New Bedford Fails! Unregistered lobbyists? No due diligence?

Blame it on my age, I'm just easily confused.

New Bedford is negotiating with whom?

Let's start with the Foundation Gaming Group.

Kinda curious? Consider their web site - UNDER CONSTRUCTION.

Foundation Gaming Group Announces the Successful Completion of its Management and Advisory Role at Harlow’s Casino

Management and Advisory Role? A google search provides little information.

Joseph L. Billhimer, Jr. Joins MTR Gaming Group as Senior Vice President for Operations and Development

Mr. Billhimer has 27 years of experience working in the gaming industry and was most recently the Founder and a Principal of Foundation Gaming Group, an advisory and management services firm for the gaming industry which, among other engagements, successfully managed Harlow’s Casino Resort in Greenville, MS from 2009 to 2010 and marketed its sale to Churchill Downs.

So....if Foundation successfully managed Harlow's beginning in 2009....simple arithemetic tells me that's at least 2 years. You can't construct a web site with solid information in 2 years going on 3?

Now KG Urban Enterprises offers a finished web site.

These appear to be the principals and their projects, with the only completed project appearing to be the Bethlehem Steel site in Pennsylvania for Sands.

Since articles only are posted, the connection to Sands is curious, but Foundation's ultimate 'client' remains concealed.

Now KG appeared before the Ways & Means Committee in 2010 and was actively involved with soliciting support for their project. In other words, their activities seemed to conform with what we might label "LOBBYISTS."

What is really curious is that neither group is listed with the Secretary of the Commonwealth as "LOBBYISTS." Can anyone explain?

Is everyone so blinded by Slot Barn glitter that they fail to conduct their due diligence? No one is asking? Does the New Bedford City Council's focus remain solely on enriching their personal futures with a paid position on some Gambling Advisory Board that they would sell out their City while failing to ask questions?


Council to huddle with developers on casino
By Dan McDonald

NEW BEDFORD — The City Council will meet with representatives of the city's two prospective casino developers tonight to discuss their plans and the state's casino bill.

A joint meeting of two council subcommittees will discuss the bill and the plans of KG Urban Enterprises and the Foundation Gaming Group. Representatives of both groups confirmed they will be in attendance.

The council has also invited representatives of the Aquinnah and Mashpee Wampanoag tribes. It's unclear if they will be in attendance. Calls to both tribes went unreturned Wednesday.

KG Urban Enterprises has proposed a 115,000-square-foot casino at the site of an abandoned NStar plant on Cannon Street.

Foundation Gaming has proposed Revere Landing Casino plans, slotted for the Hicks-Logan area, a 36-acre slice of waterfront land wedged between Route 18 and the harbor, just south of Interstate 195. The site was formerly home to Revere Copper.

Elizabeth Isherwood, a spokeswoman for Foundation Gaming Group, said she will attend the meeting to "listen more than anything."

A spokesman for KG confirmed the group would be represented at the meeting but declined to expound on either the prospective plans or the state's legislation.

Under the current casino bill, there is a tribal caveat for the prospective casino for this region, which includes Bristol and Plymouth counties and Cape Cod and the islands.

The state will hold off on competitive open bidding until July to give any federally recognized tribe a chance to find land, and maybe a commercial partner, and work out a pact with the governor.

The tribal provision troubles some councilors who say it could delay the start of any construction. The federal process of placing land into trust could take a tribe "two to three years," said Councilor David Alves. [Mr. Alves, you are sorely misinformed! No LIT in the original 13 Colonies! Sorry!]

Councilor Steven Martins plans to ask the developers about the state's casino bill.

"I want their take," he said.

Isherwood said Wednesday the state has "complicated the issue by involving the tribes."

Councilor Denis Lawrence Jr. is concerned the tribal caveat will box out the city's prospective casino developers.

"It's not fair; we've been waiting on this forever," said Lawrence. "There might be an extra year to year and a half before the shovel would be put into the ground, when we should be at the forefront of this."

Alves said both sites are among the "most polluted in New England."

"And there's only two ways they're going to get cleaned up: federal dollars through the EPA or deep private pockets," said Alves.