[caption id="" align="alignright" width="200" caption="Casinos have been a behind-the-scenes economic development issue in the Catskills for years, but seem headed towards a new impasse, at least as evidenced by recent hearings talk in Albany."][/caption]The Watershed Post has a good compendium story on where things are standing, or slipping might be the better word, in regards to the plans for a Sullivan County-based Native American casino in the southern Catskills, something approved in recent years and then cemented in a questionable closed-door deal by former governor David Paterson. The impetus behind the story are the recent hearings on the plan to allow the Stockbridge-Munsee Indian tribe to build a resort casino in Sullivan County, which have seen project opponents seeking to persuade Governor Andrew Cuomo that the whole scheme is a bad idea. With Gary Pretlow, chairman of the Assembly Standing Committee on Racing and Wagering, publicly stating his dislike for the proposal, various statewide polls (and state-based Indian tribes) showing similar public disapproval for allowing the Wisconsin-based Stockbridge-Munsee tribe into the state, and the powerful Natural Resources Defense Council leading a letter-writing campaign for abolition of the casino to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, this one seems to be on a final ride. The Sullivan deal first surfaced as part of a deal to create a handful of casinos in the state, of which one was built in Niagara Falls to augment two native American ones in the state's center. An earlier deal for a casino in Ulster County was scuttled after closed-door deals by a former legislative chairman resulted in the county passing legislation against ANY casinos in communities that opposed them.