Through the window of his grocery store on Comanche Avenue in this town of 950 people and zero stoplights, Tom Wisted has watched the anemic economy force a lumber yard, bank and hardware store to close in the last seven years.
During that time, a plan to bring a Native American electronic bingo hall to a rolling cornfield on the outskirts of town has been a symbol of hope and doom. Some see the Kansas-based Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation’s plan as economic salvation; others see it as the ruination of peaceful rural culture.
“I’d do better if it comes this way,” Wisted said one afternoon between customers at Wisted’s Country Market. “But I really feel I have to remain neutral. I don’t want to step on anybody’s toes. It’s a small community.”
It may be small, but Shabbona, 70 miles west of Chicago in DeKalb County, is setting itself up as something of a national proving ground for Native American gambling. The plan for a 24-hour bingo hall, which has reignited emotions since a federal agency collected public comments last month, would create Illinois’ first Native American casino, one that could set a national precedent for a growing, $29 billion industry and introduces a new form of gambling to the state.
Perhaps the most critical issue is whether the nation has the legal right to build a casino on the 128 acres it bought in a private sale for $8.8 million in 2006. To obtain U.S. Department of Interior approval for the casino, the tribe must show, among other elements, that it has a credible claim to the land, that the land would be used to “facilitate tribal self-determination, economic development or Indian housing,” and that the plan would not harm the environment.
The Prairie Band Potawatomi contend the land, which borders a forest preserve and Shabbona Lake State Park, is part of 1,280 acres the U.S. government gave to the tribe’s Chief Shab-eh-nay — for whom the town of Shabbona is named — and his band as part of a treaty signed in 1829. The Potawatomi back up their contention with a 2001 letter from the Department of Interior’s solicitor stating that the band “has a credible claim for … title to this land.”
A group opposing the bingo hall says the land was not formally considered a reservation, merely given to Chief Shab-eh-nay for his personal use, and that the chief voluntarily abandoned and tried to sell it. Opponents also point to an Illinois attorney general opinion from 2007 that the tribe lacks a valid claim to build and operate a casino on the land.
Another issue stems from a 2011 federal policy change on where tribes can place casinos. In June of that year, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk scrapped an earlier guideline that allowed tribes to establish gambling facilities within “commutable distance” of the reservation, generally considered about 40 miles. The change, made after consulting with tribal leaders from all over the U.S., created new guidelines that make no specific reference to the allowable distance between a reservation and the location of a tribe’s casino. Since then, the number of applications for tribes looking to place casinos off reservations has grown substantially, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs has approved more applications.
The Prairie Band’s proposal would place the electronic bingo hall about 500 miles from the tribe’s reservation in Mayetta, Kan., one of the longest distances between a reservation and its casino in the U.S. At two states away, the Shabbona location would stretch that allowable distance considerably and, opponents claim, set a precedent for Native American tribes to open casinos nearly anywhere in the U.S.
It also would bring a video gaming device to Illinois that state law does not cover. The 2009 law that legalized video gambling in Illinois does not specifically allow electronic bingo machines. The National Indian Gaming Commission and a local tribal gaming commission — not the state — would regulate the bingo hall.
A total of 800 electronic bingo machines — video monitors featuring bingo card images that players update by touching the screen after each called number — would be placed in the proposed facility. Two bars, a full-service restaurant and “a quick-food outlet” also are part of the plan, according to documents provided by the Potawatomi Nation, which outlined that the entire footprint of the gaming facility, including its parking lot, would cover 15 of the tribe’s 128 acres.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs, which in January and February collected public comments on the casino’s environmental impact, is reviewing the proposal. A preliminary report on that impact is expected in October, Department of Interior spokeswoman Nedra Darling said, but a ruling from the department could take years. Documents from the Potawatomi Nation indicate the bingo hall would open in 2018 at the earliest.
Some say it can’t come soon enough.
“Right now, the town is stagnant,” said Dirk Enger, president of Aurora-based ironworkers Local Union 393, and a supporter of the bingo hall. “It’s not on the map for developers.”
Potawatomi consultants estimate the casino would draw 930,000 people a year, more than twice the 400,000 visitors that come to the state park annually. More than 650 construction jobs would be created, followed by 400 jobs at the facility and a permanent payroll of more than $40 million a year, the consultants say. In addition, the gaming facility would purchase about $12 million a year in goods and services from Illinois providers.
As spelled out in a variety of written agreements, local governments and agencies also stand to gain millions of dollars.
The casino would send $2.25 million a year in revenue sharing and $400,000 a year for payments in lieu of taxes — from which Native American tribes are exempt — to DeKalb County. The nation also would donate $25,000 a year to local charities and contribute $5,000 annually for treatment of compulsive behaviors.
Also, the village of Shabbona is projected to receive $250,000 a year in its shared revenue agreement with the Potawatomi, and the tribe has agreed to pay for additional law enforcement and to fund the costs of an EMT and paramedic.
“Most businesses want to come into the community and have the community give them incentives to come,” said Denny Sands, a former DeKalb County board chairman and sheriff’s police sergeant who owns the cafe, bait shop and boat rental business at the state park. “This is just the opposite. The tribe is coming into the community to be a good neighbor, to give back to the community.”
Attracting merely 1 percent of casino visitors every year would mean more than 9,000 new customers to local businesses, Sands said.
Although local business groups agree with Sands’ assessment, Wisted said his informal chats with customers indicate half support the plan and half oppose it.
One of the more ardent opponents is Peter Dordal, 59, an associate professor of computer science at Loyola University Chicago who in 2000 moved a few hundred feet south of the land the tribe purchased six years later. He and his wife, Peg, share a red brick house and 8 acres with a menagerie of animals.
President of DeKalb County Taxpayers Against the Casino, Dordal notes that the bingo parlor would be next to a forest preserve and state park — hardly compatible uses. In a letter to the Bureau of Indian Affairs during the comment period, Dordal stated that the casino’s payroll would be closer to $8 million a year — well below the tribe’s estimates — while area patrons will spend at least $24 million at the bingo hall.
“It introduces lots of financial stress, family stress (and) some crime,” Dordal said while sitting in his home across the gravel road from Shabbona Lake State Park. “Casinos are hard on communities.”
Intoxication, traffic and stormwater runoff from the proposed site to nearby Shabbona Lake also would be detrimental to the natural areas and quiet, rural atmosphere, Dordal said.
“It just seems like a very bad land-use decision to convert this park to the backyard of a casino,” he added.
Thomas Swoik is another skeptic. Executive director of the Illinois Casino Gaming Association, Swoik noted that the state already has more than 34,000 video gaming machines in casinos, restaurants, bars and other establishments.
“The state is pretty well saturated,” Swoik said. If the Potawatomi bingo hall materializes, “You’re basically moving the revenue from one type of gaming facility to another.”
But Sands, a lifelong resident of Shabbona, said he was impressed during nearly a dozen visits to the Potawatomi casino in Kansas and admires the tribe’s community commitment and respect for “what they consider Mother Earth.”
And he remembered concerns local residents expressed 40 years ago when officials proposed the state park that has become a place that brings economic vitality while preserving the natural environment.
“There were the same fears that are being brought up now by certain groups,” he said, “and the state park is fine. We’ve had no problems at all with traffic, or crime or other issues that tend to get exaggerated.”
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