Documents Reveal City Of Broken Arrow Knew About Casino Before December

EDITOR'S NOTE: We have a clarification.  The documents show the city of Broken Arrow knew about development plans for the land in August 2011, but the plans did not explain that the development was a casino until September 2011.

City of Broken Arrow emails are giving us a timeline on when leaders found out about plans to build a casino.

The Kialegee Tribal town is building the Red Clay Casino right now and neighbors who are unhappy about it have questioned how long the city knew about the project.

News On 6 sent an Open Records request to Broken Arrow, asking for any records between the city, the tribe and the developers for the last five years.

Those documents came in Wednesday and it turns out the city has known about the land development plans since at least August 2011.

Neighbors were outraged when they found out about the casino in December 2011 and keep protesting.

12/20/2012 Related Story: Broken Arrow City Council Gets Earful From Residents Over Casino

Residents questioned how long the city had known about the Kialegee's development plans. According to the documents we received, an engineering firm developed waterline plans for the site in July and submitted the entire project to the city of Broken Arrow on August 18, 2011.

Broken Arrow's Development Services Department met to discuss concerns about the project on September 27, 2011.

The city found out about plans for a temporary casino on the site with 12 trailer units while a permanent facility was being built.

Between the September meeting and the first dirt turned in December, the city's development services staff discussed tweaking various parts of the plan to meet code and permit requirements.

But jurisdiction over the land is mentioned in the documents regarding permit applications. The city's Storm water Division Manager writes, "Recognizing the sovereign nation status of this development, submittal of them is not required."

The documents state that the temporary casino is scheduled to open March 2012 and the permanent casino will open 18 months later, in September 2013.

01/25/2012 Related Story: Attorney For Proposed Broken Arrow Casino Confident It Will Be Built