I was a little taken aback reading a March news story about a Tribal panel dismissing complaints against Fond du Lac’s leadership. It wasn’t the dismissal that surprised me it was the casual mention that the Tribal budget is 200 million dollars.
According to Wikipedia the Reservation’s year 2000 population was 3,700. Gaming has been good for Chair Diver’s people. I’d be very interested to know what the Rez’s budget was when I arrived in Duluth 40 years ago pre-Bingo. The City of Duluth with a population of 86,000 projects a budget for 2014 of $254 million. Today the band is rich as Croesus which makes their treatment of the Carter Hotel seem a little high handed. Suddenly the once much put upon local native Americans have real financial muscle on their side and Duluth just has pot holed streets.
I can’t blame Mayor Ness for trying to get the paltry $6 million (19% of casino profits) back from Fond du lac for our crumbling streets that was lost in Court. Someday I’ll have to read the decision but I’ve got too much time to do anything other than to simply link to it now.
