “Unmet Needs Menominee Nation: Challenges and Opportunities” study was produced to convince the Department of Interior to approve the multi-million casino complex the Menominees want to build in Kenosha with the Mohegan tribe of Connecticut.

Once established, the casino would provide an estimated $90 million to $100 million in revenue for the tribe, allowing it to invest in its schools, roads, police, and make the reservation a healthier place to live, said Tribal Chairman Lisa Waukau.

“We have more needs than we can meet. Health care is one of the biggest. Right now one in three Menominees will get diabetes, that’s a much higher percentage than the rest of the country, and it’s a very expensive disease to manage,” Waukau said.

According to the study:

— Almost every tribal-run department has a list of clients it can’t serve because of insufficient funding, including the domestic abuse shelter which closed in 2007 due to lack of funds. The reservation needs a new school, jail, two dams, enhanced natural resource protection, better housing and road improvements.

— Kenosha casino revenue would greatly swell the tribe’s annual operating budget of approximately $57 million, Waukau said. The Menominee casino in Keshena generates about $9 million to $10 million annually but not enough to fund even basic programs for the tribe, she said.

— Fifty-six percent of the tribal government’s budget is federally funded, but those funds have been “flat” for the past five to sevens years, leaving the tribe financially “devastated” as it tries to keep up with increasing costs of providing health care and other services to its 8,600 members, Waukau said.

Waukau notes that, unlike other Wisconsin tribes with profitable casinos, the Menominee Nation doesn’t make per capita payments to its members. Even if the Kenosha casino succeeds as expected, the tribe will still be too numerous to allow for casino revenue to be allotted to members on a per capita basis, she said.

“Our casino helps but we don’t have the money making opportunities of other tribes like the Ho-Chunk near the Wisconsin Dells, the Oneida at Green Bay and Potawatomie in Milwaukee. We need the casino in Kenosha,” Waukau said, “especially since the federal government has recently taken on major financial bailouts.”

State Rep. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, had harsh criticism for the UW think tank studying the casino bid.

“This isn’t research. It is stinky, slimy advocacy by liberal researchers at UW-Madison. How can administrators at UW-Madison stand by and allow the university to become an advocate for a highly political and corrupt casino project? This is wrong and it ought to be illegal,” Nass said in a statement released Thursday.

The La Follette study reached similar conclusions about the casino project as did a 2007 Bureau of Indian Affairs draft Environmental Impact, which found that it would promote economic development on the reservation and increase the tribe's self-governance capability.

Since 2004, the Menominee have sought to turn the Dairyland Greyhound Park in Kenosha into a casino and entertainment complex. Viewed as a potential rival to its Milwaukee casino, the Forest County Potawatomi tribe has contested the Menominee’s casino application with the federal government. Earlier this year the Potawatomi announced it intends to seek authority to offer off-track betting on horse and dog racing, which the Menominee saw as another effort to blunt the chances of its Kenosha casino succeeding.

The project has the support of the Kenosha area legislators and the community has passed two referendums favoring it.

Waukau remains optimistic about eventually obtaining approval for the Kenosha casino either from the current administration or the next.

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Study shows Kenosha casino would benefit Menominees

MADISON — The Menominee Tribe’s proposed Kenosha Entertainment Center and Casino project represents the biggest opportunity ever to help lift the tribe out of poverty, according to recently completed study by a University of Wisconsin-Madison think tank.

Kenosha revenue would fund jobs on reservation

MADISON — Anticipated revenue from the proposed Kenosha casino would be invested in the tribe’s existing enterprises, according to “Unmet Needs Menominee Nation: Challenges and Opportunities,” a 50-page report prepared by La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison.

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