Despite the appearance of forward momentum, goings on at the most recent Ellenville board of trustees meeting are beginning to cast doubt on the efforts of the Western Mohegan Indian tribe who are working toward establishing a proposed casino at the former Tamarack Lodge property in Greenfield Park.

During the public participation period of the meeting, resident and former village trustee Steve Krulick (whose "Public Domain" op/ed piece concerning this issue can be found on page 3) addressed the village board expressing his concerns regarding the recent resolutions passed by both the village and the town which memorialize the municipalities' support for the Western Mohegans' efforts.

Krulick brought and distributed to the board articles he found via an internet search which detail the federal case which was brought against the tribe's leader, Chief Ronald Roberts, articles which Chief Roberts and Robert Parker, the Western Mohegans' business manager, dismiss as being biased and of attempting character assassination, as detailed in last week's edition of the Journal.

Of the articles, Krulick said that they "suggest a possibility that a lot of what the village or the town assumed when they made these resolutions may have been without the full possible information that these articles revealed, [and which] suggest that the information that is being presented [by the Western Mohegans] may not be one hundred percent accurate, that they may be covering up or ignoring or whitewashing information…we're dealing with at least a person, and possibly persons, of questionable veracity, questionable integrity."

Krulick said that he thought the village and town should have looked more closely into the group before passing the resolutions, and that the tribe was seeking their approvals so as to "bypass the normal official channels by which a tribe seeks and receives state or federal recognition. I don't believe that the village or the town is qualified to pass judgment on the authenticity of the tribe, and therefore to have passed this resolution on the possible receipt of revenue down the road is, I think, something that is premature."

Krulick asked that the village board reconsider the resolution, like the town board had done at their last council meeting, but in the opposite direction, having approved the resolution 3-0 after it was first defeated 3-2.

After Krulick departed the podium, resident and local businesswoman Bella Volchik addressed the board, expressing a viewpoint in favor of the Western Mohegans and their proposals.

"I commend the village board and the town board for looking at this as a business," she said. "Is [the casino] coming tomorrow? I doubt it. Is it coming in the next ten years? I don't know. I don't know what's happening in the next five minutes. I ask the town board, and I ask the village, do we have 20 projects on the table to choose from? What do we have? All I hear is that people have no jobs. I don't care who Chief Roberts is; I'm not marrying him. This is a business. I want to know what the village and the town is getting out of it. I'm tired of hearing 'no' to every project. Deal with it as a business."

When Krulick began to respond, Mayor Jeff Kaplan stopped him, saying, "This isn't going to be point-counterpoint." He then offered an explanation on why he voted in favor of the resolution, recalling a meeting a few years ago with the group and their backers, "very successful businessmen from Detroit and Chicago."

"If we're going to look into [casino gaming] as a viable business, we need an Indian tribe, so while you may look at the Indian tribe as the applicant, the true applicant is the people behind it who have the money," he continued, describing their proposal, which would give 1% of their revenues to the village for a projected sum of $4.5 million.

"I can assure you that if you ask village residents, if instead of a tax bill, I send you a letter that says, 'this year, we have no taxes, and we have a million and a half dollars over and above what our normal budget is, what projects would you like to be seeing done in the village,' there'd be very few people that would send me articles about the chief.

"What we're looking at is the investors," he concluded.

To balance the scales of opinion, resident and County Legislator Mary Sheeley appeared before the board to weigh in with her views regarding the recently passed resolutions, and reasons why she disagreed with them.

"My concern is that in our desperation for jobs and economic development, we're jumping at anything that comes down the pike," she said, saying that she was at the same meeting with Mayor Kaplan years ago. She said that she never heard the word "casino," and that the group was, at the time, saying they were only interested in high stakes bingo. She said that their intentions are to "do an end-run around the BIA," the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the federal organization responsible for recognizing Indian tribes in the United States.

"The BIA is never going to acknowledge them, so they can't go in the front door, they're going to go in the side door," she said. "If we're looking at this as purely a business plan, then we need to look at the veracity and viability of the people we're dealing with. So two things come to mind: one, they lied, because a casino was not in the offing. But number two, did anyone ask them if their tax bill was paid? Because it's not."

She said that the school tax bill was not paid, rolled over onto the town tax bill, and which was then made whole by the county.

"I would think that if they really want to be a good neighbor, and really want to do well, I would think they would pay the tax bills before they came to the municipalities for support," she said. "Yes, they're coming to us, just like Wal-Mart. They're knocking on the door. We don't have to open it and say, 'come in, take what you want, it's yours for the asking!'

"If you want to do business with us, there are rules that have to be followed, certainly, just the basic rules of doing business," she concluded.

Information From the State and County

The day after the meeting, calls were placed to county and state officials to try and ascertain both the status of the Western Mohegan group's taxes, and whether or not there is a precedent for a state-approved tribe that is not approved by the BIA to establish a casino.

Burt Gulnick, the Deputy Treasurer of Ulster County, related numbers provided by Treasurer Lew Kirschner's office. Gulnick said that the Western Mohegan group owed the county a total of $75,610.64 in taxes, which is comprised of town, county, and school taxes due for 2008. He also said that the group is all paid up until this year.

An interview with Josh Koplovitz, Ulster County's attorney, offered further detail on the Western Mohegans' tax situation with the county. He said that in 2001, the year in which the group purchased the Tamarack Resort property, the group and the county entered into a tentative PILOT (Payment In Lieu of Taxes) agreement, which stipulated that when the Western Mohegans achieved official tribal recognition — therefore gaining tax-exempt status — the PILOT program would take effect. The Western Mohegans are currently engaged in litigation with the county regarding the specifics of this situation.

This somewhat echoes information that was provided at the meeting between the Wawarsing Town Board and the Western Mohegans on Monday, July 14, during which the group told the board that they had a PILOT agreement with the county, and that the county had reneged on the terms of the agreement, leading to the litigation and the currently unpaid tax bill.

David Rose, the Assistant Counsel for the Governor, spoke about the possibilities of the group establishing a casino without BIA or federal approval.

"I don't have information about a legal basis for how it can happen," said Rose, but that he could be proven wrong. He also said that there were only two Indian tribes in New York that are recognized by the state but not the BIA, and that they gained that recognition from having a longstanding and documented relationship with the state and its settler-inhabitants since pre-Revolutionary War times. He also said that their current efforts to establish a casino are currently being explored in conjunction with the BIA approval process.

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