Tribal Triumph
The Squaxin Island Tribe’s wonderful
celebrates its 10th birthday later this year
D
BY TONY DEAR • CG EDITOR
evelopment of Salish Cliffs Golf Course didn’t run terribly smoothly at any stage really, but thank goodness it did eventually get built. The Squaxin Island tribe, eager to diversify its economic portfolio, first conceived the idea for a course in 2006. Not only was the golf industry in good shape and the timing right for a new course — a Golf 20/20 report determined that golf had a direct economic impact of $76 billion in 2005, and that it employed two million people with wage income of $61 billion — it would also help protect the value of the Tribe’s other major assets — the Little Creek Casino which had opened in 1995 and the adjoining hotel, added in 2003. But then, of course, the economy collapsed. Like, really badly. “We obviously had to put it on hold for a while,” says Ray Peters, the Tribe’s Intergovernmental Affairs/Council Liaison. Gaming revenue was falling dramatically (bizjournals.com reported in May 2011 that while Washington casinos grew more than 56 percent a year from 1999 to 2009, the increase in revenue dropped to a little more than nine percent during the downturn), which obviously affected the speed with which the project could progress.
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AUGUST 2021
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