Editorial: Lansing casino would be a lousy bet for Michigan

EDITORIAL

By Editors, Detroit Free Press

As only the most recent arrivals in the long line of players looking for a piece of Michigan's casino gambling action, Lansing and Mayor Virg Bernero should know better.

Artist's Rendering: Proposed Kewadin Lansing Casino

Michigan voters made it quite clear (58%-42%) in 2004 that they did not want more gambling in the state unless any expansion was subject to a statewide vote. Ever since, casino dreamers have tried to build upon the constitutional amendment's only exemption, which allows tribal gambling over which the state has virtually no control anyway.

But tribal casinos are restricted to their own reservations. Every tribe that has tried to work around that restriction to date has come up empty-handed. The most recent attempt, a casino in Vanderbilt that the Bay Mills tribe opened in 2010, shut down after a federal court ruled against it. Earlier attempts included asking Congress to sign off on tribal casinos in Port Huron and Romulus, an effort that fell short.

Now Bernero is entering the same fray with the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians at his side. They will either have to go to Congress or hope that the Bay Mills tribe eventually wins its court case in further hearings and sets a new precedent for defining reservation land. But neither the federal courts nor Congress should fall for the dubious logic involved.

Unless a casino can become a major destination for out-of-state travelers, it largely churns local money and removes much of it from the economy. Casinos rank as economic development tools only as part of a mix of entertainment options or, if properly promoted, as a lure for visitors. If Michigan were to develop a statewide casino strategy, Port Huron would probably better fit the development bill as the only border town without a casino.

Lansing residents -- and Michigan State students -- are already within an hour's drive of two of Michigan's 22 Indian casinos. They are hardly out of range of Detroit's casinos, either.

Presumably Bernero and the Sault tribe have marketing studies to back up their estimates of $250 million in annual revenue, with at least $5 million returned directly to the city. (By way of comparison, Detroit's casinos were estimated to have revenues of $1.4 billion in 2011 -- a figure they may never match again if a Toledo casino opens in April, as planned.) Certainly Lansing, like virtually every city in Michigan, would delight in the projected 1,500 new jobs.

But if Lansing succeeds, it will create a precedent not just for itself but for every other city that thinks a casino is the answer to its prayers. Michigan's voters have already said they don't want to go that route -- and praying for salvation via a casino is only a reminder of how desperate people become in tough economic times.

Related Links:

• Lansing casino builders face potential suit aimed at shutting project down
• Lansing casino effort draws opposition
• Michigan Indian tribe wants to halt plans for downtown Lansing Indian casino
• Editorial: Lansing casino would be a lousy bet for Michigan
• Lansing casino plan faces a fight from 2 Detroit casinos, outstate tribes
• Lansing casino builders face potential suit aimed at shutting project down
• Lansing casino effort draws opposition
• Letter from Phil Hogen, former NIGC chair, opposing Lansing casino

Blogger’s NOTE:  Odd that owners of Detroit’s MGM Grand Casino and Greektown Casino have expressed opposition to plans for a Lansing casino while Marian Ilitch, owner of Detroit’s MotorCity Casino, has remained silent?  Not really, since Ilitch and her family’s partner Michael J. Malik, Sr., have pursued plans for casinos in Port Huron and elsewhere for more than 20 years.  In fact, their plans for a Port Huron casino might be tied to plans by the Sault tribe proposal for Lansing.

NY Times: Shinnecock Casinos will be Magnets for Tainted Money, Increase Local Crime & Addictions

7.4.2010

EDITORIAL
Gambling Fever

...The new Nassau County executive, Edward Mangano, wants the Shinnecock Indians to build a full casino in the center of his county. A Suffolk County legislator, Wayne Horsley, wants the tribe’s casino out in his neck of Long Island — but not, of course, in the posh Hamptons, where the Shinnecocks actually live.

The federal government has finally granted the Shinnecocks recognition as an Indian tribe, more than 30 years after they applied. That is great news for the Shinnecocks, whose reservation is a pocket of poverty in a zone of immense wealth. As an official tribe they will have access to benefits like federal funds for housing, education, food programs and health care.

Unfortunately, what they prize most is the right to run a casino, and the host of suitors it has already attracted. Casinos are a magnet for tainted money and promote addiction, crime and other ills. The tribe should be finding other ways to use its valuable real estate and its long-denied recognition... 

Read Complete Editorial

Editorial: give taxpayers a dispassionate report on Casino's pros and cons

12.28.08

Newsday Editorial: A Shinnecock casino? All bets are on

What's the story behind Suffolk County's sudden willingness to take a serious look at the idea of a Shinnecock casino on Long Island?

Let's be honest: The driving force is not contrition over the way Albany has treated the Shinnecock Indian Nation. The State Legislature took most of the tribe's land away in 1859 to make way for the Long Island Rail Road. Though key county legislators are well aware of that sad history, the real bottom line is Suffolk's hunger for increased revenue.

The Shinnecocks are OK with that cold calculus, and so are we. This page has always been hesitant about casino gambling, because it too often sucks money out of the pockets of the poor. And when the Shinnecocks proposed to build a casino in Hampton Bays, at the bottleneck of all traffic bottlenecks, it seemed like a horrendous idea.

So we opposed it, but always with a twinge of sadness, because we saw that the Shinnecocks viewed a casino as the best bet to provide decent jobs for a tribe suffering from far too much unemployment. And we tempered our criticism of the Hampton Bays site with a call for the notoriously slow Bureau of Indian Affairs to act on the tribe's petition for federal recognition.

Actually, the Shinnecocks were on a federal list of recognized tribes for decades, until the middle of the last century. Then some bureaucrat took the tribe off, without an act of Congress or anything resembling due process. That alone entitles them to be on a fast track. But even a 2005 ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Platt, saying that the Shinnecocks are a bonafide tribe, has not definitively resolved the issue. Still, there's a growing sense that full federal recognition isn't far off.

That's the background to a conversation between two Suffolk County legislators, Presiding Officer William Lindsay (D-Holbrook) and Legis. Wayne Horsley (D-Babylon), chairman of the committee overseeing economic development for the county.

The prospect of a casino bringing in thousands of jobs and millions in revenue appealed to them. They also had a visit from the tribe's lawyer, George Stankevich, and they visited the reservation. In May, Horsley's committee heard from tribal leaders and experts on the positive impact of Indian gaming in Connecticut. The tribe has had a contentious relationship with the Town of Southampton, so its leaders were pleased to have county legislators listening respectfully.

This month, the legislature voted to create a task force to study the feasibility of a casino in Suffolk. The Hampton Bays site is still a bad idea, but if the tribe can either buy or accept a donation of land somewhere else, it can become, in effect, a part of the reservation.

The Shinnecocks want the site to be as close as possible to their home in Southampton, so that members of the tribe can commute easily to jobs at the casino. And the Suffolk legislators obviously want it in Suffolk. But there's also a chance that the best site might turn out to be at Belmont Park racetrack in Elmont.

In any case, the task force should give the Shinnecocks a careful, respectful hearing of their casino plan - and give taxpayers a dispassionate report on its pros and cons. On this issue, it's time for cool analysis to replace heated contention.

Editorial: Congress right in blocking new casinos

6.27.08

Congress right in blocking new casinos
Allowing new gaming houses in Port Huron, Romulus is a bad idea

The Detroit News

The decision by Congress to deny two new Indian casinos in southeastern Michigan will help assure the health of the state's gaming industry.

Romulus and Port Huron each wanted casinos in a proposal that would have swapped Indian land in the Upper Peninsula for "reservations" in those two communities. That needed congressional approval, which the House of Representatives denied this week.

That's good news for the city of Detroit, which relies heavily on the tax revenue from its three casinos.

Detroit got those gaming houses in exchange for giving up state revenue-sharing dollars and part of its city income tax.

Threatening the revenue from the Detroit casinos by saturating the surrounding market would be unfair.

In addition, because they would be operated by Indian tribes that are subject to less regulation and taxation, the Romulus and Port Huron casinos would have had an unfair competitive advantage.

Detroit, with the blessing of the state, has required its three casinos to build expensive new hotels of 400 rooms each. The proposed Indian casinos wouldn't have had that burden.

The Greektown casino downtown is already in bankruptcy, and revenue has stagnated at the other two casinos. That should be a warning that the market might not support an expansion of gaming.

Losing one of the downtown casinos would have a terrible impact on both the city and the state, which also gets a sizeable amount of revenue.

Other regions that have allowed gaming to expand unchecked have seen the windfall from casinos wither.

The House made the right decision. Gaming works best for the region and the state when the casinos are concentrated downtown.

Find this article at:
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080627/OPINION01/806270321

Rep. John Conyers: No special deals for tribal casinos

6.24.08

No special deals for tribal casinos

I would like to add a few points concerning the upcoming vote in Congress on legalizing off-reservation casinos in Romulus and Port Huron ("Legislators, tribes divided over casinos; At issue: Romulus, Port Huron sites," June 22):

The validity of the land claims the bills purport to "settle" is questionable. The Bay Mills Indian Community filed its claim in federal and Michigan courts, and lost in both. The Sault Ste. Marie tribe has never bothered to pursue the established legal paths available for settling such claims.

The settlements are for land hundreds of miles from the tribes' reservations. Under the established procedures for considering permitting a tribe to build an off-reservation casino, distance from the reservation is a major factor weighing against approval, because the detriment to the tribe is more likely to outweigh any benefits.

Other important factors under the established procedure are the potential environmental problems and the potential detrimental effects on the surrounding community. The deals the bills cut for the Bay Mills and Sault Ste. Marie tribes would circumvent every part of the careful consideration that is usually required.

In 1993, the two tribes signed a compact with other Michigan tribes in which the signatories agreed to share revenues from any off-reservation gaming facility. The bills pending in Congress allow Bay Mills and Sault Ste. Marie to sidestep that compact.

Michigan voters approved a referendum in 2004 to limit the spread of casinos in their state. These bills would legalize new casinos in defiance of the express wishes of Michigan voters.

Opposition to the bills extends far beyond Detroit's local elected officials and its congressional representatives. It includes more than 60 Indian tribes in Michigan and across the country, all of whom have their own interest in being able to build casinos on their own lands, but who are unified in their opposition to this effort to circumvent the law and the free-for-all it could unleash.

The bills are also opposed by the NAACP, which is concerned that both these bills raise serious questions regarding procedural fairness, due process and respect for the role of states and local governments, as well the voters in our country.

The House Judiciary Committee, which shares jurisdiction over these bills with the Natural Resources Committee, voted unanimously to oppose them.

I believe that by passing the bills favoring the narrow interests of the Bay Mills and Sault Ste. Marie tribes and their private-sector allies, Congress would set a dangerous precedent for sidestepping the established review process for land claims and create a shortcut for the opening of casinos in any corner of the country. The tribes should be allowed to pursue their claims through the normal procedures, including approval by Michigan voters, but not by special deals in Lansing and Washington.

John Conyers Jr.
Chairman
U.S. House Judiciary Committee
Detroit

Find this article at: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080624/OPINION04/806240331

Port Huron left out of Michigan casino expansions

7.29.07

EDITORIAL: Casinos, casinos - everywhere except Port Huron

A week ago or so, a business trip took Al Monette to Standish, a town on Saginaw Bay north of Bay City.

"The talk of the town was a new casino coming to Standish," said Monette, who lives in Marysville and works in St. Clair. "It was all people up there were talking about. ... It made me wonder if the Port Huron area is the only place in Michigan that isn't allowed to have a casino."

Ain't it the truth, Al?

Michigan has 17 casinos, including three in Detroit, several in the Upper Peninsula and a string of them up and down the west side of the state. There are casinos just about everywhere in Michigan except the Thumb.

More casinos are on their way. A look:

• This week, a $160 million casino is scheduled to open at New Buffalo in the extreme southwest corner of the state. The state's 18th casino, owned by the Pokagon band of the Potawatomi tribe, is creating 3,500 jobs. The 124,000-square-foot gaming hall reportedly includes 3,000 slot machines, 85 table games and a poker room with 19 tables. The development off Exit 1 of Interstate 94 also features a 160-room hotel and six restaurants.


• Last week, the Legislature gave preliminary approval to Gov. Jennifer Granholm's deal with the Gun Lake band, another branch of the Potawatomi nation. Plans call for a 198,000-square-foot casino with 2,500 slots and 80 table games in Wayland Township, about 20 miles south of Grand Rapids. It is expected to create 1,800 jobs.


• Earlier this month, a federal appeals court issued a ruling that clears the way for the Huron band of Potawatomi to build a $270 million, 226,000-square-foot casino off Interstate 94 near Battle Creek. It will include 2,500 gaming devices - about as many as one of the Detroit casinos - and it will generate 2,500 jobs.


• Finally, the Saginaw Chippewa - the tribe that was awarded a reservation beside the Black River in Port Huron 200 years ago this autumn - broke ground earlier this month for a casino on the Saganing reservation a few miles outside of Standish. Plans call for a 32,000-square-foot casino with 700 slots, 40 table games and 300 jobs.


• Meanwhile, efforts to bring a casino to Port Huron plod on.

Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Menominee, and Rep. Candice Miller, R-Port Huron, introduced a bill in early May seeking congressional approval of a deal struck five years ago between former Gov. John Engler and the Bay Mills Chippewa.

The agreement of August 2002 called for Bay Mills to surrender a long-standing claim to property in Charlotte Beach, a 110-acre subdivision on the St. Marys River south of Sault Ste. Marie. In exchange, Bay Mills would get a "reservation" on the Thomas Edison Inn property in Port Huron.

The Stupak-Miller bill was sent to the House Natural Resources Committee, where it has the support of the panel's Democratic chairman, Nick Rahall of West Virginia, and the senior Republican, Don Young of Alaska.

Usually, if a committee's leaders support a bill, its prospects are excellent. Not so in this case, where it appears someone has bottled up the Port Huron measure.

I have been told that's the work of Rep. Dale Kildee, D-Flint, who in the past has received generous support from the Saginaw Chippewa, owners of the Soaring Eagle Casino in Mount Pleasant.

Why would a West Virginian and an Alaskan care about Port Huron?

Rahall and Young apparently were convinced to support the casino by fair-trade arguments.

Casinos in Detroit and the Sault, for example, compete with gaming halls just across the border in Ontario. Why shouldn't Port Huron be given the same opportunity?

There are, after all, casinos just across the St. Clair River in Point Edward and Sarnia. The larger community already has gambling. Is there some reason why Americans cannot be allowed to share the jobs and the profits?

If it seems a compelling argument, it hasn't swayed the opposition.

Past efforts to win congressional approval have been squashed by a Democrat (Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada) and a Republican (Rep. Mike Rogers of Brighton).

Two years ago, the dirty work was done by Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, the powerful and some would say scurrilous House majority leader.

Why would a Texan care about Port Huron?

Hmm. Just a guess here, but DeLay did benefit handsomely from his friendship with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who's now in a federal prison. Abramoff, in turn, collected about $14 million in fees from the Saginaw Chippewa.

The Saginaw and Grand Traverse bands, which operate profitable casinos, strongly oppose a Port Huron rival.

Other influential opponents include Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who wishes to smother anything that resembles competition from Port Huron.

Kilpatrick is following a long-standing tradition with his wariness of anything that might benefit Port Huron and the Thumb at Detroit's expense.

Perhaps the most extreme - and ludicrous - example of this tradition occurred in the aftermath of the Great Thumb Fire of 1881. U.S. Sen. Omar Conger and other Port Huron residents undertook an ambitious relief effort to help the victims. Detroiters quickly set up a rival relief effort.

Why compete over charity?

Politicians in both towns feared an invasion of homeless, penniless refugees, and merchants wanted to ensure that survivors rebuilt with supplies bought at their shops. The story of this remarkable if rather grim competition was told two years ago in a wonderful essay written for the Michigan Historical Reviewby Philip G. Terrie, a professor of American culture studies at Bowling Green State University.

There are reasons to wonder if Port Huron has been the target of almost conspiratorial efforts to keep it a backwater.

Michigan has 15 traditional public universities, for example, but none are located in the Thumb. Indeed, Miller's district is one of the few in the nation without a four-year public college.

The late John Wismer - a Port Huron native whose brother, Harry, founded the New York Jets football franchise - often lamented his failure to establish a commercial TV station in his hometown in the 1950s. The networks weren't interested, he said, because they saw Port Huron as the scum floating on Detroit's pond.

Perhaps the best example of Port Huron as a backwater: In the 187 years since St. Clair County was founded, a sitting president never has set foot here.

This is true even though presidents routinely fly in and out of the Selfridge Air National Guard base, a 10-minute drive from the county line. And we are talking of a community of more than 170,000 people. Rest assured there is not a more populous county anywhere in the nation that has been similarly snubbed.

It may smack of sour grapes or an inferiority complex, but one gets weary of hearing the refrain: Port Huron? Pffft.

EDITORIAL: The first of Mike Malik's failed attempts to develop a Marina on Harsens Island

According to an Editorial published in the Port Huron Times Herald on 07.24.2007:

...Mike Malik, a former Algonac city councilman is a close associate of Detroit's influential Ilitch family.

Malik is the chief promoter of a proposed casino at the Thomas Edison Inn in Port Huron. He also has big plans for the 430 acres he controls on Harsens Island. For starters, he wants to dig a boat basin and surround it with scores of McMansions and townhouses.

Fifteen years ago, Malik and wealthy toolmaker Fred Smith of Mount Clemens proposed transforming old Camp Drusilla Farwell into a Victorian-style resort called Grande Pointe Marina. The $100 million development would have included a hotel, 18-hole golf course and a sprawling marina with at least 1,150 boat slips.

The Harsens Island Preservation Association, led by A.J. Feeney, put up spirited opposition. On March 4, 1992, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers closed the public-comment portion of its permit process, it had received 275 letters of opposition and only 12 in favor of Grande Pointe Marina. The project died...

Editorial: Strict prohibitions on reservation-shopping and off-reservation gaming

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Editorial
Our view: Gambling limits

Strict conditions proper for off-reservation casinos reaction?

Two decades ago, the U.S. Supreme Court opened the doors for Indian tribes to operate casinos, and the benefits have been impressive. Many tribes have converted the public's appetite for betting into a reliable revenue stream to address the socioeconomic needs of disadvantaged people.

Tribal gambling income differs from that in the profit-driven private sector. It is the equivalent of a tax base to pay for services a sovereign entity provides to its constituency. For that reason, the 1988 Indian Regulatory Gaming Act has been a success that must be preserved. Still, there needs to be limits.

The federal law allowed tribes and states to enter compacts so the tribes could operate casinos on lands held in trust for them in 1988. Only under a narrow set of conditions could they open casinos on lands they obtained after that date.

After 19 years, Northern Quest Casino, operated at Airway Heights by the Kalispel Tribe, is one of only three off-reservation casinos in the nation. That was due largely to the hostile topography on the Kalispel Reservation and a shortage of suitable water.

At present, however, about 30 tribes have proposals in the pipeline to build casinos on land off their reservations – and not because their land suffers the kind of challenges that hampered the Kalispels. Such an expansion of gambling would pose social problems serious enough to offset the benefits tribes have gained.

The U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs recently warned in a letter to the Warm Springs Tribe in Oregon that approval for off-reservation casinos is going to become harder to get. If that prediction holds up, it's welcome news, but it appears to be based on political circumstances that are in flux.

The letter cites congressional efforts to clamp down on tribal casinos, but that came primarily from Congressman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., who was defeated and whose party lost control of Congress. Moreover, the Bureau of Indian Affairs' cautionary letter to the Warm Springs is said to reflect the feelings of Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, whose tenure will probably end when President Bush's does.

Meanwhile, considerable wealth and momentum are working in favor of a radical expansion of tribal gambling. The Mohegans of Connecticut – whose mammoth Mohegan Sun is set for a $750 million expansion – are bankrolling several other casino proposals around the country.

One would give the Cowlitz Tribe in southwest Washington one of the largest casinos in the country. The Mohegans even have their eyes on properties in the Caribbean.

The Kalispels were able to open Northern Quest because the law contained an exception to compensate them for an unavoidable disadvantage. Congress and others who share in the oversight role for tribal casinos, should keep it from being stretched into a loophole.

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/tools/story_pf.asp?ID=188441

LA Times Editors back Gov. Schwarzenegger, urge Assembly to approve gaming compacts

May 5, 2007

TAKING A GAMBLE
Let casinos expand
The state assembly should approve the governor's tribal gaming plan to bring more revenue to California.

CALIFORNIA GOT A lousy deal after voters in 1998 and 2000 approved measures allowing Indian tribes to open casinos. The compacts negotiated by former Gov. Gray Davis didn't compel the tribes to give a cent of their earnings to the state. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is working to change that, but the state Assembly is standing in the way.

Last summer, Schwarzenegger struck deals with five Southern California tribes allowing them to expand their gambling operations well beyond their original limits. From 10,000 slot machines, they would be able to install 32,000 — enough to make some of these California gambling palaces far bigger than any Las Vegas casino. In return, they would have to give the state up to 25% of the revenue from the new machines. Opinions differ about how much money this would add to state coffers, but even the most conservative estimate suggests that it would amount to at least half a billion dollars a year within three to 10 years.

Despite that, the Legislature last year declined to approve the compacts. They got the OK last month from the state Senate but still face a tough fight in the Assembly, where Democratic lawmakers fret that the deals don't contain provisions making it easier for workers to unionize and don't allow for enough regulatory oversight.

The former isn't the state's problem — tribal lands are sovereign territories that make their own labor rules — but there's some reason for concern about the latter. Under the terms of the compacts, the California Gambling Control Commission is empowered to perform such critical oversight functions as financial audits on casinos, employee background checks and slot-machine testing. But the underfunded agency has been slow to do the job. Lawmakers upped the agency's budget last year, and as casinos expand they may have to do it again.

The growth of Indian casinos has prompted a lot of worries across the state, some legitimate and some less so. Neighbors whose communities are overrun with casino traffic have a legitimate beef, though they should be pleased with the governor's compacts; while formerly the tribes weren't required to do anything about such local effects, now they have to perform environmental studies and negotiate with local governments before expanding. The casinos haven't ended poverty on reservations, and the revenues they generate haven't been shared evenly, but they have brought hope and economic development to what were once tribal wastelands.

It's time for the Assembly to fold; the compacts are good for the tribes and taxpayers.

• SF Chronicle Editors back Labor, attack Gov. Schwarzennegger's gaming compacts

SF Chronicle Editors back Labor, attack Gov. Schwarzennegger's gaming compacts

Sunday, May 6, 2007

Call the casinos' bluff

PERHAPS YOU'VE seen the new 60-second TV spots: a bald eagle soars, a narrator talks about the jobs and opportunity that casinos have brought to California and the additional benefits that new agreements reached with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would bring to the state. "Don't let special interests stand in the way," the narrator implores.

Behind those soft-focus ads is a brutal bottom line: The ad is being bankrolled by the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, owner of a thriving casino, resort and spa in Riverside County, as part of a $20 million effort by the state's wealthiest tribes to persuade state legislators to expand their operations by 22,500 slot machines while subjecting them to far less stringent regulations than the governor demanded of less powerful tribes.

Schwarzenegger reached these 30-year agreements with the tribes just before his re-election. They're horrible deals for the state. The shortcomings include weak labor and environmental protections and an absence of industry-standard inspections on the efficacy and integrity of the slots. They allow the tribes themselves -- instead of an independent auditor -- to determine the amount of net winnings that would be subject to revenue sharing with the state.

The Senate went along with these compacts; it will take an act of great political courage for the Assembly to reject ratification of the compacts. The pressure is on -- and intensifying -- in the form of TV spots and direct mail.

"It's an unprecedented campaign," said Assemblyman Alberto Torrico, D-Fremont, who is raising all the right concerns. "It seems like they're trying to bully us. We're not going to be bullied."

It's time for all who are concerned about an expansion of California casinos to a Las Vegas scale -- without the level of regulation in Nevada -- to make their voices heard.

• LA Times Editors back Gov. Schwarzenegger, urge Assembly to approve gaming compacts

Boston Globe weighs in on Baseball and Slot Machines

02.04.07
Hill Climber in Chicago



Don't bet on Swindal's inclusion


Pull the lever, line up three A-Rods, and you win $252 million.

Far-fetched? Of course it is, but if commissioner Bud Selig doesn't rule against Yankees president Steve Swindal's interest in Excelsior, which is vying for control of three New York racetracks and eyeing the inclusion of video slot machines, you might as well allow slots at the new Yankee Stadium...

...Baseball doesn't mind its owners having stakes in horses or racetracks, and we're well aware of [Steve] Swindal's father-in-law, George Steinbrenner, and his love of horses. Gambling is the problem.

The commissioner's office has long indicated it will evaluate potential ties to gambling on a case-by-case basis, but as of Friday Major League Baseball spokesman Patrick Courtney said Selig had not yet ruled.

In October, Robert Nutting, a Pittsburgh Pirates partner, removed slots from consideration at his Seven Springs Mountain resort in the Catskills when told Selig would not have approved. But apparently there is a way around it, and Detroit Tigers owner Mike Ilitch has learned it -- have your wife own the casino. In that case, Marian Ilitch is owner of the Motor City Casino. Nutting, however, wasn't able to pull it off because it would have created a major structural change in his stake of the Pirates.


Our most educated guess is that Swindal doesn't have a chance of being part of this. But who knows?

Port Huron struggles, is worthy of a break; but editor fails to recognize local casino plan has national shockwaves, which supersede local needs

01.07.07
Editorial: Feds must come to aid of Port Huron

Casino support would be welcome; help must come first.

Of the many challenges Port Huron faces in 2007, the most daunting clearly is the Blue Water Bridge Plaza expansion. The project, to bring the bridge plaza to ground level and reroute Pine Grove Avenue, is expected to take 131 homes, 36 businesses and about $32 million from the city's tax base.

As bad as that news unquestionably is, it also is worse because the expansion is an admission of poor planning. A second span was added to the bridge in 1999 to accommodate increased traffic. Although trucks comprise a principal component, the plaza wasn't adequately enlarged to handle truck inspections.

Expected to start next year and finish in 2011, the project promises to plague Port Huron for at least that long. For a city struggling with high unemployment and limited opportunities for economic growth, the sacrifices the plaza expansion demands couldn't come at a worse time.

On the other hand, the prospect of gambling couldn't come at a better time. Sought for years by gambling proponents, a Port Huron casino appeared to be a dead issue. Despite a public referendum that supported the gaming facility and clear evidence that Point Edward's casino draws more Americans than Canadians, the dream of a Port Huron casino at the Thomas Edison Inn never materialized.

Suddenly, though, the casino idea is seeing new life. The massive harm the plaza expansion will bring to the city requires the feds to do what they can to make Port Huron whole. Delivering a casino won't repair all the damage, but it could help.

Congressional approval, or more precisely, the failure to win it, is what killed Port Huron gambling. The Detroit delegation and its allies, such as U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., based their opposition on self interest. With gambling facilities in their own districts, allowing more casinos, even one in tiny Port Huron, apparently would be too much of a threat.

In talks with U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, Port Huron City Manager Karl Tomion pushed for approval of the Edison Inn casino. Stabenow, a past supporter of Port Huron's gambling bid, reportedly favors the idea.

The city finally getting a casino is an intriguing possibility. It still is a long shot. The same forces in Congress that previously opposed the effort aren't likely to change their minds. Although the Democrats' newly-won control could improve Port Huron's chances, it still is very far from being a done deal.

Tomion also is pressing for federal aid, and that assistance must come with or without congressional support for a Port Huron casino.

Gambling was supposed to be a means of enhancing Port Huron's economy. The traditional ways of promoting economic growth simply would be strengthened.

Now a casino would become one of the ways to treat the city's economic losses.

That's an offer that shouldn't be refused, but it is one that must come in addition to the aid Port Huron desperately needs.

Roll the dice. Just make sure the feds meet their responsibility to help the city through this crisis.


http://www.thetimesherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070107/OPINION01/701070343&template=printart

You may also want to review these posts:
* The Verifiable Truth: in Governor John Engler's opinion, "Michigan has enough casinos"
* The Verifiable Truth: Aide negotiated '11th Hour' Port Huron casino deal for Gov. Engler; then returned to private practice, retained by those who got the deal
* Candy Land: On the Same Page