At the first place, Snoqualmie Tribe are not running their Casino well enough to get profit but to pay their debt. Who is involved in both cases? Mr. Larry Claunch is the Chairman in both cases.
Mr. Larry Claunch, you got an explanation to make to the people of Fiji before March 2012. Please do the honourable thing and explain yourself.
Secondly, those responsible should have done their homework. If you can't take the heat in present Govt or situation, get off the bus and find your way home!
Due to Public, Bloggers and special demand I need to be back on line again!
Happy Christmas!
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 25, 2011
Fiji's new casino team 'fails to bring prosperity to tribal members'
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| SNOQUALMIE SEATTLE CASINO: Projected profits have not eventuated. |
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| Tribal lockout |
The Native American casino team the investor Larry Claunch says will help him develop the casino in Denerau and Suva has been revealed to be bringing in just a quarter of the revenue it promised its 600-strong members.
Claunch was granted the exclusive licence to run Fiji's first casino this week and he named the Snoqualmie tribe as the outfit that would help him develop the casinos.
But the Seattle Times has revealed Snoqualmie has failed to generate the profits tribal members expected, despite the showpiece casino it opened in Seattle last November. In an article titled 'Big pay off eluding tribe,' reporter Lynda Mapes says she has obtained information which shows Snoqualmie has been faced with budget cuts and layoffs.
She cites a memo written by a grant and contract administration consultant, Henry Grant, to the tribal council and administrator which says: "The adopted budget for 2009 ... has proved to be wildly inaccurate. Gaming revenue is $250,000 a month instead of $1,000,000 a month. A combination of cutbacks and loan funding is imperative to avoid financial collapse."
The Seattle Times also says the tribe is in political turmoil again thanks to a dispute over elections in 2008, and that it continues to be wracked by a fallout in the leadership, to the point it's not meeting regularly.
The paper says the memo singled out unresolved federal audit findings questioning costs dating back to 2004 that could potentially exceed $1 million saying the tribe is working with old overhead rates on contracts, which hurts cash flow and that finance office is not staffed to handle the volume and complexity of transactions it sees.
It also says staff lacks training.
The administrator Henry Flood reveals Snoqualmie was not keeping current on reimbursements on some contracts and grants, had advanced "large sums of money" without getting paid back, and that inaccurate record keeping made getting paid more challenging. Flood also found the tribe has "major problems" organizing, tracking and monitoring its awarded contracts and grants, and that financial reports on many grants and contracts are 'delinquent.'
A spokesperson for the Bureau of Indian Affairs says the tribe can't fix these problems because it's been plagued by infighting but the tribe's administrative offices were padlocked and some of its federal funds frozen.
The Seattle Times story quotes a tribal administrator Matt Matson as saying he had"closed the tribal center and central records facility to allow all parties to think about their options." He said the tribe was facing the prospect of the U.S. government assuming administrative control of the tribal government.
According to the Seattle Times, the tribe's casino has continued to function but there are questions about how much longer.
Big pay off eluding troubled tribe
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2011
MIxed reaction from American Indian tribe backing Fiji casino venture
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| Snoqualmie slot machines and tables. |
Snoqualmie Tribe plans to invest in a casino operation in Fiji
December 23, 2011
By Staff
By Staff
By Lynda Mapes, Seattle Times staff reporter
In its latest business venture the Snoqualmie Tribe is looking all the way to Fiji.
The Fijian government announced Tuesday its decision to grant the nation’s first-ever exclusive gambling license to One Hundred Sands, which has announced plans to build a $290 million, five-star luxury casino resort on Denarau Island, in a partnership with the Snoqualmie Tribe.
“One Hundred Sands has taken care to strategically partner with the Snoqualmie Tribe from Washington State and Seventh Generation LLC, a Native American company with demonstrated excellence establishing new casinos,” said Larry Claunch, chairman of One Hundred Sands, in a news release issued by the prime minister’s office.
In a telephone interview, Claunch said he and the tribe have been talking for about five months, and while the tribe hasn’t yet put any money into the deal, they are negotiating the tribe’s financial stake. The tribe has committed to joining the venture as a partner, Claunch said, and will have ownership in the casino, as well as an active advisory role.
“They are going to be advising us on very aspect of casino management,” said Claunch, a retired developer of retirement homes who moved to Fiji from Salem, Ore., about 10 years ago.
He said the conversations got started with Snoqualmie tribal administrator Matt Mattson first, when Mattson traveled to Fiji and investigated the possibilities.
The new venture is a long way — nearly 6,000 miles — from the tribe’s casino, which opened in 2008 with a $330 million debt. The tribe swung open the doors right at the bottom of the recession and in the middle of one of the worst winters in years. The tribe’s budget, built on rosier expectations, cratered.
The tribe has since restructured its debt, and the casino is doing better, reports by outside analysts show, and its bond rating has improved.
And now the tribe apparently has new business prospects. Fresh from his seaplane, Claunch said Wednesday he would be joining Tribal Chairwoman Shelley Burch and her brother Pat Barker, a hereditary chief for the tribe, for dinner. The two are in Fiji to continue talks about the tribe’s stake in the business, he said. Neither would return calls for comment, and neither did Mattson.
Claunch said he beat out more than 50 other competitors for the sole gambling license granted by the Fijian government, in part he said because of his inclusion of a Native American tribe in the venture. He said that was important to him personally, because he liked the operations tribes run in the United States. Of the Snoqualmies, he said, “I have visited their casino and it’s spectacular, I so admire the work they have done.”
Paxton Myers, chief of staff for the National Indian Gaming Commission, said the federal agency only regulates Indian gambling on U.S. trust land, so the venture is outside of U. S. regulatory purview. The Washington State Gambling Commission has no jurisdiction over the venture, either.
The news, first reported in the Fiji Times, was controversial back in Washington state.
“It’s hurting our tribe; it’s pretty sad,” said Kanium Ventura, elected to the tribal council in September 2007. He was later suspended by the council in an internal dispute, a move later overturned by the tribal court, but then renewed by the tribal council again.
“They are supposed to take this to the membership,” Ventura said. “There is no benefits for us at Fiji; I don’t think it will make much.”
Some Washington state tribal leaders were surprised by the news.
“In Fiji! Wow. That’s interesting,” said W. Ron Allen, chairman of the executive committee of the Washington Indian Gaming Association and chairman of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe.
“I’m delighted for them. Extending outside your reservation comfort zone is unique.”
He said he had expected the tribe to invest in a resort at its existing casino, not enter a new venture.
Other tribes have looked at gambling operations in other locations, including the Muckleshoot, which for a time looked into partnering in a tribally owned casino in Las Vegas — before dropping the idea.
But the Snoqualmies are believed to be the first tribe in Washington, and perhaps the country, Allen said, to enter into a gambling operation overseas. “It makes you scratch your head a little bit,” Allen said.
Allen said his tribe has successfully launched businesses outside Washington state, including a health - and medical-supply company in California and a construction corporation that works all over the country. But the tribe has never worked up a partnership or investment outside the United States.
“We’d be pretty conservative about that. When you are so far removed, it can cause you some concern.”
The latest move by the Snoqualmies comes at a time when the tribe is struggling with other issues, including an enrollment audit in response to allegations that many tribal members, including some of its leaders, don’t meet the one-eighth blood-quantum requirement in the tribe’s constitution to be Snoqualmie.
The tribe less than a year ago spent $14 million to buy out the contract of its former casino CEO’s employment contract.
The first phase of the Fiji project will include a luxury resort and casino with 500 slot machines, convention center and banquet facilities.
In a prepared statement, Prime Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama said the venture “provides a malleable fusion between the Western ideas of casino gaming with the strong cultural values of tribal and community life.”
Groundbreaking is proposed in March, 2012.
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