Gambling giant Genting faces fierce opposition

EXCLUSIVE: Gambling giant Genting faces fierce opposition to $1.5B bid for casino in Sterling Forest

The company’s proposal is not only the most expensive of the 16 proposed gaming resorts competing for a New York license, but also the most controversial — generating 3,428 letters and emails to state gaming officials about Sterling Forest as of Wednesday.

BY Glenn Blain

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Tuesday, December 9, 2014,

 

 

ALBANY — A $1.5 billion plan to build a casino in Sterling Forest is proving to be no easy roll of the dice for gambling giant Genting.
The company’s proposal is not only the most expensive of the 16 proposed gaming resorts competing for a New York license but also the most controversial, generating heated opposition from local activists and environmental groups.

Thanks to their efforts, state gaming officials had received 3,428 letters and emails as of Wednesday about Sterling Forest — the most by far of any of the proposed casinos. The vast majority opposed the project, which is only 41 miles from Manhattan, because of the threat it posed to the surrounding forest.

"Here is our message to Genting: pack up your money and go someplace else," said Rodger Friedman of the Sterling Forest Partnership, which is working with several other environmental groups to oppose the casino.

Key political leaders, including former New York Gov. George Pataki, have also come out against the project.

"I have grave concerns that this project and its projected 7 million visitors would wreak havoc on Sterling Forest," Pataki said in a statement.

Genting, which also operates the Resorts World Casino at Aqueduct, insists the Sterling Forest resort will be environmentally friendly, citing a $20 million water treatment plant planned for the project, the rehabilitation of nearby wetlands and hiking trails; and the installation of electricity-generating solar panels.

Here is our message to Genting: pack up your money and go someplace else.

"We are deeply aware of the emotional connection many feel to Sterling Forest," said Genting spokesman Michael Levoff. "We have designed our project to be in tune with the natural surroundings while protecting the surrounding environment, our most important asset.”

The project includes a 1,000-room hotel, a ski center, hiking trails, gardens and a rejuvenated Renaissance Faire medieval festival. Company officials have also pledged to pay the state a $450 million license fee, far more than the $70 million set minimum.

The debate over Sterling Forest comes as the panel charged with selecting casino locations nears a decision. The five-member Gaming Facility Location Board is scheduled to meet behind closed doors in Manhattan on Tuesday before holding its final meeting in Albany on Dec. 17.

State law allows for up to four licenses in three upstate regions: along the Pennsylvania border near Binghamton, the Capital Region around Albany, and the Hudson Valley/Catskills region. No region can receive more than two licenses.

The Hudson Valley/Catksills region is the most competitive region, accounting for nine of the casinos.

Lee Park, a spokesman for the state Gaming Commission, said public support is among the factors that committee members must consider in deciding where to locate a casino.



http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/exclusive-foes-rip-1-5b-sterling-forest-casino-bid-article-1.2038717




 

Genting, what else is new? Say GoodBye to Sterling Forest!

GENTING is an international Predatory Gambling Organization with no ties to any community beyond sucking them dry. [GENTING is the financial Sugar Daddy of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe in Massachusetts.]

GENTING has spent wisely on LOBBYISTS and BUYING POLITICIANS [SEE FLORIDA].....

And no one questions......

The excerpt below was saved from a web site that was hacked the day it appeared [worth reading in its entirety].

When the web site was restored, the article had been removed.


New York State requires relatively little scrutiny in the contract Genting has with the State of New York to operate slot machines at Aqueduct Racetrack.

Genting made millions of dollars as the money-men behind two controversial Indian Casino gaming developments in the Eastern United States. In both cases, Genting operations were directed by G. Michael Brown, a former New Jersey Attorney General who was later charged with embezzlement and cocaine use in the Seneca Tribal Court.

Brown was charged with putting various mistresses on the casino payroll and using casino funds to pay for luxury condominiums, imported sports cars and expensive jewelry for them. Brown famously drove a 4-door sedan owned by the Seneca Tribe through the picture window of a Niagara Falls resident while driving drunk.
Genting was the financier of the Seneca Niagara Casino Hotel in Niagara Falls, New York. Genting charged the tribe an exorbitant 28 percent interest rate, potentially in violation of the Indian Gaming Regulations under the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Genting also stayed in the deal for almost 15 years when they were legally limited to five. Seneca Tribal Council members have testified that armed Chinese thugs showed up to collect Genting’s money when tribal lawyers pointed out that Genting was violating the law.
FROM:
Genting Connected to Islamic Extremists?

Don’t Gamble Away Sterling Forest

By THE EDITORIAL BOARDOCT. 7, 2014

 

 

 

In 1996, a coalition of environmentalists, state and federal politicians and private donors cobbled together a deal that saved more than 20,000 acres of woodlands 44 miles away from New York City from development. The forests, some in New Jersey but most in New York, provide refuge for wildlife and clean drinking water for millions of people in New York and New Jersey.

 

Now comes another threat: a huge casino proposed by the Genting Group, a global casino operator and one of several companies hoping to take advantage of New York State’s decision to build four upstate gambling meccas. The complex would be located in Tuxedo, N.Y., a community virtually surrounded by the Sterling Forest; according to Genting, it would offer 1,000 hotel rooms, employ 4,000 people and draw seven million visitors a year, many from New York City. This is the last thing the pristine Sterling Forest watershed needs. A state board will choose the four winners from 16 candidates. None are likely to be as lucrative to its owner as this one, given its proximity to New York City. And none are likely to cause anywhere near as much environmental damage.

 

The New Jersey State Senate has unanimously passed a resolution urging New York to reject the Genting bid. The Palisades Interstate Park Commission, which is responsible for managing the forest, has denied Genting’s request for another interchange off the New York State Thruway to help bring traffic to the resort. These actions should give Genting pause. Yet the company barrels ahead anyway, offering to pony up $450 million for a one-time licensing fee that normally costs $70 million, pay for the interchange and devote a percentage of slot machine revenues to the upkeep of other state parks.

 

These blandishments should be resisted and the application denied.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/08/opinion/dont-gamble-away-sterling-forest.html?_r=0

Genting Buying Support in New York State

Monday, September 15, 2014

Group Pledges to "Bury" Genting in Lawsuits

The Albany Times-Union checks in with an editorial opposing Genting's proposed casino in Tuxedo.

 

The editorial, quite appropriately, accuses Genting of "attempting to bypass the deliberations and virtually buy a state casino license" with its "outlandish" $450 million cash offer for what is a $70 million license fee, and its brash offer to "write you a check today."

Consider how the change in the state's constitution to legalize these full-blown casinos was sold to voters. Recall the controversially favorable — some say unfairly promotional — wording of the ballot proposition last November. It unequivocally stated casinos were intended for "promoting job growth, increasing aid to schools, and permitting local governments to lower property taxes through revenues generated."

Backers portrayed casinos as a panacea for New York's most economically distressed regions, providing jobs and spurring other development. They conjured images of rundown and abandoned resorts in the Catskills and a second lease on life for the struggling region.

The editorial goes on to note that Tuxedo and the surrounding area do not at all qualify as a struggling region; neighboring Tuxedo Park has a median income of over $91,000.

Meanwhile, an environmental group is pledging to "bury" Genting in lawsuits should a license be granted to them. Whether that in itself acts as a deterrent to the location board picking them remains to be seen...but considering the fact that community support is supposed to be one of the criteria, I don't see why it shouldn't. There are 16 bidders, and I myself know of only four that have attracted an active opposition - East Greenbush, Tuxedo, Schenectady, and Tyre. (I'd be more than happy to receive word of any others.) So, it seems to me that there are plenty of options that would better satisfy the community support requirement. And I don't see why the board would make a selection that is likely to be tied up in the courts....unless it finds the riches that Genting is promising too much to resist. Which is surely a possibility.

Sterling Forest Partnership opposes the proposed $1.5 billion casino because it is located on privately owned land surrounded by Sterling Forest, a 22,000-acre state park that was created in 1998 after concerted efforts by environmentalists. The group believes a casino of that size would disturb the environment, and a proposed Exit 15B off the Thruway would bring too much traffic to the area. [Times Herald-Record]

As we mentioned, there was an anti-casino contingent from Tuxedo at the presentation last Tuesday, and Genting at least acknowledged their presence; that as opposed to Saratoga Raceway and Casino, whose Rita Cox feigned ignorance of the roots of the opposition in East Greenbush. Genting says they will work with opponents, and they're making a lot of promises as to how they will assuage environmental concerns; they'll treat runoff, they'll protect wildlife, they'll use low lighting that won't disturb the views. And to that, I'll remind you that Genting pledged to "work closely with NYRA to transform [Aqueduct] into a casino and racetrack that will be the envy of the country.” Yet, we were told at a NYRA board meeting by then president Ellen McClain in December, 2012 that Genting failed to follow through on a promise to keep the racing side of the plant clean - NYRA took over maintenance in 2013 - and repeatedly delayed groundbreaking on the Longshots bar which finally opened in April.

Now, I don't know that we could expect the gentlemen on the location board to be quite that fully immersed in the details and history of all this (although, why shouldn't they be); but I sure would have liked to have heard them question Genting about past broken promises instead of being so concerned about golf courses, proposing hypothetical scenarios that are not going to happen (such as two casinos in the Southern Tier), and asking rote questions about financing, the answers to which are either already in the applications or easily attainable at another time. Kevin Law told the folks in the yellow shirts to come back for the public comment sessions later in the month; and it's indeed the public that will have to ask the kind of incisive questions that we, for the most part, did not hear last week.

And as far as those lavish illustrations of what Sterling Forest will look like? I might also take that with a grain of salt. Here's the original illustration of what the Aqueduct racino was supposed to look like:

And here is what it actually looks like now:

 

 

I was very excited about the big water fountain. Guess it dropped out of the plan at some point, along with the trees and the shrubs and that big tower thing that looks like the Chrysler building. Anyone who was familiar with the old Aqueduct footprint knows that, for all the supposed glitz, it is really a relatively cosmetic change from the original. May be a small point. But the devil is in the details, and should Genting be granted the license to build this thing, I'd bet that it won't be quite as spectacular and glamorous as they portray it to be now.

 

 

 

 

http://leftatthegate.blogspot.com/2014/09/group-pledges-to-bury-genting-in.html