In the dry, arid fields of Glendale, around 91st and Northern avenues, a dust storm of epic proportions has been building for some time.
In August of 2003, the Tohono O’odham Nation, under the name of Rainier Resources, Inc., a corporation based in Delaware, purchased the 134-acre site near the popular Westgate City Center and the University of Phoenix Stadium’s Arizona Cardinals.
In January of this year, the tribe submitted an application to have the federal government designate the land as an Indian reservation, or sovereign nation. The tribe did this in order to build a casino on the land, as existing law mandates that gaming can only take place on reservation land.
It’s attempting to have the land put into a federal trust based on 1986 legislation that allows for the tribe to purchase approximately 9,800 acres of ‘replacement’ land, due to losses incurred by flooding from a government-built dam in the ‘70s and ‘80s.
The City of Glendale opposes the idea and has voiced concerns over the safety and security of the community, as well as the yearly costs of infrastructure and utility support.
Glendale City Attorney Craig Tindall explained Glendale’s nonsupport.
“Once [the land] goes into reservation, we have no municipal control whatsoever on what happens in that property,” Tindall said, according to abc15.com. “It’s a big concern, regardless of the gaming facility.”
Both the city and the tribe could have done a better job of handling the situation so that the highly combustible predicament that they now find themselves in might have been avoided.
Let’s be clear on what this is about for Glendale: revenue and control. If the tribe were to have the land designated as a sovereign nation, then, as Tindall points out, the municipal control (read: ability to tax and make money) of the land would be lost.
Tribal Chairman Ned Norris Jr., on the other hand, purports to want to work with the city to come to an agreement.
“Is the issue finance?” Norris said. “Is the issue infrastructure?
Whatever the issue is, how can we work together to resolve that? We want to assure the community, the people, the leadership and the City of Glendale that we make a commitment to be good neighbors … that’s what we want to bring: a cooperative, good-neighbor working relationship.”
Norris’s words might carry a little more weight had the tribe been more clear and upfront from the beginning as to their desires and intents, instead of buying the land under clandestine names of companies based on the East Coast.
In the final analysis, as a supporter of capitalism and free-market principles, I support the tribe’s purchase of the land. I also support their right to build whatever they want on this land. Existing law states that casinos can only be built on reservation land, hence their application to have the land designated as such.
Whether or not this is a good precedent to set (non-reservation land being held in trust and ultimately converted into a reservation) is a highly-nuanced debate. But the Gila Bend Indian Reservation Lands Replacement Act of 1986 would seem to support the tribe’s position in this case.
What Norris is implying is that there is a bargaining table with room enough for both sides, and concessions are a possibility.
Clearly, both the city and the tribe need to agree to sit down and, for once, lay all their cards on the table.
Feel free to respond to John with thoughts or comments at jbarret1@asu.edu.
