Posting again after a bit of a hiatus

My last post was 4 1/2 months ago or so.  While I’ve been doing a lot online, much of it has been related to researching the issues related to an casino that will likely be opening in this area, as well as sharing that information on a grassroots Facebook group. We also traveled for several weeks out in some of the western states.

Started in late June, the Facebook group quickly grew to over 6,000 members and is now approaching 7,200 members and, yes, we have had an impact. We thought that, at best, we would be waiting for a local county ordinance mandated vote on the casino in either March 2020, during the primary, or November 2020, during the general election, after which, if approved, a constitutionally required document supporting a casino operator could be written and signed and that casino operator could then apply for a casino license.

Well, it didn’t work out that way. We’re actually further than we anticipated we would be this time next year!

Here we are at  the beginning of December 2019, just under a year away from that general election and we have a casino operator, Cherokee Nation Businesses (CNB). that has been provided with multiple support documents from county officials.  CNB submitted their application in August, which initiated a new 90 day application period, which ended a couple of weeks ago.

So, we should be just waiting for that license to be issued and for CNB to break ground at the site of the new casino, right?

If only it were that easy.

Earlier in the year, county officials and their attorney tried to find a way to have the ordinance required vote, but kept getting told by state officials and other legal authorities that we couldn’t legally have a vote the way the ordinance required and that the ordinance was trumped by the constitutional amendment.  So, after getting a sense through ways other than the ballot — surveys, telephone, polls, social media, e-mail, etc. — that the public wanted a casino, the county quorum court passed a resolution of support, one of the options required by the new casino gaming amendment to the state’s constitution, for CNB on August 13th…. and were promptly served with subpoenas and a lawsuit by a local anti-casino group and a prominent realtor.

That lawsuit has already been heard in circuit court and has been dismissed with prejudice — the issue can’t be filed again, though the case could be appealed  — and the ordinance was declared unconstitutional.  That was already a moot point, as it had been repealed by the quorum court the night before, though the judge didn’t take that into consideration in his rulings.

At that point, other legal hurdles remained.

Three of the county justices of the peace — essentially elected positions equivalent to county commissioners in other states — faced ethic charges filed in connection to the casino issue.  A couple of weeks ago, after hearing from investigators, the four members of the Arkansas Ethics Commission unanimously voted to clear them of the charges.

Last August, the local anti-casino group and the prominent realtor who sued our county officials also sued the Arkansas Racing Commission.  (The 2018 constitutional amendment that established casino gaming in Arkansas assigned casino regulation and licensing to the already existing Racing Commission.) That case is based on the same ordinance as the dismissed case in our county. Besides the ordinance being repealed by the county and declared unconstitutional by the circuit court, other support documents from county officials were written and submitted to the Racing Commission.  The plaintiff’s case has been rendered totally moot, though it is scheduled for a hearing later this month.

In June, the Racing Commission rejected license applications from five casino applicants because none of them had valid documents of support from county officials.  While one of them, Gulfside Casino Partnership, had letters of support, they were from officials that had been out of office several months when Gulfside submitted their application on May 17. State law and Arkansas Casino Gaming Rules require that the support documents come from current local officials.  In July, Gulfside submitted an appeal to the Racing Commission on their license rejection and, in August, the Racing Commission denied that appeal.  Gulfside subsequently filed for judicial review of the Racing Commission’s ruling.  The basis for their appeal and request for judicial review is their assertion that the rules were changed after they received the letters of support and that the state law and gaming rule are unconstitutional. In fact, their claim is largely based on an email from the Commission’s attorney as well as proposed rules that the commission approved for publication and comment, rules that were never actually published and never implemented.  This case is currently in quasi-legal limbo over venue, which has changed twice already, with no new hearing date scheduled.

By the gaming rules, it looks like a license should be issued to CNB sometime in the next month or so.  However, since the Racing Commission is the body charged with developing, maintaining, and administering the rules, they should be able to waive the rule and delay issuing a license if litigation issues warrant it.

As always, time will tell!