Foxborough: seen little more than public relations from Wynn and Kraft

Thank you, Mr. Heydecker for presenting more realistic costs and refuting a bogus traffic study!

The Kraft/Wynn syndicate seems to think Foxborough residents are uninformed hicks by presenting a bogus traffic study that will cost all Commonwealth residents $$$ to correct. What do they care?

Thank you, Governor Slot Barns!


Thus far, we've seen little more than public relations from Wynn and Kraft
Published: Thursday, April 5, 2012
To the editor: Gee! What a surprise!

I quote The Foxboro Reporter, "Jobs for Foxboro, which is funded by Wynn Resorts and operated by (Sage Systems) ..." This is no real surprise, it is merely a business operation. It is part of the process I previously noted and as we have been shown the frosting on the cake, but have no idea whether it is indeed on cake, what kind of cake, or merely cardboard.

The article continues with more public relations notes, quoting Mr. Farmelant indicating that there are others that support "the proposal." What proposal?

All that we have seen is what appears to be a 400,000-square-foot Colorado-chalet hotel; nothing on a 1.5 million square-foot garage or a 2 million square-foot casino. We however have been told the proposal will include a seriously-needed ice rink "available" to residents, and have been shown some of the glitz from existing casino interiors.

And we have been given a favorable traffic study, commissioned by casino supporters, which somehow notes Foxwoods at roughly 50,000 visitors a day, and not what we should expect. It indicates that they anticipate no more than 20,000 visitors, "which is comparable to the current number of daily visitors for all of Patriot Place."

It doesn't offer that I am sure Connecticut did not expect this load either. What is so different is being stuck in a traffic jam of between 30,000 or 40,000 cars. And let's add to this the Patriot game day loads! One can certainly argue whether this count is individual cars, or car pools or massive numbers of busses, and at all hours. But this is not the issue, as their concerned number of some 15,000 vehicles for an office park is a 12,000 twice-a-day peak typically and not a seven-day, 24-hour operation.

Most people in town know what has to be done. A proposal must be first presented to the host community selectmen. What timing is included for the surrounding communities and their mitigation requirements is not known to me. Anything before this is hopeful wishing, conjecture, and non-binding.

Mitigation is vital, both to Foxboro and the surrounding impacted communities. This includes ALL items; fire, police, schools, DPW, and even the legislative excluded items of water and sewage. Zoning and Planning Board work needs to be done relative to the building heights, site coverage, and setbacks, both from the roads, and from Walpole.

And the mitigation .... We have all heard of the $10 to $15 million. Why so small? Let's start instead at $30 million with a COLA increase built in. This would cover the new school construction needed, water and sewage services (unless Wynn can make a deal with MWRA, the Boston water people), 30B housing units, and the OPEB liability.

Police and fire should be billed as we bill the detail overtime currently above the $30 million number. This last item would be under Wynn's control, as to the number of calls or satellite facilities necessitated by the distinct kind of operation run by the business.

Dick Heydecker