Governor starts gambling talks with the tribe
By Mary Ellen Klas
Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau
© 2009 Tuesday, July 02, 2009
Gov. Charlie Crist and the Seminole Tribe of Florida began negotiating a new gambling compact today that would bring new revenue to the state in exchange for the tribe's right to a monopoly on some of its casino games.
Lawyers for the governor and the tribe met Wednesday morning in Tallahassee to set schedules and review the issues to be discussed, said George LeMieux, a Tallahassee lawyer and Crist's former chief of staff who will be a part of the governor's negotiating team. They will resume discussions again in mid-July with a goal of completing the talks by Aug. 31, he said.
The governor must re-negotiate the agreement he signed in 2007 with the Seminole Tribe of Florida because it invalidated by the Florida Supreme Court a year ago. Since then, the Florida Legislature passed legislation that lays out the framework for what Crist should seek in his talks with the tribe.
Under those guidelines, the state would give the Seminoles the exclusive right to operate slot machines outside of Miami-Dade and Broward counties and the exclusive right to banked card games -- black jack, baccarat and chemin de fer -- in Broward and Hillsborough counties. In return, the tribe would be expected to pay the state $150 million a year.
Barry Richard, one of the tribe's lead lawyers, has said the dollar amount is too high and the legislative conditions are a non-starter because they would require the tribe to continue paying -- but a at a lesser rate --if lawmakers give casino games to other parimutuels in the future.
LeMieux said Wednesday that he expects the tribe to reach an agreement with the state despite those concerns. "The tribe is extremely professional and I believe they will work in good faith to get something done, as opposed to failing to reach an agreement," he said.
The issues of contention will be the same as they were during the 2007 negotiations, LeMieux said: which games will the tribe receive exclusive rights to, how much will they pay the state, how many facilities will be allowed to offer black jack and other banked card games and how much regulation will they have to comply with.
The goal of the governor's office and the tribe is to have a compact signed by Aug. 31, the deadline legislators set out in the bill.
The governor's team will also include his general counsel Rob Wheeler and his chief of staff Eric Eikenberg. LeMieux said he is volunteering his time to work on the negotiationsto "keep some continuity to the talks."
Waiting for the flop
By Fred Hiers
Staff writer
© 2009 Ocala.com
Published June 13, 2009
Reprinted Thursday, July 02, 2009
If the gambling deal put together by Florida lawmakers this spring was a hand of high-stakes poker, the Seminole Indian Tribe looks poised to pick up its pile of chips and leave the table.
A scuttled deal would hurt Ocala's horse industry as much as anyone, because the equine industry is depending on revenue from the compact.
The tribe's lawyer, Barry Richard, said this week that some terms of the gambling package, which still needs Gov. Charlie Crist's signature and the Seminoles' approval, will have to be changed if the state wants the tribe's OK.
"As a lawyer, I believe there are some provisions ... included in the compact that need to be modified," Richard said, adding it wouldn't be approved by the tribe as it currently stood.
He said the proposed deal wasn't giving the Seminoles enough exclusive rights to such card games as blackjack and baccarat in exchange for the Seminole's annual $150 million payments to the state.
At stake are billions of dollars in revenue for both sides of the table.
The state education system is slated to receive more than $2 billion from Indian casinos during the next 15 years once the deal is signed.
As for the Seminole tribe, the deal would put to rest a legal dispute with the state as to the Seminoles' right to offer its casino patrons card games such as blackjack and baccarat.
The deal would bring billions of dollars from patrons into the tribe's three Broward County casinos and Hard Rock facility in Tampa.
The Seminoles would also be able to install Las Vegas-style slots in all seven of its casinos.
This is how the deal affects Ocala:
Part of the gaming package includes a reduction in the state's slot machine tax. A reduction from the current 50 percent to the proposed 35 percent means more money would go to horse racing purses. Bigger purses would help fuel Marion's thoroughbred industry, which is already in financial trouble because of the recession.
Richard said the problem is that the Seminoles aren't getting their money's worth from the state's proposed deal.
In 2007, Crist negotiated a deal with the tribe in which only the Seminoles could offer those card games in exchange for $100 million annually paid to state coffers.
The Florida Supreme Court later struck that deal down, saying Crist went beyond his authority in making the agreement.
Richard said he also has a problem with part of the new deal that allows South Florida pari-mutuels, where slot machines are already allowed, to offer blackjack and other card games if voters or state lawmakers approve the change.
Richard said that's taking too much away from the Seminoles.
"The tribe cannot pay for some exclusivity," he said. "We struck that balance in the first compact. That balance has been changed."
But Richard said lawmakers could make the necessary changes within the scope of its current proposed legislation, though he would not be specific as to what the tribe might want.
Rep. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, who was a chief negotiator for the state, said there wasn't much room for change. The new deal still gives the Seminoles an advantage over the rest of the state, he said, and the new deal reduces the tribe's $150 million annual payment if gambling expansion meant that the tribe's casinos pulled in less money.
The old Crist deal would have allowed the Seminoles to pay nothing to the state if another non-Indian facility allowed blackjack or baccarat.
Galvano said the new deal was more reasonable. He added that the Seminole Tribe was part of the process as the House and Senate hammered out a deal earlier.
Richard Hancock, executive vice president of the Florida Thoroughbred Breeders' and Owners' Association, said that if the deal did come apart, Ocala and the horse industry would suffer, especially during these difficult economic times.
"It would really set us back," he said. "You need a little hope for the future."