A six-month extension of a soon-to-expire casino pact will go before the Kenosha City Council and County Board later this month.

County Board Chairman Joe Clark said Tuesday night the council will act Dec. 21 on an extension of the intergovernmental agreement between the city, county and the Menominee Nation, the tribe that is seeking development of a casino at Dairyland Greyhound Park.

The County Board would take up the extension Dec. 22, provided Clark receives the 15 supervisors’ signatures he needs to set a special meeting. The board’s Legislative Committee is set to review the agreement at 7 p.m. Dec. 8 in the county Administration Building, 1010 56th St.

On Tuesday night, the full board presented plenty of questions, as Corporation Counsel Frank Volpintesta led an informal refresher presentation of the pact.

The deal, approved in March 2005, is set to expire Dec. 31.

It establishes how the Menominee would pay local governments for services, should the tribe receive approval to hold the land in tax-exempt tribal trust. In turn, the Menominee would make payments to the city and county based on the casino’s revenues.

Volpintesta said a recent legal opinion from the county’s Washington counsel states the governments could lose these guarantees, on the off chance that the agreement expires and the federal government later approves the project.

“It would do two things,” Volpintesta said, of not extending the agreement. “It would hinder their efforts and, No. 2, there would be some risk to the city and county if the BIA changes its rules and the casino were to proceed.”

The federal government denied the project in January, in the last days of the Bush administration. The tribe is now pursuing litigation challenging the denial, and Project Director Eric Olson said indications remain that the Obama administration may soon revise the guidelines that led to the denial.

According to 2004 projections, the agreement could bring $521 million to the governments over the first 22 years of the casino’s operations. It also provides for $1.5 million in annual payments to the Kenosha Unified School District.

Responding to supervisors’ questions Tuesday, Olson said the projections remain accurate, and that the tribe continues to have access to the financing needed to develop the estimated $1 billion project.

Some supervisors criticized the tribe for seeking an eleventh-hour extension of a complex agreement.

Said Supervisor Terry Rose: “These are things that they, in due diligence, should have brought to us months ago.”