Oklahoma Band to Game in Arkansas? Kathryn Quoted Here!

The Tahlequah, Oklahoma-based United Keetoowah Band is seeking to open a $131 million hotel and casino on land in Fort Smith, Arkansas. The Band is a landless tribe and is seeking federal approval of its petition to take a 10-acre parcel of land into trust so the tribe can take the additional steps necessary to build the gaming facility.

Kathryn is quoted in this recent article in the Arkansas Times Record, providing important background on the complicated legal and political hurdles the tribe must jump.

Interestingly, competing petitions are now circulating, both pro and con. The idea on both sides is to inform U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne what the local community thinks about the proposed casino. The local developer says a large majority is in favor; a Fort Smith anti-casino group says the opposite. The question of whether these opinions actually matter in the Secretary’s determination is hard to say, and depends in part under what exception to IGRA’s general prohibition on newly acquired lands the tribe will be pursuing.