Kansas AG sues Trump administration to block Wichita-area casino
The state is suing the Trump administration in federal court to block a tribal casino that’s planned to open this year near Wichita, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt announced Monday.
After decades of legal challenges, in late May the U.S. Department of Interior cleared the way for the Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma to open a casino in Park City, exciting local officials with the prospect of economic development around it and raising concerns from the state about agreements it had already made with a rival casino.
The Wyandotte Nation runs the Lucky Turtle and Wyandotte Nation casinos in Oklahoma and the 7th Street Casino in Kansas City, Kansas.
The new casino would anchor plans for a massive redevelopment of 100-plus acres at the failed Wild West World amusement park near Interstate 135 and East 77th Street North, about 10 miles north of downtown Wichita.
Kansas filed a lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court in Kansas claiming the Interior Department failed to notify the state of its intentions to allow the tribe to open the casino and that the property in Park City is not subject to the federal law cited by the Trump administration that would require it to be eligible for gaming.
Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Tara Sweeney are the named as defendants in the lawsuit. Kansas is asking a federal judge to set aside the Interior Department’s decision to allow gaming in Park City.
The lawsuit claims Sweeney — who recently came under fire for her role in securing access to billions of dollars in coronavirus aid for a handful of wealthy corporations in her home state of Alaska that was intended for Native American tribes — “completely ignored” federal laws and “the Department’s definitive and controlling guidance since 2008 for when gaming can occur” at lands purchased after 1988.
The proposed tribal casino would be about 30 miles from the Kansas Star Casino in Mulvane. The state guaranteed the Kansas Star an exclusive market in south-central Kansas for 25 years — until 2032 — and the operating contract and size of the casino were based on that projection. The state could end up paying the Kansas Star operators for any violation of the agreement.
Sumner County and the city of Mulvane have joined the state as plaintiffs in the lawsuit, along with the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and the Sac and Fox Nation of Missouri in Kansas and Nebraska, two tribes that operate casinos in Kansas.
The Wyandotte and others — including casino magnate Phil Ruffin and former Wichita Mayor Bob Knight — have been fighting to open a casino in Park City for decades, but legal challenges and voters have thwarted legal gambling in Sedgwick County.
The proposed casino would open just south of the Kansas Coliseum and the Greyhound Park race track, both now closed, in the area that was previously Wild West World, a failed amusement park that filed for bankruptcy two months after opening in 2007.
The Wyandotte bought that land in 1992 and has been fighting in court to open a casino ever since.
The Kansas Attorney General’s Office has repeatedly warned that opening a casino in Sedgwick County is illegal.
But the Bureau of Indian Affairs approved acquiring a little more than 10 acres of land in Park City “for gaming and other purposes” for the Wyandotte Nation, according to the federal register, reversing a 2014 decision not to allow the tribe to put the land into trust for a casino.
The court battle dates back to the treaties in the 1800s that were relitigated in the 1970s and ‘80s. In 1984, Congress set aside an additional $100,000 owed to the Wyandotte to be used for the purchase of real property which was to be held in a trust by the Secretary of the Interior for the benefit of the tribe. Property purchased under that trust can be used by tribes to operate gaming facilities.
The Wyandotte invested its $100,000 in mortgage obligation bonds in 1986, where it grew to over $200,000, Wyandotte Chief Billy Friend said.
The state claims the Wyandotte tribe’s purchase of the Park City land is ineligible because it used $180,000 of that money to buy property in Kansas City, Kansas, in 1996.
Friend pointed out that his tribe purchased the Park City land four years before that for $25,000 and that the state has argued in the past that the Kansas City property was ineligible for gaming because of the money spent in Park City.
“That’s the reason we continue to pursue it, because common sense tells us that if you spent the first $25,000 in Park City, then that for sure is part of that,” he said. “You can’t argue both sides of that, and that’s what they’re wanting to do.”
Billy Friend said the legal challenge by the state was expected. Contractors are already clearing the area for the casino, and he still plans to open it by the end of the year, he said.
“We’re moving ahead as quick as we can,” Friend said. “We’ve been down this road before and unfortunately we have to go down it again. But we’re intent on gaming there and bringing economic development to Park City, Kansas.”
This story was originally published August 10, 2020 at 6:38 PM.