Tag: casino

Reason #11

Picking up on Gladys Kravitz’s post on the top 10 reasons that a casino will never be built in Middleborough:

The wife of Shawn Hendricks, president of the Masphee Wampanoag tribal council, has taken a restraining order out against him, according to Stephanie Vosk and George Brennan of the Cape Cod Times. The Hendrickses are in the midst of a messy divorce that includes accusations of violence and steroid use.

Last year Hendricks took over the tribal presidency from Glenn Marshall after it was revealed that Marshall had lied about his military service and had a record as a convicted rapist. It was Marshall who led the tribe’s efforts to build the world’s largest casino in Middleborough. Hendricks has vowed to continue with that effort.

Deval Patrick’s gambling addiction

What on earth is Gov. Deval Patrick doing? As I and many other casino opponents have pointed out repeatedly, the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe cannot open a full-fledged casino in Middleborough — or anywhere else — unless the state Legislature legalizes casino gambling.

Yet WBZ-TV (Channel 4) reports that Patrick is negotiating with the tribe in an attempt to strike a deal that will bring a casino to Middleborough. Unfortunately, casino opponents lost a bit of leverage last week, as federal officials backed away from a proposal to crack down on video bingo. The Mashpee would be able to build a bingo hall regardless of whether casino gambling is legal in Massachusetts.

But considerable obstacles remain. The tribe’s Middleborough application could well be rejected by the U.S. Department of Interior, as it seeks to allow a casino to be built on newly acquired property rather than traditional tribal land.

Moreover, the process followed by Middleborough town officials was a disgrace. Casino opponents could no doubt keep this tied up in court for years if they have the resources. It’s a shame they have to fight the governor, too.

Casino gambling’s “Energizer Bunny”

As recently as last Friday, the Boston Globe editorial page was still whining over Massachusetts House Speaker Sal DiMasi’s finest moment: his staunch opposition to Gov. Deval Patrick’s casino-gambling proposal, which helped ensure its defeat earlier this year.

Now Common Cause of Massachusetts reports that pro-casino forces gave nearly $1.5 million to state legislators between 2002 and 2007, according to David Kibbe, who covers the Statehouse for The Standard-Times of New Bedford and the Cape Cod Times. Gambling interests also spent $8.2 million on salaries for lobbyists between 1998 and 2007, Common Cause found. Kibbe writes:

“Money clearly hasn’t bought results,” said Pam Wilmot, the executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts. “What it does buy is a never ending campaign that will always be back and back and back, sort of like the Energizer Bunny.”

Ms. Wilmot added: “Without somebody like Sal DiMasi, it probably would have gone through.”

Indeed. This is the kind of muscle that DiMasi — who reportedly received death threats because of his opposition to casinos — was up against. Twisting a few arms in the face of such opposition is pretty weak stuff by comparison.

The Common Cause report (PDF) includes a great quote from Scott Harshbarger, speaking in 1996, when he was the state attorney general:

I think the reason we don’t have a casino today in Massachusetts is because, in fact, the people have decided…. The only people that won’t accept it are the people who want the casinos. Because they figure they can stay at this longer. The Legislature and the governor move on to other issues, but they never stop. They’re constantly focused with highly paid lobbyists — the best in the state — whose job it is to stay focused on one central goal: to get that door open.

The gambling interests are still pushing on the door. Harshbarger, to his credit, is still trying to hold them back. And DiMasi, who’s taking a pounding over his own questionable ethics, deserves our thanks for standing up to this assault on our quality of life.

No gold at the end of the rainbow

The Day of New London, Conn., reports that the Mashantucket Pequot tribe is eliminating 170 government jobs because the Foxwoods gambling casino isn’t pulling in money like it used to:

King has said Foxwoods generates about 99 percent of the tribe’s government funding, but the casino has weathered months of reduced revenue because of increased competition in neighboring states and an uncertain economy.

And that’s without any casinos opening in Massachusetts.

It depends on the question

Jon Keller delivered a sneering commentary this morning about the supposed fear our political leaders have of “democracy.” His main example: House Speaker Sal DiMasi’s abortive suggestion that an advisory question about casino gambling be placed on the statewide ballot this fall. As Keller noted, neither side is enthusiastic about the idea, and it seems all but certain to be dropped.

Keller’s commentary hasn’t been posted on the WBZ Radio Web site yet, but you should be able to find it here later today.

Well, I’m one casino opponent who wouldn’t mind seeing a question go on the ballot. But what would the question be? Here’s a simple, fair and neutral question that I think gets to the heart of the matter: “Would you support a gambling casino’s being built in your city or town?”

That is really the only question that matters. Various polls have showed mixed results or mild support for casino gambling when those being surveyed are not required to focus on the possibility that it’s their community that will be affected. The results are quite different, though, when the issue is literally brought home.

Two examples:

  • Last summer, Middleborough residents attending the town meeting that approved a casino deal with the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe immediately turned around and voted overwhelmingly against a casino’s being built in their town. This nonbinding vote, all but ignored by the media, stands as the only occasion that people in Middleborough have expressed their true feelings about the issue.
  • Several months ago, a poll of Massachusetts residents showed that two-thirds were opposed to a casino’s being built in their community. Most news reports focused on mixed results regarding the abstract idea of casinos. But what does that matter if no one wants one next door?

Let’s be clear — this isn’t NIMBYism, because we don’t need to build a casino anywhere. Call it NIABYism — Not in Anyone’s Back Yard.

Internet abusers target Internet abuse

This is surreal. Casino supporter Hal Brown, who has compared opponents to the Ku Klux Klan, and Middleborough selectman Adam Bond, who has compared them to Nazis, are going to talk about “the sociopathology of internet abusers and why they feel compelled to do it” at 11 a.m. today on Bond’s radio show, “Coffee Shop Talk,” on WXBR Radio (AM 1460).

It seems that Bond and Brown are very excited over this story in the Taunton Gazette about Michael Quish, a limousine-company owner and casino supporter, who whines that he’s been harassed online. Hey, it’s a tough world out there. I’m not condoning the kind of behavior he describes, but it’s endemic to the medium, and the Gazette could have cited just as many examples on the other side. Quish, by the way, will be joining Bond and Brown.

Should be an interesting hour. You can listen live, and I’m going to try to do just that.

Update: Well, there’s an hour of my life I’ll never get back.

Right and wrong on a new casino poll

The Herald’s Scott Van Voorhis rightly notes that a new UMass Dartmouth poll purporting to show an increase in support for casino gambling is undercut considerably by the fact that it “was commissioned by Northeast Resorts, a real estate firm that owns sites in Palmer and New Bedford that have been identified as possible casino sites.”

But he’s at least partly wrong in reporting that a March survey showed public opinion was split. That was indeed the lede, as reported by Stephanie Vosk in this story in the Cape Cod Times. Scroll down a bit, though, and you’ll see that the key finding was that 57 percent of respondents were “strongly opposed” to a casino’s being built in their community, and another 10 percent were “somewhat opposed.”

In Middleborough, a curious candidate

All has been fairly quiet on the Middleborough casino front lately, but things may be about to heat up. It seems that former Brockton mayor Jack Yunits is a finalist for the $130,000-a-year town manager’s job. And it just so happens that he works as a consultant for the Liberty Square Group, the Boston-based public-relations and lobbying firm that has led the fight to build the world’s largest casino in Middleborough.

Oh, but not to worry, says search committee member Wayne Perkins, a former selectman and casino backer. Yunits may be taking money from a firm funded in part by the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe and the South African casino moguls who are behind all this, but his work with Liberty Square is “strictly” limited to lobbying for a power plant in Brockton.

But according to a Liberty Square senior vice president Amy Lambiaso, Yunits has also lobbied for a Verizon-backed group that seeks to weaken the control local officials have over cable companies in communities like, you know, Middleborough. So much for Perkins’ “research.”

And let’s not forget that town officials are legally obligated to say nothing but nice things about the casino proposal. I suppose that task becomes easier if they simply hire a town manager who’s already getting paid by the casino’s backers.

The Brockton Enterprise covers the story here; the Cape Cod Times here.

As always: You can’t make this stuff up.