BREMERTON — The most unusual piece of property in the city covers less than an acre in a residential neighborhood not far from downtown.
There you can find a half-dozen mobile homes, with spaces for a dozen more. A white mattress leans against the outside of the only permanent house, its front porch crammed with old furniture, a broken TV, musical instruments and various pieces of equipment.
People come and go at all hours, stopping by for a smoke and a chitchat. They park alongside a fireworks stand smack up against the front sidewalk.
It was that much-disputed fireworks stand, set up in 2005, that first alerted neighbors and city officials to the unusual status of this speck of land. That’s when City Attorney Roger Lubovich, while trying to have the stand removed, learned the property has long been protected U.S. trust land.
“That’s enough for me to know I can’t go out there and touch it,” he said at the time.
Now the land’s owners — the descendants of Native-American Roberta Law Ross, for whom the United States put the land in trust — have much bigger plans than a fireworks stand. They want to build a 34,000-square-foot Indian gaming casino on the lot, despite the odds against them.
Big plans
The 13 living descendants of Ross and the development group they’re working with, say the casino would transform Bremerton into a destination city, create 200 jobs and bring as much as $30 million annually into the local economy.
“We’ve always dreamed about the idea of having a casino here,” said Kevin Chambers, one of Ross’ great-grandchildren and the unofficial spokesman for the family. “We think it would be good for our family, good for the community and good for the city.”
The family’s plan hinges on their belief that the parcel’s status as trust land is similar to that of an Indian reservation, and thus would make construction of a casino feasible if certain conditions are met. While the family concedes that’s just one of many hurdles they face, it may well be the biggest.
Opponents argue that the neighborhood is a poor place for a casino and fear it would have an adverse impact on the area. They have urged the city to do everything in its power to block the casino.
“I cannot imagine a worse idea,” neighbor Jean Shannon recently told the city’s planning commission. “This will completely destroy the peace of the neighborhood.”
For its part, the city isn’t taking an official position on the casino, at least not yet. However, the city, in a lawsuit filed to block the fireworks stand, questions whether the land’s status is equivalent to that of a reservation.
Some Indian law experts say that the casino’s chances are slim.
“It sounds like a longshot,” said Robert Anderson, a professor at the University of Washington School of Law and the director of the Native American Law Center.
He said the question about whether the land meets the criteria of Indian land as established by the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act is likely to be a complex and nuanced.
“They’ll have to have a strong legal argument,” Anderson said. “And political support would help.”
The exact history of the land and how it came to be deeded “in trust” to Ross and her descendants in 1928 is not completely clear.
According to the Ross family, the federal government was planning to expand the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and wanted what the family believes was waterfront property owned by Ross.
Held in trust
In exchange for her land, the government deeded her the 0.79-acre lot at what is now 1321 N. Callow Ave. The parcel, which is held in trust by the U.S. government for Ross and her descendants, can only be sold with approval from the secretary of the interior. If the land is sold, under most circumstances, it would lose trust status, according to the UW’s Anderson.
Which is one of the reasons the family is interested in the casino.
“If we had inherited land, we could sell it or develop it,” said Moe Prine, another of Ross’ great-grandchildren. “But as it stands, it’s like living on a gold mine that we can’t mine.”
