SNOQUALMIE – Mayor Fuzzy Fletcher would support providing services to the Snoqualmie Tribe’s casino if it matched the quality of construction he saw at a casino during a recent trip to Arizona.

“I know for sure that [the Tribe] can build a quality product and they can make it fit in with the community and still make money,” he said.

Fletcher’s comments came after his visit to Casino Arizona, which is run by the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community on its 53,000-acre reservation east of Scottsdale, Ariz., a suburb of Phoenix.

Last year, the Snoqualmie City Council agreed to discuss providing city services, include police, fire, water and sewer, to the Tribe’s proposed casino, and this month’s trip was viewed as a way for local leaders to see a gaming facility that resembles what the Tribe is envisioning. The Snoqualmie Tribe wants to build a three-story, 175,000-square-foot structure on 56 acres of land near the city.

Fletcher, along with City Administrator Gary Armstrong, City Attorney Pat Anderson and Director of Public Safety Don Isley, toured Casino Arizona and other gaming facilities March 15-16. The city paid for the trips, but will be reimbursed by the Tribe and the Arizona-based companies it is working with to develop the casinos, MGU LLC and MGU Development LLC.

There they met with Snoqualmie Tribe leaders, Casino Arizona’s General Manager Jon Jenkins and Thomas LeClaire, an attorney for Phoenix businessman James Miller, who owns the MGU companies.

Casino Arizona comprises two buildings, one permanent and the other temporary. Each is near Highway 101, which serves to separate the Salt River reservation from Scottsdale.

The Snoqualmie officials visited the permanent facility, which opened in September 2000. Among Fletcher’s main concerns were traffic and the building’s quality of construction. He said on a record-setting night for attendance, with more than 3,700 people inside the casino, he only had to wait for three cars to pass before turning into its entrance.

“Traffic is one of my biggest concerns that we’re going to continue to talk about,” he said. The Snoqualmie Tribe has said in the past it expects most of the traffic to the proposed casino – about 75 percent – would use Interstate 90’s Exit 27 and drive east on Southeast North Bend Way.

Casino Arizona’s permanent facility, which was designed to reflect the colors and landscape of the desert Southwest, also showed Fletcher that the Snoqualmie Tribe’s promise to build a facility that complimented the surrounding area could be met.

“There’s no excuses for them not to build that building, and I’m not interested in providing services if they don’t build that building,” he said.

The mayor added it makes sense for the city to provide services so money the Snoqualmie Tribe might spend creating police and fire departments could instead go toward the facility’s construction.

Robert Pettycrew, a Scottsdale City Council member who sat on the council as the Salt River tribes began planning their facilities, said Casino Arizona takes after his city’s image of fun and sun.

“Scottsdale’s a very resort-oriented community, and what the Salt River community did was to build on that,” he said.

While construction techniques may be similar, there are several differences between Casino Arizona and the Snoqualmie Tribe project, namely that Casino Arizona was built on established reservation land. Pettycrew said that prevented Scottsdale from being impacted by the casino.

“That really took a lot of those issues off the table because there was going to be infrastructure already in place,” he said.