HOW MANY TIMES DO RESIDENTS HAVE TO SAY NO?

Anti-casino activists sue to block ballot question allowing 2nd Massachusetts slots parlor

A proposed ballot question would allow a second slots parlor, which a developer wants to build at Suffolk Downs.(File photo

By Shira Schoenberg | sschoenberg@repub.com 
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on December 22, 2015

A group of anti-casino activists have appealed to Massachusetts' high court to keep a question that would allow a second slots parlor in Massachusetts – most likely at Suffolk Downs – off the 2016 ballot.

Ten Massachusetts residents who oppose expanded gambling filed a complaint with the Supreme Judicial Court against Attorney General Maura Healey and Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin.

"The suit is to encourage them to take a second look at the language and recognize this is not a statewide ballot issue," said Celeste Myers, a leader of No Eastie Casino, which was formed in 2012 and led the East Boston opposition to a proposed casino at Suffolk Downs, a racetrack that straddles Boston and Revere. Myers is one of the plaintiffs in the complaint.

Eugene McCain, who filed the ballot question petition, did not respond to requests for comment.

The proposed 2016 ballot question would allow the Massachusetts Gaming Commission to issue a second slots parlor license. Currently, only a single slots license is allowed under state law. The question specifies that the new slots parlor would have to be located near a horse racing track.

By law, a ballot question cannot apply only to one particular locality.

Healey's office, which certified that the ballot question is constitutional, found that the language is broad enough that it could apply to multiple sites.

But the anti-casino group argues that the language is clearly written to apply to only one location – Suffolk Downs.

They write in their court complaint that the only other potential sites that would fit under the language are Plainridge Park, which already has the state's first licensed slot parlor, and Brockton Fairgrounds, which is applying for a license for a resort casino and would be prohibited from filing another license application under an agreement it signed with the town of Brockton.

The anti-casino activists argue in their complaint that based on geography and on public statements by the petition filer, McCain is trying to develop a parcel of land around Suffolk Downs. So the ballot question would only affect one community and should not be voted on by the entire state.

"It's very specific to our local area," Myers said.

"The suit is to encourage them to take a second look ... and recognize this is not a statewide ballot issue."

The petition also argues that the same issue was voted on during the last statewide election. State law prohibits the approval of a ballot question that is "substantially the same" as a measure that was voted on in the previous statewide election. In 2014, voters rejected a question that would have repealed the state's law allowing casino gambling. The anti-casino group argues that this question is similar because it is an amendment to state's gambling law.

Healey's office will file a brief with the court in the coming months saying why it believes the ballot question is constitutional. The complaint will be considered by a single justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, who can either issue a ruling or transfer the case to another court.

A spokeswoman for Healey declined to comment on the substance of the case.

Galvin spokesman Brian McNiff said Galvin's office does not comment on matters pending before the court. But he noted that the decision about constitutionality is entirely up to Healey. Galvin's only involvement is to certify whether a group gathered sufficient signatures.

Although supporters of the ballot question successfully gathered 74,500 signatures, more than enough to meet the first threshold for getting a question on the 2016 ballot, the process has been quiet. Neither McCain nor an attorney who filed papers for the ballot question with Galvin's office returned phone calls or emails.

Advocates for the ballot question have not filed paperwork with the Office of Campaign and Political Finance to form an official ballot committee. An official committee is required when two or more people or organizations get together and spend money to support or oppose a ballot question. Unless McCain is working by himself, he would have to file a report if he hired a firm to collect signatures.

The Boston Globe reported in September that McCain is a real estate broker and developer living in Thailand who has an option to buy a trailer park in Revere, near Suffolk Downs. McCain told the Globe that he was considering multiple locations for a hotel and mixed-use development, which would include a slots parlor.

The 10 original signers on the petition were from West Springfield, Dover, Hull and Needham. One of them told The Republican / MassLive.com that she was not answering questions about the petition. The others did not respond to voicemail messages left on Tuesday.

Chip Tuttle, chief operating officer at Suffolk Downs, told The Republican / MassLive.com that the racetrack is monitoring the proposal but is not involved in it.

If a second license is authorized, it would still have to be granted by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. Gaming Commission spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said the commission is not considering the issue right now, since it is out of the commission's control. "If we reach a point where we need to, we will," Driscoll said.

Suffolk Downs previously proposed hosting a resort casino. But in 2013, East Boston voters rejected the plan. Suffolk Downs then proposed building the entire casino to the Revere side of the racetrack, since Revere voters supported the plan. The Massachusetts Gaming Commission, however, awarded the resort casino license to Wynn Resorts in Everett instead of to Suffolk Downs.

City of Boston officials say McCain has not reached out to them. Revere's economic development director did not return a phone call.

http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/12/anti-casino_activists_sue_to_b.html

Growing Casino Opposition! Let's REPEAL THE CASINO DEAL!

Given the FACTS, communities are voting NO!

Bravo, Celeste!

Meet the Boston Secretary Who Might Stop a Mega Casino

By Alexandra DeanOctober 28, 2013

 

Celeste Meyers sees herself as a modern-day Paul Revere, warning East Boston about imminent invasion. This time it isn’t the British coming, but companies planning a $1 billion gaming resort in her hometown.

During the day, the 42-year-old is a secretary at a local bakery, but for the past five years, after work and on weekends, she’s become a tireless unpaid campaigner for her nonprofit, No Eastie Casino, which argues the plan will damage East Boston. “I’m all for jobs,” Meyers says. “I’m all for improving employment. But it needs to be an improvement, it needs to be better than what we have.”

Traditionally working-class, with one-quarter of the population living below the poverty line, East Boston has slowly been rebounding in the wake of the recession. Meyers fears a casino will hurt the local economy by creating gambling addictions, stealing profits from local businesses, and making the area less desirable to the recent influx of young professionals.

 

Her cause got an unexpected lift earlier this month, when the owner of the casino site, racetrack operator Suffolk Downs, which had chosen Caesars Entertainment (CZR) to operate the planned casino complex, announced it was ending that partnership. It cited allegations raised by Massachusetts Gaming Commission investigators about a Caesars subsidiary’s connections to the Russian mafia. Now, Suffolk Downs is looking for a new partner but is still going forward with its plans.

On Nov. 5, despite the split with Caesars, residents of East Boston will vote on whether they want a new casino there. If they’re in favor of the casino, Suffolk Downs plans to renovate its old racetrack, which sits on 182 acres on the north end of East Boston, and transform it into a resort that includes a 200,000-square-foot casino, a new racetrack, a luxury hotel, shops, and restaurants. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino threw his support behind the Suffolk Downs proposal after Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick backed three casino licenses and one slots parlor for the state in 2009. “I don’t think casinos are always right or always wrong,” Patrick said in an interview last winter.

Caesars had projected the casino would gross $1 billion annually, bringing Boston $52 million in annual tax revenue, figures that some experts dispute in a recent Boston Globe article. Meyers says $52 million is a drop in the bucket compared with the money East Boston will have to spend dealing with heavy traffic leading into the casino. A 2009 local study estimated the area needed $500 million to improve East Boston’s existing traffic problems, significantly more than the $45 million Suffolk Downs pledges to invest in mitigating the jams the casino would create.

 

The racetrack company is also pledging to create 4,000 [LOW WAGE] jobs when it opens. Because of news reports about Atlantic City casino workers signing up for food stamps, Meyers is worried the promised jobs won’t pay well. Interviews with dealers and union representatives of various casino companies show most casino employees get paid minimum wage and depend on tips.

In an e-mail response addressing Meyers’s criticisms, Chip Tuttle, chief operating officer of Suffolk Downs, says the plan will “provide unprecedented benefits to our host communities.” He cites the proposal’s “combined estimated annual payments of $67 million to Boston and Revere,” its road and infrastructure improvements, and its “good-paying permanent jobs with a preference for local residents.” He also notes its goal to “spend $50 million annually on goods and services with local businesses.”

Hundreds of neighborhoods across America now face the same dilemma as residents in East Boston, who have to figure out if a casino will rain money on their community or drain it out. During the recession, governors in dozens of states came under pressure to find revenue without raising taxes, and for many, casino projects became the answer. As a result, more than 50 new casinos have popped up across the country since 2008, and more are proposed on ballot referendums this November, including seven casinos in New York State.

 

In 2006, Pennsylvania introduced casinos to raise tax revenue, and it has become the poster child for others. Its 11 casinos produced nearly $1.5 billion in tax revenue in 2012, according to state data (PDF), and casino proponents argue that amount eclipses any costs the casinos could incur.

Alan Mallach, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, isn’t convinced. In 2010 he wrote a report (PDF) for the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia calculating the financial impact of Pennsylvania casinos on their host communities. “At the local level it gets pretty tough to tell,” he says: In Pennsylvania, for every dollar the state gets in tax revenue, it only passes 7 cents back to the host city. “That’s not my idea of a fair split,” he says. To figure out whether the community will reap benefits from the casino, Mallach says it has to assess the quality of the jobs the casino promises, and subtract from that the casino’s social and economic costs, especially the cost of compulsive gambling.

At a meeting held in a church basement in June, Meyers introduced Mike Russo, a tall, bearded East Boston resident and founding member of No Eastie Casino, who walked the audience through the latest research he assembled on problem gambling. He said the proposed development was likely to lead to gambling addiction in 4 percent of the surrounding population, or 5,000 residents.

“You’re more likely to know somebody with a compulsive gambling problem than somebody that’s employed at the casino,” he told the audience, eliciting gasps. In an April interview, Caesars Chief Executive Officer Gary Loveman acknowledged that some casino visitors suffer from gambling addictions but noted most studies show only 2 percent of a population usually develops a gambling addiction.

University of Las Vegas Professor Emeritus William Thompson says gambling addiction grows more severe the closer a person lives to a casino. “The amount [of people with gambling addictions] doubles when you put a casino within 50 miles,” says Thompson. According to his research, each additional pathological gambler costs his community around $20,000 a year through criminal activity, job loss, and productivity loss.


Problem gamblers also suffer high rates of bankruptcy and suicide, the costs of which are much harder to tabulate. “That’s a loss for the whole economy,” he says, and some communities find the math doesn’t add up. “How much are you making? Maybe $50 million tax money. But, yeah, you’re losing $100 million a year,” he says.

That’s the kind of message Meyers is bringing to East Boston, but she’s facing an uphill battle. No Eastie Casino only has 24 volunteer members and raised just $10,000 last year in local donations.

Caesars and Suffolk Downs spent $1 million on pro-casino group Friends of Suffolk Downs last year, and enlisted several local unions to get their members to turn out on weekends in support of the casino. Before the split, polls by the Boston Globe and Suffolk University indicated Boston was essentially divided, but leaning toward a yes vote. Meyers thinks the mafia allegations will tip the vote against Suffolk Downs.

If Suffolk Downs wins the referendum, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission will decide whether to award the casino license to it, or to Wynn Resorts’s (WYNN) proposed casino in Everett, which just won referendum approval there. Foxwoods is also trying to win a referendum in Milford, and if it’s successful, the gaming commission will have three venues to choose from when awarding the single Greater Boston gaming license.

Meyers has faith East Boston will reject Suffolk Downs’s plans. “This is a historically activist community,” she says. “People have stood on the runways, they’ve blocked tunnels. All we have to do this time around is check the box.”



http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-28/meet-the-boston-secretary-who-might-stop-a-mega-casino#p1

Suffolk Downs casino project has become a mess

By Adrian Walker | Globe Columnist October 23, 2013

Celeste Ribeiro Myers has been fighting an underdog battle against a proposed Suffolk Downs casino for ages. All of a sudden, her luck may have turned.

The source of her renewed hope for defeating the East Boston casino project is the elimination of Caesars Entertainment as its operator. Caesars was bounced over the weekend amid concerns that it would not pass a state-mandated background check. Caesars has a licensing deal with a company that has been linked to Russian mobsters.

Imagine, a huge casino company with possible ties to unsavory characters. Who could have imagined such a thing?

“This shines a glaring light on the lack of transparency,” said Myers, cochairwoman of No Eastie Casino, a group whose mission is self-explanatory. “It shows that Suffolk Downs is simply not capable of selecting a suitable partner. Now we’re supposed to vote on this blindly.”

Ah, yes, that vote. In less than two weeks, East Boston residents are to vote on the casino proposal. Now they won’t even know what exactly they are voting for.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino briefly called for a delay of the vote, but that isn’t happening.
Secretary of State William Galvin, in pledging that the vote will go forward, noted that the ballots have been printed and that some of them have probably already been cast by absentee voters. The vote will go on, though few would attempt to predict the outcome.

For people like me, who have become convinced that the casino is a dicey proposition, this is not necessarily bad news. The casino project has been sold, quite literally, as a jobs program with too little scrutiny of its long-term effects.

The agreement that would provide a $54 million annual windfall to the city, much of it earmarked for East Boston, is clearly based on wildly optimistic projections.


[SOME MIGHT CALL THOSE PROJECTIONS 'IRRATIONAL' AS GAMBLING INDUSTRY EXPERTS HAVE DONE.]

And approaching the eve of the vote, the operating team is still being assembled. What a mess.

Of course, the Suffolk Downs honchos are scrambling to salvage the situation. Two other companies are reportedly jockeying to replace Caesar’s as the operator. Both potential new suitors, Hard Rock and Rush Street, are former casino applicants that would likely sail over the hurdles that tripped up Caesar’s.

Still, by any standard, time is running short, even if a deal can be hammered out.

The problems at Suffolk Downs are bad news for the casino’s most powerful advocate, Menino. He played a huge role in assembling the group and hammering out the agreement meant to sell it to voters. He advocated for the provision in the state legislation that called for a neighborhood-only vote, all the easier to pass it.

And now, with fewer than three months left in office, Menino finds his last major dream could well be slipping away.

Menino’s frustration seemed evident while speaking about the project in Lowell the other night.

“Tell me what other thing will create 4,000 jobs?” Menino said. “The 4,000 jobs will go to working people. That’s what’s important.”

But it’s also important to have trust in the entity that will operate the casino. It’s important to gauge the impact on East Boston, and on the city as a whole. It’s important to know that the promises of permanent jobs and public works improvements and the promised windfall can actually materialize.

Undeniably, all of those considerations are up in the air now.

And perhaps the most gripping spectacle is Menino’s inability to influence the final outcome. For the first time in years, he finds himself sidelined during a major public policy event in what he likes to refer to as “my city.”

The lame-duck period has begun, and he knows as well as anyone that there is no turning back. That is a more shocking event than any casino outcome could be.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/10/22/the-suffolk-downs-casino-deal-may-falling-apart-and-that-not-bad-news/46XU1s97dGlnQk2NlGP5rN/story.html

 

No Eastie Casino! on Joe Heisler

Celeste Myers of No Eastie Casino discussing the Suffolk Downs proposal:
http://youtu.be/qRoWmArzkHA?t=27m40s




Published on Aug 15, 2013

Education has long been considered a major force for creating better voters, righting the wrongs of our society and encouraging people to vote.

Guest David Paleologos - Joe Heisler, again, with his fingers on the pulse of the Boston neighborhoods interviews a political analysis as to what is happening in the Boston political arena with people running for the elected office of Mayor. What should we look for to effectively cast our vote for the right person; what is that one thread in community, Boston and leadership, that makes the right candidate stand above the rest!!

Guest Celeste Myers - Then Joe looks to 'Eastie' and the battle to stop a casino from being built in East Boston, look in as only Joe can examine the issues...

Home / Casinos / No BosVegas /

Who We Are & Why We Fight

By Steve Holt - 5/15/13 - 3:36 pm

 

At Suffolk Business School’s “Build Boston” forum about casinos last Thursday morning, Stephen Crosby, chairman of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, shared a brief, private chat with No Eastie Casino co-chair Celeste Ribeiro Myers. Crosby conveyed the commission’s goal to facilitate a process wherein communities see as many benefits and as few consequences as possible from expanded gambling. Myers politely shared with Crosby her concerns that “communities are being worked by the process instead of the other way around.” She also shared her frustration at community members’ inability to get any real data or answers from Suffolk Downs or the City.

Crosby reassured Myers, telling her that the opposition’s voices are being heard. “That's what people like you are for,” he said. “To share your side and inform residents.”

When Chairman Crosby took the stage for the opening remarks, he proceeded to make what some might find to be an especially candid observation about the relationship between casino developers and host communities. With Foxwoods CEO Scott Butera and Suffolk Downs COO Chip Tuttle sitting a few feet away, Crosby said, “We know that this is not a fair negotiation in many respects.”

He’s said this a handful of times over the last year, and guess what – he’s right. Gazillion-dollar casino companies, with their nearly unlimited advertising budgets, are old pros at getting what they want out of communities in which they want to build. You might say that even in casino negotiations, the house always wins.

That’s why Boston shouldn’t even entertain the idea that dropping one of the world’s largest casinos into a densely populated, local business-driven community will be a net gain for the neighborhood. It’s why hundreds of ordinary East Boston residents, representing a true cross-section of the neighborhood, are standing up to defend the neighborhood we love. (VIDEO: "East Boston Residents Speak Out Against the Casino")

We do it begrudgingly, because we all have better things we could be doing with our time. We didn’t wake up one morning thinking, “Let’s fight a multinational corporation today!” We’d rather be spending more time doing the things we love: organizing neighborhood associations, fixing bikes at the Central Square farmer’s market, leading parishioners, taking our kids to Constitution Beach, supporting local businesses, ballroom dancing, weeding our community garden plots, studying English, joining a nonprofit board, or training for our next 5K.

Instead, we’re forced to oppose a predatory corporation, run by billionaires, that wants to move in up the street, suck dry local businesses and working-class neighbors, and place yet another 24-7 burden on a neighborhood that’s been through enough. A burden about which our elected officials have been starry-eyed for years, ignorant of its consequences. (ICYMI: "A quick and dirty rundown of why a Boston casino is a bad idea"). We’d rather be doing other things, for sure, but we stand up and declare, “Enough.”

We fight this because we believe East Boston is defined by hard work and long hours, not shortcuts. Eastie is the safest neighborhood in Boston. We’re supportive of families with children, thousands of whom go to school less than a mile from where the casino would be built. Ours is a neighborhood in recovery from its own history of substance abuse problems that can hardly stand hundreds more of its residents succumbing to the traps of gambling addiction.

East Boston is a neighborhood of older adults who have seen their fair share of struggle here. They’ve stood up to similarly powerful forces trying to come in and take advantage of the neighborhood. There’s a spirit of activism, of stubbornness – an idea that we know how to run our own lives, thank you very much, and we don’t need anything or anyone – airports, casinos – to save us. We’re a people with a big imagination, able to come together to envision a plan for the neighborhood’s future that provides “jobs with justice” and benefits more than just a few wealthy casino owners.

We’re told that a casino is the only development solution for the land at Suffolk Downs, the only way to bring jobs to East Boston. This is simply not true. Mayoral candidate and District Attorney Dan Conley knows this.* When asked this week what he’d do as mayor if the East Boston casino proposal were to fail, he said he’d support “a broader vision” for the neighborhood, recalling the decision Mayor Menino once faced of whether or not to bring the Patriots’ stadium to South Boston.

“Instead of one project, a stadium, the city has created tens of thousands of jobs across a decade and it’s still going,” he told reporters. “Now it’s referred to as the Innovation District. . . . Maybe that’s what the area over in East Boston ought to be? I think there are many things we could do over there with some imagination and some partnership and some planning.”**

Indeed.

This is another turning point moment for the neighborhood. I hear it in the voice of the mother who says her family will most likely move away if a casino comes to town. Her family has that option. Tens of thousands of others do not.

We speak out not because we hate development or love to fight. We do it because we must. We sure aren’t getting the whole truth from Suffolk Downs or our elected officials. We perceive a threat to the place we call home, and our instinct is to stand up and fight, yes, but also to envision a neighborhood that continues to determine its own destiny, support its own, build from the bottom up, and welcome all who share in that vision.

Steve Holt is a writer who lives in East Boston. He volunteers with No Eastie Casino

* Note: Conley says he's "agnostic" on the casino issue in general.
**Not an endorsement

http://www.universalhub.com/2013/who-we-are-why-we-fight

 

No Eastie Casino!

Broadside: East Boston casino?

Broadside: East Boston casino?



NECN) - Suffolk Downs chief operation officer of the racetrack, says his proposal will be a huge boost to the local economy and says it will be a ideal solution for a depressed area.

"This is an opportunity to set the standard for how this type of development is done in Massachusetts," Tuttle said.

He notes that there are 30,000 hotel rooms within a five-mile radius of Suffolk Downs, so the need for a large hotel won't figure into the project.

Myers, who opposes the casino, because she believes the infrastructure, such as roads, won't bear it and fears crime and burden to small business, included cannibalization of those businesses.

"They're worried about the crime and the impact on the community," said Myers, who noted there hasn't been an independent cost-benefit analysis of the project.

It’s a not-in-anybody’s-backyard.

East Boston group to fight casino
Concerns raised over crime, traffic
By Andrew Ryan Globe Staff

In living rooms in East Boston, a few dozen residents have begun gathering on couches and chairs to discuss how they might stop what seems like the inevitable arrival of slot machines and blackjack tables at a proposed casino at Suffolk Downs.

The nascent group, No Eastie Casino, has constructed the outlines of a website. They have launched a Facebook page with 96 members.

They have started to strategize about how they might combat the power and influence of casino magnates, developers, and elected officials who are pushing hard for a casino at the racetrack.

“I love East Boston; I want to stay here,’’ said Celeste Myers, 40, a group organizer whose family emigrated from Portugal to East Boston 70 years ago. “I don’t want to be driven out by a casino or the fallout from a casino.’’

The group, a mix of longtime East Boston residents and newcomers, faces extraordinary odds.

But this neighborhood, isolated on an angular peninsula it shares with Logan Airport, has a history of galvanizing to fight for its rights against formidable foes.

East Boston’s battles with the Massachusetts Port Authority have become neighborhood lore, especially the fight in the late 1960s and early 1970s over the extension of a runway, when mothers lay in the streets to protest the destruction of parks and homes.

“In a lot of respects, that is kind of the Alamo in East Boston,’’ said Mike Russo, 42, who lives in a Dutch Colonial his grandfather bought in 1935 and can hear the public address announcements at the racetrack from the front steps. “We’re in this to win this. We’re not in it for mitigation. I don’t give a flying handshake about ornamental street lights or new uniforms for the T-ball team.’’

The opponents worry about a surge in traffic through the neighborhood and fear the addiction, theft, and other ills that can accompany gambling. Many are dubious about the promise of good jobs and shared prosperity.

“The concerns they have are legitimate concerns; they are concerns that I have,’’ said Councilor Salvatore LaMattina, a vocal booster of a casino at Suffolk Downs. “If it is going to have a really negative impact on the neighborhood, then East Boston should reject it.’’

But, LaMattina added, “What I’m hearing in East Boston is a lot of people looking for jobs.’’

The Suffolk Downs ownership has not made a formal proposal to build a casino. Before a developer can compete for a state license to build a casino, the plans must be approved by local voters in a referendum.

But the push to build a casino at Suffolk Downs has the support of elected officials, who can be influential at the ballot box.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino, for example, captured 60 percent of the vote in East Boston his last election and is an ardent proponent of a casino at Suffolk Downs. That may be difficult for a group such as No Eastie Casino to overcome.

“Of course people are concerned about any economic project in their neighborhood,’’ said Menino’s spokeswoman, Dot Joyce. [This is not an 'economic development project, sadly.]

“It’s not uncommon for these types of groups to form around those economic development proposals. Our position remains the same, that East Boston, because of its history with the gaming facility at Suffolk Downs, would be an ideal spot for a resort-style gaming development,’’ she said.

Before any casino can open, voters get a say. In large cities such as Boston, the state casino law limits a referendum to the local ward or neighborhood, unless the mayor and City Council opt for a citywide vote.

Menino is against a citywide vote, but the opposition group plans to push the issue. A casino would affect all of Boston, Myers said, and a proposal would more likely be rejected if the entire city got to decide.

A vote on a local casino may cut across traditional political alliances. Myers, one organizer of the opposition group, volunteered for Menino’s 2009 reelection campaign, helping to organize phone banks.

“East Boston is a community that loves the mayor, so this is going to be kind of a challenge,’’ Myers said. “But you can love the mayor and not love all of his points of view.’’

Myers is the sister of John Ribeiro, who lives in Winthrop and has been an opponent of the law that paved the way for casinos in Massachusetts. Some members of No Eastie Casino share that sentiment.

“Casinos are a bad idea generally,’’ said Jessica Curtis, 31, who bought a house in East Boston in 2009. “It’s not in a not-in-my-backyard perspective. It’s a not-in-anybody’s-backyard.’’

But others who have been in touch with the opposition group remain undecided. Chris Marchi, for example, wants to be sure the process is transparent and that the neighborhood gets a chance to scrutinize the claims of both sides.

“We’re pretty savvy as a neighborhood,’’ Marchi said. “We’ve been here for 400 years on this little island. We’ve never lacked the ability to stand up for ourselves.’’