Q: How do you see the future of gaming?
A: As far as gaming goes, I think gaming is near the top of its developmental arch. Within the next five years, Indian gaming and all other gaming will peak.
I think that’s a function of technology. When all television sets go digital in just a few months, what will happen is the availability of gaming content over the television. When you can play a slot machine with your channel changer, the gaming side of it — the whole business of watching wheels turn on a video screen — that will certainly be diminished.
The entertainment value of going to a casino with food and atmosphere is kind of like watching a television movie and going to a movie theater — it’s a different entertainment experience, even though it may be the same picture.
Those gaming operations that have a pleasant environment and other amenities to offer are going to win over those that do not. So tribes that intend to have gaming over the long run need to turn those into full, first-class entertainment venues where people can go, watch a show, eat dinner and maybe do a little gaming.
People need to get the same entertainment value out of an evening at the casino as they do out of an evening of going out to dinner and the movies. Basically, if you have a $50 or $75 evening, you should be entertained for three to four hours and be able to go home. That should happen at a casino the same as it should be able to happen going to dinner and a movie.
Q: What are the plans for the hotel at the FireLake Grand Casino?
A: That project will proceed entirely based on what happens to credit markets.
We’re not under any particular pressure other than competitive pressure. Our competition is building a hotel at Riverwind south of Norman on Interstate 35. They’re building a hotel now and of the five or six mega-casinos in the state, four of them have hotel plans or have the hotel in place or are building. We’re one of those four, so we’re going to have to, from a competitive standpoint, build a hotel.
We are currently negotiating the rates and terms. Right now, it’s a very difficult environment to plan in because you don’t really know where the economy is going to go.
Q: Are there going to be new ventures for the Citizen Potawatomis over the next two or three years?
A: We have several candidates for our industrial development park over on U.S. 177 that we’re trying to influence to come on that property.
We’ve committed to put some $10 million into Rural Water District 3 and we are petitioning to extend some of our services over into the counties that are adjacent to us.
We plan on expanding that water district. That is a very long-term investment, by the way. You don’t make any return in the first 10 years in the water business.
Besides the water district, we have a very strong interest in the rail that has been out of service since the 1980s. The old Rock Island system connects us to Holdenville, Seminole, Wewoka, McAlester is vital to the economic health of our area.
The reason that development has been restricted going east is the access to rail. When the Union Pacific acquired the Rock Island system and the bridge went out, the line was allowed to just grow up in trees. We were once considered the Tri-City area. Seminole and Wewoka were part of our market area and the communities helped feed each other. When the rail went out, Shawnee sort of pulled in.
We’re not really interested in going out and spending the $15 million that it’s going to take to get that rail up and operable. We have other things we could invest our money in that would give us a quicker and possibly higher return, but no one else seems to be interested in coming up with the money.
Everyone has a lot of ideas, but someone has to start pledging the money and making the commitment to do something. We have talked it to death. If we’re not careful, we’re going to allow Big Rail to define terms for the rail that goes back in service. That will make that rail almost impossible to bring back into service.
I would love to see that railroad operable, even if it was as a non-profit, and back in service. It crosses three Indian tribal jurisdictions, and the tribes, I think, would have an economic development interest in it.
There is too little consideration given to the power of the tribes in economic development. The tribes don’t just bring dollars to the deal — they bring capabilities of financing infrastructure development that the other communities don’t have. Look at what Ada and Ardmore have had in working with the Chickasaw Nation and Durant working with the Choctaw Nation. That hasn’t happened in Shawnee.
This year, we are going to build a new bowling center and youth activity center south of town. That construction will move very quickly. We are putting in new RV spaces within the last 30 days. We have a new bank building being built in 2009. We are building a new clinic and there will be an addition to the wellness center and a storm shelter for our elderly members.
Q: What kind of involvement do the Citizen Potawatomis have in local economic development?
A: It would be nice to have a seat at the table. We had a $389.8 million financial impact on the community in 2007. We have a $48 million 2008 payroll. We just passed a 2009 operating budget of $214 million, which, when compared with the operating budgets of the other communities and other businesses here, is very large. I think the largest.
We’re not involved. We’re not invited to sit down and talk. For instance, I’ve never been invited to a rail meeting. The conversations about the new water resources that would be coming from the direction of the Atoka system, we’ve never been invited to that. We’re one of the largest economic forces in the community and we’re either being overlooked or excluded, one of the two. I think we have a great deal to offer in partnering on economic development.
We have 10,000 tribal members in the state. There are 5,000 tribal members who are served from Shawnee. That’s 20 percent of the population of the town, including those people who are married to Potawatomis; that’s a big segment of the community. What’s good for the Potawatomi Nation is good for Shawnee and vice versa.
Q: What about license tags?
A: We send a check directly from the Citizen Potawatomi Nation to the Shawnee school system.
The Oklahoma tag money goes to Oklahoma City and then it gets massaged around and some of it comes back, but the money for Potawatomi tags equivalent to the percentage of our tag fee is sent directly to the school district.
We’re sending checks directly to school districts all over the state where there are substantial Potawatomi populations. I believe we are the only tribe to do so.
The issue of tags is not a big revenue issue. It is a governmental issue that recognizes the combined jurisdictions of the area and the dual citizenship of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. We are citizens of the state, the United States, the Potawatomi Nation and citizens of Shawnee.
Those are rights and privileges and responsibilities of citizenship. We see some of that manifested in those tags. That and there is some pride in our people having a tag. It saves them money and it has done a lot to allow Potawatomis to know each other. It has been good for our self-identity.
See next Saturday’s News-Star for a question-and-answer story with Chris Clark, president of Arvest Bank in Shawnee and chairman of the Shawnee Chamber of Commerce board of directors.
