BROKEN ARROW - The Kialegee Tribal Town is planning to build a gaming establishment in Broken Arrow that would be called the Red Clay Casino, a city planning official confirmed.
Development Services Director Michael Skates said the federally recognized tribe plans to open a temporary facility in March that would consist of about eight to 12 prefabricated buildings with slot machines. The tribe plans to build a permanent casino building that would be complete around the beginning of 2013, he said.
Skates said that because the land is held in trust, the tribe does not have to apply for any permits other than one for the construction of a 16-inch water line.
The land is at the southwest corner of South Olive Avenue (129th East Avenue) and West Florence Street (111th Street), just north of the Creek Turnpike.
"It's been under Indian ownership for quite some time," Skates said.
The city will work on an interlocal agreement with the tribe for police and fire protection, he said. Dirt work at the site is under way.
Skates said he met with John Fox of FoxCor, a construction management firm, on Monday morning regarding the project. The city has been given a set of plans and will be requesting the final plans when they are available, he said.
Although the casino will not have to go through the city planning process, Skates said the city does plan to submit comments to the tribe.
Fox referred casino questions to Palmetto Bay, Fla., attorney Luis Figueredo, who was not immediately available.
Tiger Hobia, the Kialegee Tribal Town's "town king," or chief, also was not immediately available.
Records show that a compact between the state and the Kialegee Tribal Town was approved on July 19 for Class III gaming on Indian lands.
Land records show that the property is owned by Wynema Capps and Marcella Giles.
Records show that Capps and Giles are Muscogee (Creek) sisters who inherited the property from their father, Yahola Burgess, who inherited it from Tyler Burgess, a full-blood Muscogee (Creek) who is on the Dawes Rolls.
Court records show that the property has been exempt from property taxes.
Kialegee was originally a Creek town in Alabama and part of the Muscogee Confederacy. Today the tribal town is headquartered near Wetumka, in Hughes County, and has 439 members. It is considered part of the Muskogee (Creek) Nation.
According to the tribal town's Facebook page, it operates a day care center, a gas station, a smoke shop and housing.
News accounts reflect that the tribe has been met with resistance over the past decade when it sought to build casinos in Georgia and Texas.
According to one of the more recent reports in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the tribe was planning to buy land near Brunswick, Ga., that would become its new homeland if the Bureau of Indian Affairs approved the move.
There was opposition to that plan because some thought it would compete with the existing gambling on cruise ships off the coast if the tribe were to introduce land-based gambling to Georgia.
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