a very complicated decision with lots of interest on both sides."

Gary Besaw, a tribal legislator with the Menominee and chairman of the Menominee's effort to build a casino in Kenosha, said a new casino could pump more than $600 million into the tribal budget in 10 years.

"Every day we've been waiting is another hip transplant that someone could have received," Besaw said. "It is another child who could have received schooling or another person who could have been provided a job.

"That's what bothers me."

Living in poverty

On the Menominee Indian Reservation, children ride bicycles and play football in the fields. Small, modest homes with well-kept yards line the streets. A sign at the community college announces fall classes that are about to begin.

Menominee legislator Gary Besaw heads the tribe'sefforts to get a new casino built in Kenosha, Wis.(Photo: Dan Young, Gannett Wisconsin Media)

But beneath the surface, life for nearly 4,500 tribal members who live on the reservation, which encompasses all but about 1 percent of Menominee County, is hard.

In 2013, the poverty rate of the Menominee — at 23.2 percent — was higher than the nationwide poverty rate at the peak of the Great Depression, which was 21.7 percent. Statewide in 2013, just over 12 percent of residents lived in poverty, according to Census Bureau statistics. Unemployment is twice the statewide average.

Parents of young children who want to work often find jobs, only to learn there is no day care available. Penny Escalante, director of Menominee Tribal Daycare — the only licensed day care center in