Shinnecocks casino team visits Brookhaven airport at invitation of town and county officials

Representatives of the Shinnecock Indian Nation and their financial backer, Detroit casino developer Michael Malick, visited the sprawling Brookhaven Airport property on Friday morning at the invitation of Brookhaven Town lawmakers and members of the Suffolk County Gaming Task Force, who were pitching the 600-acre property as a possible site for a future Shinnecock-operated casino.

Brookhaven Town Supervisor Mark Lesko confirmed that the town hosted the Shinnecock contingent. After the tour of the airport property, town officials gave a presentation on details about the property, including aerial images and connections to area roads.

“We had preliminary discussions about the site, which were productive and positive,” Mr. Lesko said on Monday. He declined to comment on the substance of the conversations beyond the details of the property.

The property abuts the Sunrise Highway service road, potentially providing the sort of major artery access the tribe has said is key to a casino location.

Mr. Lesko said the invitation to the Shinnecocks to visit the Brookhaven Airport property was sent out at the behest of the Suffolk County Gaming Task Force a week after Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano announced that he had held meetings with Shinnecock representatives about the possibility of a casino anchoring the redevelopment of the Nassau Memorial Coliseum property in Uniondale. Tribal officials, including two of the three Tribal Trustees, and Mr. Malick visited the Nassau Coliseum site on Friday afternoon as well.

Tribal Trustee Randy King was adamant that all the talks with various government officials and site visits are purely exploratory and not indicative of any current negotiations. The tribe is a long way from being able to settle on a site for a casino, he said.

“We have multiple consultants and representatives talking to people and having a variety of conversations with a lot of people that want to talk about different possibilities,” Mr. King, who was not part of the entourage to visit the Brookhaven and Uniondale sites on Friday, said on Monday. “We’re not trying to pit one site against ... another, and we really don’t focus on the casino sites as much as people seem to think. We would love to just see the recognition process through and go from there. We’ve got a long way to go still and a lot to do.”

The Shinnecocks are expected to be awarded federal recognition by the Bureau of Indian Affairs this summer, ending a decade-long legal battle with the agency over their official status. Once recognized, the tribe would be cleared to open a small gaming facility, something that offers low-stakes games, on tribal land—a move the tribe has not been planning, but has not ruled out, either.

But if the tribe plans to open a large casino, it will have to purchase or somehow acquire a suitably-sized property, somewhere beyond the South Fork.

Tribal Trustee Lance Gumbs said that a key to identifying the right site will be local support from the surrounding communities.

“You have to start somewhere that wants you because that is going to be the basis for building support up to the state level,” Mr. Gumbs said.

Whatever site is ultimately selected will have to be placed into a federal trust on behalf of the tribe—once a simple process that has been complicated by a recent Supreme Court ruling in a Rhode Island case and will likely require sponsorship in the U.S. Congress by New York’s federal representatives.

Mr. Gumbs, who for the last year has advocated for the tribe looking at Suffolk County sites rather than possibilities closer to New York City so that the casino can be a potential job source for tribal members, said that he was impressed by the pitch Brookhaven officials made for the airport.

“They were very aware of the viability of Indian gaming and have done their due diligence in understanding the potential of gaming to their town—I was quite impressed with that,” Mr. Gumbs said. “The property is basically construction ready, it’s within decent commutable range and it connects to the service road and the William Floyd [Parkway]. But we don’t know the politics as a whole. It’s really just an idea that this might be something we want to consider down the road.”

Brookhaven Town Councilman Dan Panico said a Shirley casino would have to be vetted by the community. He said that the former Parr Meadows horse track property, another potential Brookhaven casino site, 
would probably be preferable to the airport because of its connection to the Long Island Expressway.

“I think the supervisor ... wanted to jump into what I will call the casino sweepstakes to gain revenue for the placement of a casino,” Mr. Panico said. “However, I think you will hear from many people that the placement of a casino at Brookhaven Airport is a sweepstakes they would rather not win.”