The Anchorage Assembly has a government-to-government meeting scheduled for Thursday with the Native Village of Eklutna, as it does twice a year since 2021, when it formally acknowledged the 70-member tribe as a co-equal government in Anchorage.
On the agenda is a briefing on the makeshift casino now operating in the Birchwood neighborhood, which is a significant issue for the community.
Last month, Debbie Ossiander of the Chugiak Eagle River Advisory Board, which is established by municipal code to advise the city on planning relating to the area, sent a resolution to the Assembly complaining that it was never consulted about the Chin’an Gaming Project, a casino that is being built in a quiet residential area near the Birchwood Airport in Birchwood, approximately 20 miles northeast of downtown Anchorage.
The site, owned by the village through Native allotments, is situated off Birchwood Spur Road, close to the Alaska Railroad tracks and Peters Creek, within the Municipality of Anchorage. Currently, it’s a doublewide trailer casino being operated by the Native Village of Eklutna on an 8-acre Native allotment owned by tribal members.
The Mayor’s Office is acting as though it has no planning or zoning control over the site, and has allowed the massive project to go forward with no planning or environmental oversight.
The advisory board says that the project has had multiple violation of land use code and policies, a lack of community involvement, and potential negative effects on the community. Residents report excessive dust coming from the construction onto the road to their homes. The Mayor’s Office is taking a “not my problem” approach to the massive change to the community.
Per code, the Municipality of Anchorage must give the community councils and advisory boards notice about issues impacting their neighborhoods.
No such notice was ever given to the community council or the planning advisory board for the area.
The resolution by the community advisory board is demanding the municipality adhere to municipal code and give the relevant councils notice about what is happening in their neighborhoods, and listen to the council and board input:
The first resolution was ignored.
A second resolution was also passed, challenging the exemptions that the gaming hall claims it has from state and local regulatory law, including the payment of local taxes. It says residents are getting no response from code enforcement over noise, dust, and traffic complaints. The resolution asks for clarity over jurisdiction. It was also ignored by the municipality.
Neither of these resolutions from legal entities established by the Assembly in municipal code were included on the agenda for Thursday’s meeting with the Village of Eklutna.
However, the joint meeting of the Assembly and the village has agenda items such as the Eklutna River restoration, renaming local places in the area, public safety, boarding school investigation, use of alcohol tax funds for “culturally relevant programming,” and municipal employee training.
Although Debbie Ossiander, with the Chugiak Eagle River Advisory Board, said she asked if she could be part of Thursday’s meeting, she was told that while she could attend, she could not speak, except during the public comment section of the meeting.
The advisory board continues to voice its concerns not only with noise, traffic, and environmental impacts to Peters Creek, which is 50 yards from the unregulated building project, but also jurisdictional questions.
Meanwhile, the State of Alaska has filed a lawsuit to clarify these jurisdictional issues and the federal decision on the casino, the first in Alaska.
The state’s lawsuit, filed on Feb. 4, challenges federal decisions by the U.S. Department of the Interior and the National Indian Gaming Commission that authorized the Native Village of Eklutna to conduct gaming on what is known as the Ondola Allotment, a Native-owned parcel of land. The State argues that these decisions, particularly the DOI’s 2024 Anderson Opinion, unlawfully reversed decades of precedent — specifically the 1993 Sansonetti Opinion and a 2021 federal court ruling — by granting the tribe jurisdiction over the allotment for gaming purposes.
The Chin’an Gaming Hall temporarily opened in doublewide trailers to the public on Feb. 3, just one day before the lawsuit was filed, and has since reported brisk business.
The State seeks declaratory and injunctive relief to overturn the federal approvals and halt gaming operations, asserting that the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) of 1971 intended for the State to maintain primary jurisdiction over such lands, not tribes.
No court ruling has been issued, but the case could have significant implications for tribal sovereignty and gaming in Alaska, where Indian Country was extinguished by the ANCSA.
Legal proceedings of this nature typically take months to progress, but while gaming goes on in trailers, the construction of the main commercial facility has been under way, all guided by a Las Vegas developer. The developer’s strategy is to establish gaming before the decision comes down, setting up a case for a challenge to a higher court over whether the federal government has ultimate jurisdiction over the six-acre parcel, as it does in Indian Country.
Another lawsuit was filed by Birchwood residents in the U.S. District Court for Alaska, a case that also remains unresolved.
When communists/leftists are elected as mayor and to the city council there will be an increase in favoritism and ignoring of law. A historically observable phenomenon now evident in Los Anchorage.
No invite? Big surprise- you don’t need a psychic or estimator to guess that! Tgey are using the color of law to s**** the public. Wow – so the tribes’ operating like a communist entity by leaving out the non-native Anchorage public who pay taxes to be fd by them. Awesome Anchorage! not. They’re digging their own graves. I’ll never live in Alaska again!
Forget it. If Natives do it, they get away with it, and non-Natives be damned. I’m sure the Eklutna tribe will provide all the law enforcement needed to prevent damage and injury to the folks who live in Birchwood, plus prevent drunks from driving home from the casino. I’m sure that’s the case. Sure I am. Sorry folks, but no Alaska Native tribe is a sovereign nation since ANILCA. If the mayor had any sense at all…. Oh well.
ANILCA? Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act? Take another stab at it, sweetie!
Looks like you are a typo, too, sport.
Almost as bad as not inviting the Ukrainians to a meeting with Russia. 🙄
Good luck to the assembly getting a nice hand out. The gambling on reservations in the states do not give a cut to the counties or states they operate in. The location is on tribal land, no hand outs necessary.
Follow the money. Locals already locked into paying taxes. City knows that. They are o ly fleas. The casino will sweeten the city’s coffer. 70 tribal members? All will get rich.
“…….All will get rich………”
That’s what they claim. I remain skeptical because that certainly isn’t how it worked down in the states.
Federal and Native land and is not required to comply with local zoning, or building codes.
There is no native land in Alaska, Frank. Tribes in Alaska do not have land. Native allotments are private property. They can be sold or rented like any other private property.
It appears to be private property, and that owner is Native. So can a Native man open a casino in the middle of Anchorage on his private property, Frank?
We don’t have reservations up here, or did you miss that part of political history?
This article reports that “The [Chugiak Eagle River] advisory board says that the project has had multiple violations of land use code and policies” and the “The Mayor’s Office is taking a ‘not my problem’ approach.”
If the Muni chooses not to address these obvious violations of land use code and policies that impact a large number of people residing and working in the Municipality, then ask Mayor LaFrance why she supports a totally unqualified code enforcer to file a notice of violation (at $300.00 per day) against my small honeybee apiary when it is NOT out of compliance with Muni code?
Yup.
Mire favoritism showed towards minorities.
Can you imagine the hue and cry if this was white people trying to do this anywhere in Alaska.
It would not be tolerated for a second – permits denied, civil and criminal charges, NGO lawsuits against the developers, faux outrage by the MSM, and, of course, performative condemnation by the local ProgComm politicians.
Trump won, we can tell the truth.
This Las Vegas-operated casino operation is a classic example of “privatize the profits, socialize the losses.” The profits will flow to Las Vegas and to powerful members of the Eklutna Tribe, while a steady flow of broken and bankrupted people will be sent back to Anchorage for the city’s taxpayers to deal with. This is an exploitative, cruel, cynical game that we are playing here, and the ultimate result will be further degradation and impoverishment of Anchorage.
For rest. Look to Metlakatla to see an already operating example. The town looks third world. There is no money there in residents pockets. The casino is the center of ‘town’ . Very sad. The upside is there are no ‘neighbors’ to wrack havoc upon.
Who would have ever imagined that Debbie Ossiander, of all people, wasn’t Left enough and/or Progressive enough to be informed of the Assembly’s motiives and, not be allowed to speak as a representative of the local community advisory board. Oh, and don’t even think about using their first name if you’re planning on calling them out during your public testimony lest your mic be turned off.
Thanks to Suzanne Downing, we were informed that Rep. Jamie Allard had a visit in Juneau from the Vegas thugs tied to this casino. Not one thing about this seems appropriate thus, the Assembly wanting to keep this WAY under the radar. I hope Assembly members give their proper Land Acknowledgement tithe when stepping foot into their sacred casino.
Once again Anchorage proves that poor public officials are elected by those that don’t vote.
Leftists are a virus.
They took the land and money under Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) of 1971 as a village corporation. If the Village of Eklutna voted to opt out of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of the 1970s THEN they would have retained rights to their land and waters. Right now, they are counting on a favorable judge’s ruling that an native allotment is “indian country” and not subject to State or City laws, local ordinances, any and all permitting requirements, noise restrictions, etc. We will see and it will go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to definitively settle this matter.
Cancer always starts with a single cell, then grows unchecked. The end result is always the same. Good Luck Anchorage. You are going to need it.
“……..Residents report excessive dust coming from the construction onto the road to their homes………”
Sounds like a SWPPP violation to me. The community council might want to talk to DEC about that. Maybe the state can help if the muni is corrupt?
“……..Currently, it’s a doublewide trailer casino being operated by the Native Village of Eklutna on an 8-acre Native allotment owned by tribal members………”
I just reviewed the “property” on the muni land records page. It’s appears to be at least three different lots if the “casino” consists of eight acres. Three of those potential lots are listed as owned by an individual, and other adjoining lots are owned by Eklutna Village.
Can this casino be on private lands under this murky “Indian casino” justification being pushed forward by an Alaska Native village in violation of the spirit of ANSCA and State of Alaska constitutional law? At the very least, shouldn’t it be owned by the village in order for its supposed racial welfare claims to be valid?
Giant casino? I saw the drawing of the casino and in no way did it look giant. Obviously alot of people in that area have never been to Vegas. Also, plenty of indian villages/corporations own casinos in the lower 48 and are doing quite well. Not all indian corporations have the funds like Ahtna, Bering Straits, Calista etc to make the money they do for their shareholders. Im guessing Eklutna found an opportunity to partner up with someone who can help their shareholders prosper. Everyone wants the freedom to do what they want to do with their own property until its someone else’s property and then they all have an opinion.
It has been said, “ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES!”