By Hailey Palmer, Puyallup Tribal News
A significant mark in the history of the Puyallup Tribe was celebrated Sept. 23 at the Emerald Queen Casino Event Center in Tacoma as past and present Law Office employees gathered to recognize the 50-year anniversary of the department.
Puyallup Tribal Council Chairman Bill Sterud welcomed everyone and touched on the importance of the Law Office to the Tribe.
“I’ve been on Tribal Council since about 1978, and during that time we’ve had the greatest legal department anywhere,” Sterud said. “We all work together like family and our legal department produces some incredible decisions. … All of our legal counsel has this heart of gold and it just makes me feel good seeing you all here.”
Heritage Division Manager Connie McCloud also delivered a blessing and prayer recognizing the role the Law Office has played in getting the Tribe where it is today.
“This afternoon we just want to remember how we got here and that’s through our ancestors,” McCloud said. “Many of our Elders gave their time, literally gave their blood, sweat and tears. They were the voice and our lawyers were the ears listening to those Elders.”
A round table discussion was held where some of the longer-tenured staff of the office offered their perspective on some of the significant court cases in the Tribe’s history and their involvement.
Those participating were John Bell, Carlos Delos Santos, Annette Klapstein, Sam Stiltner, Antoinette Godin, Robb Hunter and Tom Van Norman.
Topics discussed included court battles, enrollment, child welfare, land claim settlements and gaming.
Hunter and Delos Santos both spoke about the evolution of gaming and the Emerald Queen Casino.
Hunter gave his insight on what it looked like behind the scenes of getting the new Emerald Queen Casino built where it is today, including the issues they ran into of not being able to build on streets owned by the city of Tacoma.
“We are in a beautiful facility and this facility is the product of a number of people within the Tribe as far as how it looks, how it feels, how it functions,” Hunter said. “We started looking at where this facility can go. … The problem was you had streets that ran through these particular blocks and those streets are under state control, and the states will not allow you to build on those roads because they are still active. … We were stuck with building a small casino on one lot which wasn’t practical.”
From there, the team came up with the idea to build above the streets, leading to the eventual structure of the casino today.
“The streets are still owned by the city, but we vacated the air rights above the streets,” Hunter said. “The Tribe owns those air rights now, up until they run into the FAA jurisdiction. The next problem we ran into was you cannot game on (property that’s not in trust). We said, ‘Wait a minute, can you put air rights into trust?’ We looked around the country and it had never been done. We made an application to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and they put (those) air rights in trust. So, now, instead of having blocks of your casino floor without machines, you have gaming throughout the whole floor.”
Attorney John Bell also presented a certificate on stage to every person who had or currently has a role in the Law Office. Those unable to attend were still recognized.
Stiltner presented Bell with his certificate and a dinner was served to round out the celebration.
