Franklin County’s administrator recently spoke with the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation about transforming the Pasco’s HAPO Center into a tribal casino, saying if there’s any tribe the county should be talking to, it’s the Yakamas.

Brian Dansel made a presentation to the Yakama Tribal Council on Aug. 4 pitching the opportunity for a partnership with Franklin County to pursue the proposal at the events venue, according to the Toppenish-based tribal newspaper Yakama Nation Review. 

Dansel said in a Franklin County social media post that the county was asked by the Yakamas for the presentation and that multiple parties are interested in the HAPO Center property. “We have supplied materials to all the different entities that are interested in the HAPO Center,” he said, noting that no decisions, deals or agreements have been made with the tribe.

The county has recently asserted ownership of the facility and the adjacent Pasco Sports Complex after its contract expired with the city of Pasco.

Franklin County’s presentation also addressed the resort-casino project being pursued by the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Colville Reservation just north of Pasco’s King City area. That project has been criticized by Yakama Nation leaders as well as those with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation, saying the Colville casino would be on their ancestral lands and violate their treaty rights.

“The city of Pasco is on your ground, and it doesn’t fly with Franklin County officials,” Dansel told Yakama leaders, as reported by the Yakama Nation Review. “It is important for our board to get this right.”

In his social media post, Dansel said the county felt it owed it to the Yakamas to provide the information: “This is the First Nation people in the territories prior to the Treaty of 1855 included where the HAPO Center currently sits, and so if there’s any tribe that we probably should be talking to when it comes to the HAPO center and they ask about it, it’s probably the Yakama Tribe..”

The presentation was informational only with no further discussion by tribal council members. A request for comment to the Yakama Nation was not immediately returned. 

Pasco has disputed the county’s assertion of ownership of the HAPO Center since its contract with the facility lapsed. 

City Councilman Leo Perales raised questions in a social media post regarding the impacts of such a facility on the area around the HAPO Center and the events and organizations that routinely use the facility. His post was accompanied by a dual image showing the facility and sports complex as it appears today alongside a “future” image of the area as the villain’s casino portrayed in the movie, “Back to the Future, Part II.”

“Any proposal that could fundamentally change the future use of this facility deserves a transparent public discussion,” Perales said in the post, adding, “This is clearly something our community should be paying close attention to.”

Dansel emphasized in his social media post that no deals for a casino have been made: “A lot of times when you see things that get blown up on social media, it’s so they can create emotional charges in people to try to get them all worked up about something but we’re not anywhere near anything,” he said in the post.