MADISON, WI (WTAQ) – The speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly is among those asking Governor Scott Walker to reconsider his rejection of an Indian casino for Kenosha.
Republican Robin Vos is from Racine County, close to where the Menominee tribe was planning to build an $800 million Hard Rock Casino and Hotel.
Vos was among 10 lawmakers of both parties who signed a letter asking the governor to reconsider.
Walker had until February 19th to announce a final decision on the project, after the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs gave its blessing to it last year.
The Republican governor said taxpayers could have been left on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars because of the way former Governor Jim Doyle approve the wording of a gaming compact for the Potawatomi tribe. That tribe operates a casino in Milwaukee in a monopoly for southeast Wisconsin.
In their letter, Vos and the other lawmakers said Walker ignored terms of the Menominee tribal compact, in which that tribe would have made up for financial losses the Kenosha casino would have caused for the Potawatomi and Ho-Chunk gaming houses.
The lawmakers said the jobs and economic benefits for the Kenosha project were too good to reject.
(Story courtesy of Wheeler News Service)