Ex-Ledyard mayor talks of lessons learned about casinos

In Maine, ex-Ledyard mayor talks of lessons learned about casinos

By LESLIE H. DIXON
Lewiston (Maine) Sun-Journal


Paris, Maine — The former mayor of Ledyard, Conn., home to Foxwoods Resort Casino, told Oxford County commissioners Tuesday that local officials must have a deal on the table that economically benefits the area before letting a casino come to Oxford.

“We were just caught dead. You have no idea how much that has cost our town ... millions, and it is on the backs of taxpayers” said Susan Mendenhall, who served four years as Ledyard’s mayor and eight on the town council.

Mendenhall appeared at the commissioners’ monthly meeting with Dennis Bailey of CasinosNo!, the group opposed to a proposed $184 million casino resort in Oxford County. The gambling facility is proposed for land near Oxford Plains Speedway on Route 26 in Oxford, a town of about 5,000. It would include 300 hotel rooms, several restaurants and a regional conference center with 10,000 to 20,000 square feet of space on at least 25 acres.

Voters will decide in a statewide referendum Nov. 4 whether to allow a casino in Oxford County.

Proponents of Las Vegas-based Olympia Gaming’s proposal for Oxford say it would create about 1,300 jobs with a $39 million payroll over five years. Revenue is projected to be $96 million in the first year, 2010, and more than $164 million by 2014, with Oxford County to get 1 percent of that and the town to get $2.3 million to $3.5 million a year.

“We were very disappointed in the economic spinoff. It just hasn’t come,” Mendenhall told commissioners. “When you bring in a development like this, it’s all about the money.”

Ledyard, a community of about 15,000 residents in the southeastern part of Connecticut, is host to the world’s largest casino with 340,000 square feet of gaming space in a complex that covers 4.7 million square feet. It began as a high-stakes bingo hall in 1986 by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation and has about 40,000 guests per day, according to the Foxwoods Web site.

Mendenhall said the impact from the casino on local services such as fire, police and particularly the school system has been significant.

More than 200 misdemeanor summonses and 100 warnings are written each month, and one out of every three tickets is for an out-of-town visitor, she said. The police and fire departments had to increase their ranks despite there being no corresponding residential population increase, she said.

Although the casino jobs allowed some local residents to “keep their houses,” Mendenhall said that because the area could not support the number of jobs the casino was looking to fill, it brought in workers from outside the country. That affected the town, which did not have the affordable housing to support workers who are paid minimum wage or just above minimum wage, she said. As a result, some families were doubling up and living in single-housing units, she said.

Schools were significantly affected because of the influx of workers to the area, she said. One elementary school now services children with 16 different dialects, which she said has placed an “enormous burden” on teachers and staff.

Mendenhall said crime, particularly guns and drugs, is on the rise along with another crime which she declined to name but added, “You all know what that is and it will come.”

Emergency dispatch calls for police, fire and medical help have risen from about 3,000 to 15,000 a year since the casino was built, she said.

Ledyard Town Planner Brian Palaia backed up Mendenhall’s assertions in a telephone interview Tuesday, saying the only thing the community has seen in economic growth is a new Dunkin’ Donuts and a hotel that was built by the casino.

Because Foxwoods casino was built on Native American land, the town gets no property taxes from the site, but it does see about $400,000 a year in property taxes from the hotel that is not on reservation land.

“Everything is internal, Palaia said. There was no need for off-site business expansion because the casino meets all of its customers’ needs within the casino property.

In addition to the former mayor’s information, Bailey provided the commissioners with a 20-page report in response to an economic study given to the commissioners two weeks ago by the casino promoters. In the report by Clyde Barrow, director of the Center for Policy Analysis at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, the writer contended the proposed casino would bring in between $89 million and $100 million in gross revenues.

Bailey said the report generated by casino proponents did not show whether money spent at the Oxford casino would represent a new source of revenue or whether it was money that would be spent in the local and regional economy regardless of whether there was a casino.

“Just don’t go into it blind. That’s all I can tell you,” Mendenhall said.

“If it passes, we’re going to sit down at the table and do our own negotiations,” Oxford Town Manager Michael Chammings said after the meeting.

Copyright 2008 The Bulletin. Some rights reserved