A casino shouldn’t be forced on a town

A casino shouldn’t be forced on a town
By Joe Fitzgerald

Down in Foxboro, which used to be a sleepy hamlet, there’s a growing army of neighborhood preservationists that’s easy to like, easy to admire and easy to root for, making them a nuisance to casino gambling advocates who view the town as a plum ripe for picking.

Pretty soon, PR campaigns will be launched and those who resist the arrival of carpetbagging entrepreneurs will find themselves derided as simple-minded obstructionists too limited in sophistication to see the bigger picture.

It’s called killing the messenger, and it’s a message that ought to be shouted from the rooftops: Everything isn’t for sale, and the almighty dollar is no substitute for a wholesome quality of life.

Oh, the wiseguys will laugh at that. Let them. Media pundits will find it naive. Let them. The high rollers will dismiss it as parochial sentimentality. Let them.

Foxboro isn’t home to them, so why should they care?

Back when Boston College’s neighbors, weary of having their tranquility dashed and property trashed, rallied against plans to expand the stadium, football coach Tom Coughlin, now coaching the New York Giants, vilified them for not being “visionary enough” to go with the flow.

Coughlin lived in leafy Walpole at the time.

Former Worcester County DA John Conte once felt he should host a statewide conference on regulating sexually oriented businesses, attended by police officials from throughout the commonwealth who warned that such enterprises brought “negative effects” such as rape, prostitution and the molestation of children.

Yet town after town had to fight the hired legal guns of the adult entertainment industry to protect themselves from these bloodless mercenaries. Not surprisingly, the proprietors did not live in those communities they hoped to contaminate, nor did their lawyers.

When outsiders are convinced they know what’s best for you, and have the resources to impose their will on you, it’s a recipe for heartache and disaster. Just look at what forced busing did to this town; more than 35 years later, its damage remains evident everywhere.

Right now, the great danger Foxboro faces is in becoming a house divided against itself, neighbor pitted against neighbor.

Somewhere, somehow, there’s a consensus to be reached, but it needs to be fashioned by those who call Foxboro home.

Their old hamlet is changing fast. With football games, concerts and a dazzling mall, Route 1 in Foxboro is becoming as sluggish as Route 1 in Saugus.

So if residents feel enough’s enough, who can blame them?

Casino dollars? They’re not what home sweet home is all about.

It’s as simple as that.