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NY Times, Dec. 1 2014
A Connecticut Indian Tribe Faces Its Eroding Fortunes From Foxwoods
By TATIANA SCHLOSSBERG
Encased in glass, the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center
rises, improbably and on a grand scale, from the wooded swamplands of
eastern Connecticut.
The museum, which cost $225 million to build and covers seven acres, is
bigger than the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington. It
has a massive diorama of a 17th-century Pequot village, a restaurant, an
auditorium, a museum shop, libraries and archives for archaeological and
documentary research and a 185-foot-tall tower with a viewing platform
that looks out onto the reservation and the Foxwoods Resort and Casino
less than a mile away.
When the museum opened in 1998, the outlook for the tribe was bright.
The tribe reported revenues of $694 million, after payouts from the
thousands of slot machines at Foxwoods that year. That figure did not
include what it earned from table games, hotels, and concerts and other
events.
In 1995, casino revenues amounted to close to $750,000 per adult tribe
member; at that time there were about 315, according to “Hitting the
Jackpot” a book by Brett D. Fromson. And for years afterward, adult
members, who now number close to 1,000, could expect annual payments
reported to be about $100,000, an amount the tribe has not refuted.
But those heady days are long gone.
The casino, which currently is $1.7 billion in debt, recently missed
another payment. The annual payouts to tribal members have ceased, and
some, in search of work, have moved.
New York and Massachusetts, which supply Foxwoods with a stream of
customers, are preparing to open non-Indian casinos in the next few
years, increasing competition in the region.
The newest sign that the tribe’s fortunes are slipping came on Sunday,
when the museum, the Pequots’ message to the world that they are more
than casino entrepreneurs, closed for several months, for the first time
in its history.
The tribe is by no means destitute. But it is clear that as casino
gambling, a staple for many Indian tribes, has steadily been legalized
across the country, the Mashantucket Pequot have been left to navigate a
future that looks different from its recent past.
“We’ve been on this land for thousands of years and we’ll be here,” said
Rodney A. Butler, the tribal chairman. “Economic success is different
from tribal success.”
The casino is in debt in part because of competition — including
competition with Mohegan Sun, a casino run by the Mohegan tribe eight
miles away — and in part because of mismanagement and overexpansion.
Several years ago, the tribe, along with MGM Grand, spent $700 million
to build a new tower at the casino, with hotel rooms and a gambling
floor. MGM Grand is no longer part of the partnership, and now has a
license to build its own casino in Springfield, Mass., about 75 miles away.
The tribe is trying to adjust, diversifying some of its industries by
building a $120 million strip mall outside the casino and potentially
selling some off-reservation properties, according to a presentation
given to bondholders in 2012. The tribe has also talked of teaming with
the Mohegans to open a third Connecticut casino, which some public
officials support as a way to keep gambling dollars in the state.
Tribal leaders declined to give details about their plans and,
consistent with past practice, would authorize only a small number of
officials and tribal members to speak about their circumstances.
Pequot officials said the museum is closing for repairs, and also so
they can find an executive director and fill a position that has been
vacant for several months. But 45 of the 55 employees are being laid
off, at least temporarily, suggesting that closing the museum is an
attempt to adapt to a new financial reality.
So was ending the annual stipends, which the tribe called “incentive
payments,” in 2010.
“There was a lot of frustration, anger and fear when the payments
stopped, especially if you’ve built your life with that kind of
freedom,” said a member of the Pequot tribe, Dale Merrill.
Ms. Merrill was a part-time student raising three children as a single
mother when the payments stopped. The end of the incentive payments, to
her, signaled a loss of the opportunity to go to school and raise her
children without worry. She also said that there were some positive
elements: “Money can be a distraction. The kids and our youth seem to be
much more focused on staying connected as a tribe and living up to what
we’re supposed to be.”
Ms. Merrill, like many other tribal members, went to work for the tribal
government and is now vice president of human resources and
administration. Some members were able to find jobs at the casino, the
museum, or in the tribal government or in tribal health services.
Other changes were subtle. Mark Bancroft, assistant to the mayor of
Ledyard, the town closest to the reservation, said that five or six
houses on tribal housing property outside the reservation had been torn
down, and that some who had lived on the reservation had moved to
Providence, R.I., and New York City, where they had lived before.
Lifestyles have changed, too. Several Pequots spoke about having ended
their habit of buying expensive cars.
Tribal members “were buying and leasing quite often,” said Christian
Rice, the general sales manager of BMW of New London. “I don’t know if
they realized the value of their money or they just wanted to buy
something they couldn’t have before, but it didn’t make sense,” he said.
Mr. Rice says he barely sees any Pequots at the dealership these days.
“Some of our salesmen were a lot happier back then, I’ll tell you that,”
he said.
The tribal government has been able to maintain the services that were
built up when the casino was profitable, including a child education
center, a fire station and a health clinic. The town has been hurt
somewhat by the loss of non-Indian jobs as the casino has contracted,
Mr. Bancroft said, but added, “If the tribe didn’t provide social
services, we’d be taking a harder hit.”
Tribal leaders take some solace in the fact that the Pequots have
rebounded before, going from near-extinction in the 17th century and
again in the 1970s, when the reservation had just one year-round
resident, to becoming one of the wealthiest tribal nations by the end of
the 20th century.
Members of the tribe must be able to trace their lineage to 11 Pequot
families recorded in the 1900 and 1910 censuses. Because of their
wealth, the Pequots came to represent Native Americans in the Northeast,
where tribes as distinct political, social or economic entities are
rarer than they are in western states.
Not long ago, the Pequots’ annual powwow, called Schemitzun, “a feast of
green corn and dance,” was a major event that attracted members of
hundreds of tribes from across the country. The powwows cost millions to
produce, and in 2007, according to Indian Country Today, included four
dance contests, each with $200,000 in prize money.
This year’s purse totaled $3,250.
Wayne Reels, a tribal member who works in cultural affairs, said that
there were representatives from about 50 tribes this year. “We downsized
to make it more regionally focused,” he said.
But to outsiders, it was one more example of the tribe’s loss of
influence. “The Pequots aren’t out in public the way they used to be,”
said Nicholas H. Mullane II, a town selectman in North Stonington,
Conn., which borders the reservation. “They used to be much more
involved with civil and cultural events, but they’ve scaled it back.”
Mr. Butler, the Pequot chairman, said his government has taken pains to
establish education as a priority, and to make sure that tribal youth
take advantage of college tuition assistance programs. Leaders also want
to emphasize that Native American communities are important to
Connecticut’s past and present, regardless of their wealth.
“Economic success gets twisted as a reason to stay, and everything else
we do gets lost in the wind,” Mr. Butler said.
William Satti, a tribal spokesman, said the tribe intends to reopen the
museum in the spring. Its event spaces will again be rented out for bar
mitzvahs and weddings, one of the museum’s main sources of revenue, but
a far cry from its original educational imperative.
“It’s a loss to Indian Country,” one staff member said of the coming
closing. Like other museum workers, the staff member declined to be
identified so as not to jeopardize the severance package the tribe was
offering. “It’s such a loss to the cultural educational landscape for
New England. It’s a loss for the tribe, too.”
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