After more than a decade of unsuccessful land negotiations, tribal officials decided on a more discreet business approach. They secretly bought the land in the West Valley, a region that was exploding with new homes and businesses. It wasn't until all their plans were in order — including their application requesting that the feds establish their land as a reservation where a casino could be built — that they went public with their intentions.
The strategy was similar to what Mayor Scruggs and Glendale City Manager Ed Beasley did when they plotted behind closed doors to lure the Phoenix Coyotes to Glendale from Scottsdale. Without bringing Scottsdale or the public into the discussion, the officials met with Phoenix developer Steve Ellman and West Valley mogul Jerry Moyes to make the move happen.
Tohono O’odham Chairman Ned Norris is pushing ahead defiantly with casino plans.
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Once the deal was hashed out, it went directly to the Glendale City Council, and what became Jobing.com Arena received unanimous approval. As Scottsdale officials appeared shocked by that announcement, Scruggs and Beasley beamed with pride.
Glendale officials also had private meetings in Phoenix long before they announced their intention to develop Camelback Ranch-Glendale, the baseball complex on Glendale-owned land in Phoenix that opened in 2009.
It is a style of doing business that Glendale apparently enjoys — as long as it is not on the receiving end.
Glendale's fight with the Tohono O'odham Nation started soon after the tribe announced its casino and resort plans.
Tohono O'odham Chairman Ned Norris stated clearly that the tribe was not asking local officials for permission to embark on the development. Norris said the tribe wanted to forge partnerships, and some city officials were more receptive than Glendale's.
Peoria Mayor Bob Barrett and Tolleson Mayor Adolfo Gamez said they believe the casino project will help reignite the region's economy.
"We're talking about employment opportunities for the entire West Valley," Gamez told New Times. "That's 6,000 construction jobs we don't have right now. And 3,000 permanent jobs, once the casino opens. People are talking about 'we need jobs, we need jobs,' and that's what we're talking about here.
"It's a good destination spot to attract people to this area," he said. "It's win-win, and that's why I can't understand why people are against it."
He is talking about Glendale, mainly, whose City Council passed a resolution directing Beasley and the city attorney to do anything necessary to blow up the Nation's plan.
First came city support of a bill sponsored by state Representative Jerry Weiers that would have given cities the right to forcibly annex tribal land. The Glendale Republican proposed immediate annexation if a landowner requested the federal government to establish the property as reservation. (If land is annexed into a city, federal law prohibits it from becoming reservation.)
The made-to-order legislation made it out of the Arizona House of Representatives, but it stalled in the Senate after the body's president, Bob Burns, buried it. Burns said the fight over the casino was between Glendale and the Tohono O'odham.
City officials then announced that 46 of the Tohono O'odham's 136 acres were already within Glendale's city limits, rendering at least those acres ineligible to become reservation.
Losing the acreage would not stop the tribe's casino plans, but it would alter them, so the tribe filed a lawsuit to rebuff Glendale's claim. A Maricopa County judge agreed that the portion of the land purchased by the Nation in 2003 was within Glendale's city limits.
The decision came after city officials dug up records to establish that Glendale had annexed the swath in 2001. The city admitted that it had collected no taxes on the property because it had de-annexed the 46 acres back to the county. But the city argued that it couldn't legally undo an annexation unless the property was absorbed by another city, so the property was still in Glendale's jurisdiction.
The Nation is appealing.
Even though the state is steeped in its worst financial crisis in modern history, Governor Jan Brewer is also opposed to the Tohono O'odham's building a casino in the West Valley.
Whether it creates jobs or helps kick-start the local economy, Glendale resident Brewer doesn't care. Put simply, she's against gaming near residential neighborhoods for moral reasons.
Strangely, at first blush, another Indian tribe also is playing the morality card in an attempt to stop the Tohono O'odham casino. But the Gila River Indian Community's real reason for siding with Glendale and Brewer is that its fellow tribe's development will upstage its recently opened "premier" casino in Arizona, Wild Horse Pass, and will compete with another of its casinos, Vee Quiva.
Regarding the governor's misgivings about the Tohono O'odham casino complex, her spokesman says, "She believes our citizens are deeply concerned about the spread of gaming. She believes that's a widely held position by citizens, one they approved in the past."
The governor's representative, Paul Senseman, refers to Proposition 202, a voter-approved gaming compact with Arizona tribes known as the "Indian Gaming Preservation and Self-Reliance Act."
Casino critics say allowing the Tohono O'odham Nation to open a casino on non-traditional Indian land would upset the state's delicately balanced gaming regulations.
The gaming compact, approved by voters in 2002, requires tribes to contribute 8 percent of their revenue to fund a variety of statewide programs, including education, wildlife, and emergency healthcare. It also limits how many casinos each tribe can build, how many slot machines and game tables it can operate, and has a "trigger" to ensure that tribes enjoy a gaming monopoly.
