Plainridge: No Legitimate Applicant?

No valid AGREEMENT???? Plainville needs to ask some serious legal questions.

This seems to exceed Plainville Town Manager Joe Fernandes' expression that the 'planets are aligning.'

Dear Chairman Crosby,

As I read the Gaming Act, it clearly states that the Applicant must sign the Host Community Agreement 60 days prior to the holding of a voter referendum. If the Applicant does not sign the HCA 60 days prior to the referendum, the application is incomplete, regardless of the vote. There is no subjective determination needed as to whether the Applicant signed the agreement 60 days before the vote; either it happened or it did not.

There is no HCA between Penn National (or any other eligible developer) and the Town of Plainville that meets the standard of being signed by July 12th, which would be 60 days before September 10, 2013. It just doesn’t exist. Consequently, the vote now scheduled for September 10 in Plainville is meaningless.

Penn National and the Town of Plainville cannot unilaterally circumvent the 60-day law. The 60-day law is crystal clear; it says “an election shall take place [60 days] after the signing of an agreement between the Host Community and the Applicant.” In Plainville, the Applicant that signed the host community agreement 60 days before the election was Plainridge, not Penn National. And they are no longer an Applicant. How, then, can the HCA continue to exist, sans Applicant? How can Penn National take over a document to which it was not party, from an entity no longer eligible to be an Applicant? The application is dead.

I understand that, once a license is granted, the business can be bought by another owner. But I do not read anywhere in the law that a non-Applicant can "sign over" an application to another developer.

Penn National Gaming cannot become the Applicant because it has not met and cannot meet the requirements of the legislation and regulations regarding timely signing of a Host Community Agreement. Period.

Granted, I am no expert in the Gaming Law. A group of citizens in Plainville is in consultation with an attorney who is researching my assumptions in preparation for legal action, should that become necessary. We hope to resolve this without going to court, however.

If the Gaming Commission can shed any light on this matter, we would be most appreciative.

Best regards,
Mary-Ann Greanier