By SCOTT MCKIE B.P.
One Feather Asst. Editor
CHEROKEE, N.C. – Less than two months after ground was broken on the new bingo operation of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), the project has been halted indefinitely. That revelation came at the end of a three-hour special session of Dinilawigi (Tribal Council) on Thursday, April 9.
Leaders of the EBCI broke ground on The Boundary Bingo & Slots Class II gaming establishment in Elawodi (Yellowhill) in Cherokee, N.C. on the afternoon of Feb. 24. The 35,000 square foot building, a project of the Tribal Casino Gaming Enterprise (TCGE) and Tribal Bingo Enterprise (TBE), was set to offer bingo, Class II gaming machines, and a concession area and was originally scheduled to open in summer 2027.
Following Thursday’s Dinilawigi session, those plans are on hold following a right-of-way and easement dispute.
At the end of the lengthy discussion, Tommy Lambert, an EBCI tribal member and TCGE chairperson, announced, “We’ll decommission the site by taking all of the construction fencing down and removing the construction trailers. We have a lot we can store those on. We’ll meet with Tribal Construction to see about cleaning the site up and hydroseeding it down. We’ll wait until the Chief gets back into town to make a final decision on how to move forward.”
During the session, Res. No. 182 (2026) was submitted by Dinilawigi as a whole for the purpose of “establishing an easement for ingress, egress, and utilities over leased property”.
That legislation states in part, “In Lease No. S52-2451-19/44, by and between the Tribe as Lessor and Collette Coggins, Barry Coggins, and Corey Coggins as Lessees, as amended by the parties and approved by the Tribal Business Committee and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Lessor and Lessees were each granted, in general terms, a right-of-way over the leased property for reasonable and common ingress, egress, and utilities; and the Tribe hereby exercises its rights to establish the right-of-way and easement referenced in the lease.”
The One Feather requested a copy of the lease from the EBCI Office of the Attorney General. That Office related that a redacted copy will be provided, but it will take some time and it was not available by press time.
At the end of the session, Res. No. 182 was withdrawn by Dinilawigi by a vote of 8-0 with four absent including: Dinilawigi Gahvsgi (Tribal Council Chairman) Jim Owle, Kolanvyi (Big Cove) Rep. Venita Wolfe, Elawodi (Yellowhill) Rep. Shennelle Feather, and Wayohi (Wolftown) Rep. Mike Parker.
Lambert noted, “Our GC (general contractor) has said that even with the easement you have in front of you, he will not return to the job site. The reason he will not return to the job site is the statements made here by Mr. Saunooke that he would sue the general contractor with or without an easement. So, the general contractor will not go back on that site.
So, at this point and time, that bingo project is on an indefinite hold without a GC.”
Prior to Res. No. 182 being withdrawn, Dinilawigi Taline Gahvsgi (Tribal Council Vice Chairman) David Wolfe said there was no benefit to passing the resolution. “The project is on hold indefinitely. It’s going to take a whole new contractor it sounds to me.”
As Thursday’s discussion began, Robert Saunooke, an EBCI tribal member and attorney representing the Coggins, commented, “The Tribe, for whatever reason, individuals here went to the people that were doing the work and said, ‘take the mountain down, period’. They didn’t talk to Ms. Coggins, didn’t reach out to her knowing full well there was a lease and that she had development plans for that mountain – she has development plans for that mountain to put hotels and cottages up there.”
He added, “We’re not here today saying, ‘stop your progress’. What we’re saying is, ‘don’t ask for forgiveness, get permission’. That’s the way to approach things here. We talk about respect and culture and conversation, that’s never happened. And the reality is there’s a lease in place that had rights attached to it.
This is what will happen if you guys pass this today – the contractor, they’re not sovereign. I’ll file a lawsuit and adjourn them from doing any work, and I’ll keep that in court for the next year. That’s just the reality because I’ve got to protect my client’s rights to this property. We don’t want to do that. We want to talk. We want to sit down and figure it out.”
Aniwodihi (Painttown) Rep. Shannon Swimmer stated, “We as Tribal Council, our duty is to do what’s in the best interest of the Tribe and to protect tribal assets as well, tribal money. That’s why I was asking the question…because, to me, it boils down to money. What’s going to be the least expensive route for the Tribe to go forward? Is it going to be more expensive for us to stay where we are, push forward with this in the location where it is right now, pay Collette however much money she’s wanting, and possibly more in the future? Or, is it better to go ahead and move it to a completely different location, which, yeah, is going to be starting all over?
That’s what I’m looking for is a path forward. I know that the elders want bingo…and now we’ve hit another roadblock. How do we go forward? What is the most cost-efficient way to go forward?”
She asked Saunooke, “What do you want? How much money do you want?”
He replied, “We don’t know. We have to talk to our accountant about what this does to the plans for the cottages that were going to go up there. If we can still build them up there and it’s not impacted, then the answer is nothing. But, if it’s taken out something so that now there’s less of what she was going to put up there, then the number might be…who knows what it might be. I think it will be somewhere around what the cost savings have happened because they don’t have to do a retaining wall right now.”
EBCI Secretary of Operations Anthony Sequoyah spoke some to the issue of the power lines. “We have worked almost two years with Duke Energy on the power lines coming into the Boundary…as everybody in here is aware, Big Cove community has probably one of the largest power failures of any community on the Boundary. So, when we got up to the Peter’s Pancake area for the redesign of the power lines, it became a huge interest of the Tribe as far as what was going to be done and what wasn’t. As we got up to the Native Brews, the project had started as far as the ground moving. There’s a corner pole that sits in the curve in the banking behind Native Brews and behind the holding tanks for the brewery. That pole is the main pole that feeds the Big Cove community and Piney Grove. So, the intentions of that, it has to have an ingress/egress.
As it stands, the only access is to come through the backside of the brewery. My understanding is that that will eventually be developed in some sense…that’s what we were told. So, there’s no other option except to have a new ingress/egress.”
EBCI Attorney General Michael McConnell noted, “I know we’re going to disagree with Rob (Saunooke) and Collette (Coggins). I do appreciate them being here. I just ask for accuracy. The Tribe, or the contractor, has not taken down the mountain. The contractor has cut trees. Rob said that Collette had plans, but I think at this time she has an idea. She has not submitted any plans. Now, in the lease amendment that was just completed, we did give her some time to develop those plans and bring them into Business Committee. At that time, she’ll have that opportunity. But, as of today, I have not seen any plans.”
On Res. No. 182, he stated, “My intent in writing this is this would give the contractor sufficient authority from the Tribe to move forward. Rob could, I guess, still try to file a lawsuit and challenge it. I think his job would be more difficult if this resolution is passed.
The easement is not defined. It is impossible to exceed an easement that is not set out with any specificity. So, we have not exceeded the easement.”
Lambert described some of the issue, “As you know, we were given this site from the Tribe, the old theater site, for the Bingo operations. We were given a certain area there. When we started construction on it with our civil engineering plans, we had some issues at the back of the property with a retaining wall. Then, met with Anthony (Sequoyah), talked to him, and he said that they’d have to move that power pole on up the hill. And, if it would help our retaining wall issue, then we could go up there to where those pine trees were and take those out to slope that bank down, which would save us about $1.1 million on the project itself to have a step-down earthen wall instead of a soil nail wall or a block wall. No matter what type of wall we put behind that Bingo facility, it will require an easement.
At the time we were working on it, we did not have a copy of Ms. Coggins’ lease. So, we had no idea that that was her leased property back there until she came over to our construction trailer and told our guys we were on her property. At the moment she did that, we stopped all construction, removed everybody from the job site. So, currently, there’s no mobilization there for construction, GC (general contractor), or anything like that. It’s costing us approximately $2,000 a day, currently as it sits, and the project has been shut down for 14 days.”
Lambert did add, “We could move the project somewhere else, but it would have a cost of about $300,000 that we’ve spent to finish cleaning that up and put it back to a native state.”
Secretary Sequoyah said, “Regardless of what happens now, we’ve got to fix our problem for the power. Our power has got to continue. So, it’s still going to be an issue on easement versus right-of-way. It doesn’t pinpoint what the easement is. The easement could be the whole 25 acres.
We’ve got to fix what’s there – what’s happened already – to make access, regardless of whether the bingo goes in or it doesn’t go in there. The issue is still there of us getting the ingress, egress to that pole.”
Several EBCI tribal members spoke during the meeting. Mary “Missy” Crowe, an EBCI tribal elder from Elawodi (Yellowhill), commented, “At the end of the day, when it comes to what is the best interest of the tribe as a whole, when this bingo hall gets built, and the gaming enterprise gets built, where’s that money going to go to? It’s going to go to distribution, isn’t it? To every enrolled member of this tribe…but at the end of the day, we have an entity here that was approved by this body. And your attorney told you, regardless of who, what, when, where, this body is in control of property, both real and personal, of the Eastern Band of Cherokee – of the Tribe, all of us.”
The One Feather will continue to follow this story as it develops.
