Sviggum talks casino and racino

02/25/2005

Patricia Lopez, Robert Franklin and Kevin Duchschere, Star Tribune
February 25, 2005

When resistance meets a 4,000-slot machine casino complex run by the state and three northern Indian bands, what’s the answer? Only in the political world could it well be more slot machines.

As news of the impending deal between Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the Red Lake, Leech Lake and White Earth bands filtered out on Thursday, House Speaker Steve Sviggum, R-Kenyon, said that linking the Indian casino proposal with a proposal to put slots at Canterbury Park racetrack—the so-called racino—might assure passage for both.

“I will be very supportive of the governor’s proposal,” Sviggum said on Thursday, “but I assume this is not at the expense of the racino, but in addition to it. I think they both need to happen.”

Canterbury is seeking 3,000 slot machines. Combined with the 4,000-plus sought by the northern bands, that could mean adding 7,000 metro-area slot machines in a market that now has about 20,000 slots statewide.

House Republicans have voted for a racino before, and House Majority Leader Erik Paulsen, R-Eden Prairie, said many of them prefer to keep gambling at existing venues. “Possibly we’ll have a melding of the racino and the governor’s proposal,” he said.

Canterbury has offered to pay $100 million a year to the state in return for slots. That’s as much as Pawlenty initially had planned to get from a metro casino when he proposed it as part of his budget last month. Doubling the amount of money to the state available for schools, health care and other necessities might prove irresistible to legislators in the end, Sviggum said.

“These could be very lucrative investments, and the state needs to be in on them,” Sviggum said.

Opposition has been much fiercer in the DFL-controlled Senate, with most DFLers opposing any gambling expansion, while Republicans have been receptive mostly to the racino.

Senate Minority Leader Dick Day, R-Owatonna, an impassioned advocate of the racino for the past seven years, said Thursday that he is “irritated” that Pawlenty continues to pursue a deal with the Indian bands.

“This all seems so convoluted,” Day said of the Pawlenty proposal, which would have the three bands operate a casino through the Minnesota State Lottery. “Why don’t we just give the Native Americans $30 [million] to $50 million a year if that’s what they want?”

Day said support for a separate Indian casino in the metro area was so limited that “I can’t think of more than three or four in my caucus who would support it. I think the governor is really wrong on this. Will I be talking up the governor’s plan? No way.”

House Minority Leader Matt Entenza, DFL-St. Paul, said Pawlenty keeps shifting his position on gambling. “First he said this was about a fairer deal for the state. Then he said it was about a fairer deal for the northern tribes. At the end of the day, it’s really all about him. His political career here will be in jeopardy if the schools don’t get more money, and his national ambitions will be in jeopardy if he breaks his [no-tax] pledge to the Taxpayers League. That’s why this deal is in front of us.”

Local reaction mixed

Burnsville and Albertville have been mentioned as possible casino sites, and officials of both cities said Thursday that they could accommodate such a project.

Burnsville is open to the concept, and “that would be an approved land use” along the Minnesota River, said Tammy Omdal, deputy city manager and chief financial officer.

A casino could be located on part of a 1,600-acre riverfront site that is slated for redevelopment in the next 10 to 15 years.

Albertville City Administrator Larry Kruse said that “we’re probably a likely candidate for the location ... but the council has not actively discussed that.”

Real estate developer John Darkenwald said he was contacted late last year by a casino consulting group for the tribes about a 115-acre site he plans to develop just west of the Albertville outlet mall.

Darkenwald said that the site has “got the right zoning,” and that he’s already gotten government approval for 150,000 square feet of commercial development on the site, which is adjacent to Interstate Hwy. 94.