Casino Project History
• September 2000: Lafayette County signed a contract saying the Lac du Flambeau could open an off-reservation casino in the county. The contract stipulated the county would provide police and emergency services; road maintenance; and general government services to the casino. The tribe agreed to pay the county $4 million per year for 20 years. This contract created controversy in 2003 when then-board chairman George Williams raised concerns that the county had no signed copy of the agreement. The tribe voiced its own concerns about Williams' attitude and ability to negotiate on the casino issue.
• January 2001: Scott McCallum replaced Tommy Thompson as governor of Wisconsin. McCallum refused to do anything that would expand gambling in the state, and because approval of both the BIA and the governor is required for off-reservation casino, the Shullsburg casino project stalled.
• January 2002: Jim Doyle replaced McCallum as governor and began renegotiating gaming compacts with Wisconsin, lengthening and expanding compacts with two tribes in exchange for larger payments to the state. Doyle's willing to expand the compacts raised hopes the Shullsburg project would move forward.
• April 2003: A referendum question asking if voters supported a gaming facility/convention center/hotel complex constructed and operated by the Lac du Flambeau passed 540-79. Later that month, the Lafayette County Board of Directors voted 15-1 to authorize its chairman to negotiate a three-way casino agreement with the tribe and city of Shullsburg.
• May 2003: The Lafayette County economic development committee voted to ask Doyle to sign a gaming compact with the Lac du Flambeau tribe.
• November 2003: The Lac du Flambeau and Bad River bands of Lake Superior Chippewas filed suit against Gale Norton, Secretary of the Interior, which oversees the BIA. The suit argued that Norton gave the Ho-Chunk tribe an unfair advantage by not objecting to the compact that Doyle signed with that tribe in April of that year.
• March 2004: The tribe purchased a 93-acre parcel of land owned by Jim and Pam Paquette just west of Shullsburg city limits to build a proposed casino and hotel complex. The tribe had an option to purchase the land since 2001 that extended until 2005, but the tribe's attorney said at the time the Lac du Flambeau wanted to show its commitment by finalizing the purchase. Closing on the purchase was in December 2004.
• October 2006: Tribal officials met with members of the Lafayette County Board and Shullsburg City Council for a project update and reported the casino and hotel complex could be open in about three years.
"I'm very disappointed," Verne Jackson, chairman of Lafayette County's Economic Development Committee. "It's a great loss economically."
The Lac du Flambeau tribe is "weighing all its options," public relations officer Laura Stoffel said this morning. She would not confirm the tribe is considering legal action, saying "we have a variety of thing that are happening that we need to review."
The tribe has also requested a meeting with Carl Artman, the assistant secretary of the BIA and is waiting a response from him.
The Lac du Flambeau Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa Indians proposed building and operating the casino. Under an agreement from 2000, the tribe would pay Lafayette County $4 million each year for 20 years for providing medical and emergency services and road maintenance. In turn, the county would pay the city of Shullsburg $1 million each year for that time period.
The project also was anticipated to bring a significant number of jobs to the area. Tribal officials last year said the complex would employ between 800 and 1,500 people.
The proposed casino included plans for a hotel complex and convention center. The tribe reported last October it planned a 630,000 square-foot project, with 92,000 square feet for gaming and convention center space. The proposed project also included 390 hotel rooms; pools, spa and fitness areas; a video arcade; and gift shop. The complex also included plans for an 18-hole golf course, tennis stadium and other outdoor sports courts.
The complex was intended to be built in phases.
Jackson said in rejecting the Shullsburg application, the BIA expressed concern that the casino would be 300 miles from the tribal homeland in Vilas County in northern Wisconsin. "That was one of their issues," he said.
Another issue was that tribal members would have difficulty working at the off-reservation casino because of that distance. But "that wasn't really an issue with the tribe anyway," Jackson said.
Off-reservation casinos must be approved by both the BIA and the governor of the state where they will be built.
On Friday, the day it rejected the Shullsburg casino proposal, the BIA also announced stricter guidelines for approving off-reservation casinos, the Journal Sentinel in Milwaukee reported.
The BIA rejected 11 casino applications. Eleven other tribes also were told that their deals would not be acted on because of incomplete information, the newspaper reported.
No action regarding bids to open casinos in Kenosha and Beloit was taken. Those applications are still pending.