Tribe opening new casino after failure of its first one
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Silver Reef is the second casino opened by the tribe; the first closed in 1997 after losing $2 million. This time around, the tribe has turned to a professional management company, the Merit Management Group of Chicago.
Merit will get 18 percent of the net proceeds of the casino under a five-year management agreement, which includes a two-year renewal clause. The company and Wells Fargo bank financed the project.
The tribe ultimately hopes to use proceeds from the casino for tribal social, health, education and economic-development projects, said Tribal Chairman Darrell Hillaire.
Washington tribes disperse the net proceeds of gambling as they see fit, except for a state requirement that 2 percent be set aside to pay for roads, police and other needs to offset impacts a casino may have on the surrounding community.
The Lummi Nation's new casino is the 15th tribal casino operating in the state. It has Craftsman-style architecture, granite countertops, hand-set mosaic tiles, stonework columns, an etched-glass mural of Mount Baker and faux cedar beams.
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Giving casino gambling another try was "a no brainer," he said, after new state regulations allowed the tribe to offer popular video slot machines.
At its peak in 1992, the first Lummi casino had about 450 employees and was the second-largest employer in Whatcom County. The casino had drawn 80 percent of its customers from north of the border but lost much of that business when Canada liberalized its gambling laws.
The tribe's first casino was farther from Interstate 5 than the new one. It was operated by the tribal council, which ran it too much as an employment agency and not as a hard-nosed business venture, some tribal members said.
"There was a lot of 'this is my cousin and you have to hire him,' that kind of thing," said Gordon Adams, vice chairman of the Lummi tribal council.
The casino is already providing 281 jobs with about half of them going to tribal members, most of them of the Lummi Nation, said Harlan Oppenheim, general manager of Silver Reef.
Unemployment ranges between 30 and 40 percent on the reservation. The casino could dent that by 2 to 3 percent, said Aaron Thomas, director of communications for the Lummi Nation.
The Lummi were a fishing tribe for hundreds of years, and no one sees them giving up their identity as a people of the sea. "I don't know how you could take fishing out of their blood; it don't come out," said Louella Toby, a tribal member who sent her eight sons and four daughters out to fish.
The tribe owns 7,000 acres of tidal lands, a 750-acre aqua-culture pond and the third-largest oyster factory on the West Coast. But salmon runs and prices have become too fickle to count on.
With prices for salmon and crab declining, Albert Toby, 38, now runs school-recreation programs for a living. "And a lot of my buddies put their fishing gear away so they could get a steady job at the casino," he said.
Lummi tribal member Frank Lawrence III says he still fishes to satisfy his soul. But for work? Find him tending bar at the Silver Reef.
He beamed with enthusiasm while readying for opening day: "I just want to be here for my people and do the best I can. I just know we are going to succeed."
Lynda V. Mapes can be reached at 206-464-2736 or lmapes@seattletimes.com.