STOP THE BELOIT CASINO!

We, the undersigned eligible voters of the State of Wisconsin, strongly urge Governor Evers to reject the Ho-Chunk Nation’s fee-to-trust application for an off-reservation casino in Beloit, Wisconsin.   This is a bad deal for Beloit and the entire State of Wisconsin for the following reasons:

The Beloit Casino would be a precedent setting, first of its kind, off-reservation casino in Wisconsin. The casino market is already over-saturated with 25 casinos throughout Wisconsin, leaving no Wisconsin resident with more than a 2-hour drive.  Adding a casino would reduce the gains from one tribe to benefit another. It might well threaten the intertribal cooperation that has generally characterized the past two decades. Casinos prey on the repeat business of local residents, and in a saturated market, do not serve as a draw for tourism.

Creating an urban off-reservation casino on a prime parcel of 33 acres in Beloit, with the likelihood of an additional adjacent 40 acre parcel currently owned by Ho-Chunk Nation becoming a part of the fee-to-trust, will cause the local community to lose control over a major part of its city.

Despite the repeated citations of “overwhelming community support” (all point to a citizen advisory referendum conducted 20 years ago), there is major opposition by the citizens of Beloit and throughout the state of Wisconsin.  The economic circumstances are much improved since then, giving way to sound long-term development throughout the city.   The casino has made little progress over the past 20 years, until the Nov. 9, 2018 ruling from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) that placed a draft environmental impact statement of the plan in the federal registry.  In an effort to mute the opposition, a BIA-sponsored public hearing in December of 2018, was inconveniently sandwiched between Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. The final environmental impact study was released in May of 2019 with the public comment period also inconveniently positioned between the Memorial Day and July 4^th holidays in 2019.

We, the people of Wisconsin, having been denied adequate access to information and the opportunity to provide critical feedback.   Therefore, we strongly urge Governor Evers to reject the Ho-Chunk Nation’s fee-to-trust request for the Beloit Casino.