Dear Commissioners:
From the
very beginning of the process to bring expanded predatory gambling to
Massachusetts, citizens who stand in opposition to casinos have been burdened
with finding the money and means to make our voices heard, while casino
interests are allowed to spend as much of their considerable resources as they'd
like in convincing the MGC and the public to vote for them. This flaw in the
casino legislation was thrown into high relief last week with a Boston Business Journal analysis of profligate spending by your commission and staff,
including trips that were covered
by multinational companies vying for licenses to operate in the
commonwealth.
I only wish that the voters in
Plainville had the funds to treat you to a trip, or an iPad, or some other perk.
Perhaps then we would stand a chance of being taken seriously by you. Voters in
Plainville had to raise funds for our own signs, pamphlets, and other costs of
trying to organize an opposition against a huge casino
infrastructure. Whenever we attended an MGC
meeting or hearing, we had to take an unpaid day from work, provide our own
transportation to Boston, and pay for our own meals and parking. Even now, some of us are putting
our personal financial wellbeing in jeopardy as we face the possibility of
having to mount a lawsuit against the MGC.
By your actions — forcing
us to vote a mere six days after a new applicant was named; not requiring that a
new Host Community Agreement be negotiated and signed; not adhering to the
statutory requirement of 60-to-90 days after an HCA is signed before a
referendum can be held; doing an end-around your own regulations and failing to
finish investigating and finding suitability regarding Penn National before our
referendum; turning around less than two months later and changing your schedule
to accommodate Milford after their insistence that the Foxwoods suitability
hearing happen before their referendum — you put the voters of Plainville in an
inferior position and denied us our due process rights and equal protection
under the statute and regulations. We were already operating at a disadvantage
in that we could not possibly afford to compete against the casino interests and
their vast resources; rather, we had to conduct a grassroots campaign of door
knocking, telephone calls, and educational meetings — all of which take time.
We had been thrown into no-man's-land when Ourway was disqualified. Then you, by
ruling that the law and regulations were "technicalities" as they applied to us,
denied us the only hope we had to be heard: the time provided by the statute.
You made certain that voters in Plainville never had the opportunity to hear
both sides of the story about Penn National. You stacked the deck. Now, looking
at who was paying your way, I can't say I'm surprised.
Elections are won and lost with
messaging, and messaging requires money. Voters cannot consider arguments they
cannot hear. There is no provision or mechanism in the law that even attempts
to level the playing field. According to the writers of the casino legislation,
the citizenry is entitled to no defense at all — unless we are able to raise
enough money to make a dent in what the casinos spend. Plainville could not:
you were dining out quite lavishly on money from the applicants while we were
trying to scrape together enough donations to pay for a small newspaper ad.
Predatory gambling sullies
everything in its path. The fantasy of "free money" is an allure that's hard to
resist. The money you spent on expensive dinners and luxury hotel rooms was
money that had been lost in casinos by residents of other states, other
countries. Rather than be circumspect about using that casino money, you spent
like drunken sailors. Is this what the state has to look forward
to?
The temptation to spend beyond
one's means is one of the dangers we gambling opponents keep warning you about.
I guess we hadn't anticipated that the problems would start right there in the
gambling commission, before a single license was granted.
Sincerely,
Mary-Ann Greanier
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