Towns neighboring New Bedford all express interest in compensation for casino impacts

Fairhaven, Dartmouth, Acushnet, Freetown, others could seek money for increased traffic, class sizes, use of public services, and more, if negotiations unfold with New Bedford developer

Andrew Stern, operating partner of KG Urban Enterprises, takes a look at an advertisment promoting the casino during the day of the city vote in June. Stern's group will have to be dealing not just with New Bedford, but with neighboring towns as well. PETER PEREIRA/THE STANDARD-TIMES

By Mike Lawrence
mlawrence@s-t.com

Posted Jul. 11, 2015 at 10:01 PM 

NEW BEDFORD — The use of casino dollars for costs associated with upgrading the Howland Road bridge from Fairhaven into New Bedford, where the road becomes Coggeshall Street, is one of many topics that could be on the table in coming weeks, as SouthCoast towns consider potential impacts from the $650 million casino project proposed for New Bedford’s waterfront.

“We’re just at the starting point of having discussions with surrounding towns,” Fairhaven executive secretary Jeffrey Osuch said Thursday. “There will be issues ranging from traffic concerns to housing concerns to potential addiction concerns.”

Less than a month after New Bedford residents gave a landslide show of support for a waterfront casino — with 73 percent of voters in favor June 23 — Fairhaven, Dartmouth, Acushnet and Freetown are all exploring potential casino impacts in their communities and, in varying degrees, the potential for financial compensation.

“Several of the towns have contacted us and asked us to weigh in on the impacts,” said Steve Smith, who served as executive director of the Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District, or SRPEDD, for more than 30 years before retiring June 30.

Smith, who was in the office Wednesday in his new capacity as a part-time consultant, said SRPEDD has previously evaluated impacts for communities near other Massachusetts casino proposals.

“We played that role in the case of the Raynham application,” Smith said, referring to the Taunton-area town’s unsuccessful application for the state’s single slots parlor license.

SRPEDD also was involved in the slots process, Smith said, by sitting in on meetings between developer Penn National Gaming and communities near Plainville, which won the state's single slots license. Plainridge Park Casino opened June 24.

A similar pre-licensing process now is unfolding in SouthCoast.

“I’ve had both Acushnet and Freetown reach out to me for assistance,” Smith said. He added that SRPEDD staff had heard from Dartmouth and Fairhaven officials, as well.

New York-based developer KG Urban Enterprises and New Bedford are competing with developer Mass Gaming & Entertainment, which is proposing a $650 million casino project on a Brockton Fairgrounds site, for the sole commercial casino license the Massachusetts Gaming Commission can allocate in southeastern Massachusetts.

Smith said whether to involve SRPEDD in the mitigation process for communities near New Bedford is up to KG Urban. State gaming law allows regional planning authorities to facilitate impact assessments for casino agreements.

“So far, there’s been no contact in that regard,” Smith said Wednesday.

Osuch said Thursday that KG Urban had not yet contacted Fairhaven, either. Dartmouth Town Administrator David Cressman said the same.

But Cressman said Gaming Commission representatives had reached out to town officials recently, to make them aware of surrounding community rights under state law.

KG Urban spokesman Andrew Paven commented briefly last week on surrounding community negotiations, saying he didn't think the developer had yet reached out to towns neighboring New Bedford. Those talks could heat up ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline for submitting final application materials to the Gaming Commission.

KG Urban’s negotiations with New Bedford early this year were conducted in a contentious, late-winter flurry aided by deadline extensions from the Gaming Commission. The talks culminated in an 11th-hour host community agreement signed on the morning of March 19, hours before Mayor Jon Mitchell and KG Urban representatives presented the deal at a commission meeting later that day.

The timeline for the next legal front, surrounding community negotiations, became clearer at a Thursday meeting of the Gaming Commission in Boston.

If surrounding community agreements for towns that want to be involved are not included in KG Urban’s final application Sept. 30, those towns would have a window in early October to petition to the Gaming Commission.

The five-member commission then could rule by Nov. 30 on whether those towns would be granted “surrounding community” status. That would then trigger a 30-day negotiation period, through December, in which towns granted that status could negotiate compensation agreements with KG Urban.

“The amount of money they get paid is going to be right at the top of the list,” Smith said, saying traffic, housing, schools and crime also are common issues in surrounding community negotiations.

If towns don’t reach agreements, arbitration could result in January 2016 decisions. Attorney Jonathan Silverstein of Boston-based firm Kopelman & Paige, who represents New Bedford in casino matters, said last week that it would be “baseball-style” arbitration, in which each side makes a best and final offer and an arbitrator chooses one of the two.

Silverstein has represented host and surrounding casino communities across Massachusetts. He’ll represent Acushnet, as well, and is representing several communities surrounding Brockton’s casino proposal: Holbrook, Stoughton and Abington so far.

“Every case is going to be very different,” Silverstein said.

Other MA deals

Cities and towns near casino proposals elsewhere in Massachusetts — successful and not — have sought compensation in recent years for an array of impacts, as the commonwealth’s casino era begins.

The most prominent disputes are unfolding in Boston, where Wynn Resorts’ $1.75 billion Everett casino is facing ongoing litigation on numerous fronts, including emphatic efforts by the City of Boston to revoke the casino’s license, or to be named a host community for the project.

Less-contentious casino deals elsewhere in the state, though, could provide a clearer picture of the kind of negotiations that could lie ahead for SouthCoast towns.

West Springfield, for example, received — via arbitration — a May 2014 agreement that includes a $665,000 up-front payment from MGM Springfield. The payment is expressly for design and permitting costs for the reconstruction of Memorial Avenue in West Springfield. The avenue is a major transportation route to the future MGM Springfield casino.

Silverstein represented West Springfield in its negotiations with MGM. A total of six towns and two cities in the Springfield area reached agreements with the developer. Longmeadow won arbitration, as well, receiving $850,000 up front and 13 annual payments of $275,000 in the April 2014 agreement.

West Springfield’s agreement also includes annual payments, of at least $425,000 a year. At least $50,000 of those payments, annually, will go toward “look-back studies,” which will assess casino impacts and potential talking points for additional compensation in future years.

Funding for such studies is included in many casino agreements across the state, as cities and towns enter the foreign territory of commercial gaming.

“This is new to all of us,” Osuch said.

MGM Springfield is an $800 million project, compared to the $650 million estimate for KG Urban’s Cannon Street Station in New Bedford. West Springfield also has nearly double the population of Fairhaven, and is larger than any town surrounding New Bedford.

But its location across the water from Springfield could create traffic impacts and other concerns comparable to Fairhaven’s, Smith said.

“On the surface, it would seem to be fairly close,” Smith said.

Fairhaven selectmen agreed unanimously Monday to direct town counsel to reach out to surrounding towns and to SRPEDD, to discuss casino impacts. The city also intends to file notices with KG Urban and the state Gaming Commission, Osuch said, indicating the town wishes to receive “surrounding community” status that can lead to compensation.

Fairhaven Town Counsel Thomas Crotty said Monday that he would reach out to Kopelman & Paige for potential representation, meaning Silverstein could wind up negotiating casino deals for most of greater New Bedford.

Crosstown traffic

Osuch said data such as traffic thresholds on Fairhaven intersections and roads, including Howland and the Coggeshall bridge, could be analyzed for potential needs such as signal upgrades, turning lanes and more.

“We don’t have a full understanding of what the actual impacts are, and that’s what we have to do some homework on,” he said.

Smith said assessing regional traffic impacts from a New Bedford casino could be easier than assessing multi-direction impacts in Raynham and Plainville, because here, "there just aren't that many ways to access the site.”

Route 6 would be a major secondary access route, he said, but those renovations — including to the New Bedford-Fairhaven Bridge — would involve the state and largely be outside the purview of a surrounding community agreement.

“It’s not going to be Fairhaven’s ability to fix that bridge,” Smith said. “Fairhaven could certainly make the request, you know, ‘Do something to try to get the state moving on that project,' but it’s really sort of beyond the local jurisdiction.”

Silverstein said monetizing traffic impacts can be difficult, and vary by situation.

"It’s a bit of an art, as opposed to a science,” he said. 

Fire and EMS calls

Public services in New Bedford interact significantly with services in neighboring towns, meaning an influx of casino crowds into the city could have affects on outlying areas.

“We’re looking at a 15 percent increase in people who are in the city at any one time,” New Bedford Fire Chief Michael Gomes said, citing potential casino crowds of 12,000 to 15,000 people per day. “If you have people who are transiting from other communities to get here, there certainly is increased risk for services from those communities.

“The risks of auto accidents, medical calls and things of that nature will certainly go up,” he said.

Gomes said about 15 percent of emergency medical service (EMS) calls in New Bedford involve some form of mutual aid, either from private ambulance agencies or surrounding towns.

“I do believe that Acushnet comes into the city about 10 times a month, on average, for ambulance support,” he said.

Mark McGraw, the city’s EMS director, said city dispatchers call for ambulance support from surrounding towns after all four of its private contractors are unavailable.

“Mutual aid is a funny thing,” he said. “Sometimes, within a matter of half an hour, we’ve got everybody and his brother in the city,” while other days are slow.

McGraw said the department has looked at studies from other casino towns to gauge impacts. Other communities saw more traffic accidents, McGraw said, but didn’t see much of an increase on the medical side.

“I don’t think it was all that significant,” McGraw said, referring to overall casino impacts on emergency services in other communities.

Water, sewer services

Ron Labelle, commissioner of the city’s Department of Public Infrastructure, said there’s room for the city to grow in water and wastewater capacity, including in its services to surrounding towns.

A report provided by KG Urban in 2014 estimated that a waterfront casino could use 100,000 to 200,000 gallons of water per day.

Labelle called that amount negligible to city water treatment, which he said is operating only at about half capacity.

The city’s water treatment plant has the ability to produce 45 million gallons of water a day, Labelle said, but is only treating about 18 million gallons a day in high-demand summer months.

“We have tremendous capacity to provide water and wastewater services, so a couple hundred thousand gallons of water is minimal,” he said. “It’s really not that much.”

Labelle said a casino “wouldn’t adversely affect our ability to provide any services to (surrounding towns), water or wastewater.”

The shared services are substantial.

“Dartmouth buys a lot of water from us in the summertime, because their wells can’t handle the summer demand,” he said. “Acushnet buys all of its water from us.”

New Bedford provides Fairhaven with water on an emergency basis, according to Labelle, while the city takes in sewage from Acushnet, Dartmouth and Freetown.

New Bedford sends some of its sewage to Fairhaven, he added.

Clock ticking

Osuch and Cressman said Fairhaven and Dartmouth, respectively, are just beginning to assess potential casino impacts and compensation.

“We’re in the initial stages, we’re starting to look at what other communities have looked at and done,” Cressman said.

Silverstein said he’s seen a variety of situations.

“I’ve negotiated some surrounding community agreements fairly quickly, and others have taken a longer time,” he said.

Silverstein said the time period facing communities surrounding New Bedford should be workable.

“Would I love to have more time? Sure,” Silverstein said. “(But) it certainly isn’t all that unusual.”

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/article/20150711/NEWS/150719846/101061/json

GC studying effect casinos have on public safety - the White Wash Begins!

During one of the Edumacational Forums conducted by the Massachusetts Gambling Commission, Frank Fahrenkopf, founder and former head of AGA [American Gam[bl]ing Association] poo-pooed the CRIME issue while the MGC Bobble Heads wobbled their heads in agreement.

The "DATA" can be easily skewed as it has been around the nation.

Gambling Addiction is the ADDICTION with the lowest rate of self-referral, the highest rate of SUICIDE [THE GAMBLING INDUSTRY'S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET].

Gambling Addicts self report that they have committed CRIMES to feed their ADDICTION.



VIDEO ON LINK


GC studying effect casinos have on public safety

SPRINGFIELD Mass. (WWLP) – Casino opponents often cite concerns that a gambling facility will increase crime in their host cities.

Now the state Gaming Commission is taking a scientific approach to determine if or how a casino will impact public safety in Massachusetts.

The first part of the research project will concentrate on the Slots Parlor scheduled to open in Plainville next month. The study will look at crime, police calls and traffic.

Kaitlin Hodge of Groton, Connecticut said, “I feel like unless it’s a very publicized study, then the Mass public won’t know much about it. And they’ll build their own opinion.”

While the study will be an ongoing assessment of casino impact on public safety, there may be usable information by the time MGM Springfield opens in Springfield in 2017.


http://wwlp.com/2015/05/14/gc-studying-effect-casinos-have-on-public-safety/

Casinos: A Losing Bet For Massachusetts

• Mon, Oct 27, 2014
• by Donald M. Berwick

Donald M. Berwick, MD, is president emeritus and senior fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Boston and is former administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
learn more

Donald M. Berwick: "We have a chance in our state to invest in a declining industry that will harm our economy, reduce property values, kill more jobs than it adds, lower incomes, injure public safety, reduce net government revenues, increase a major mental health burden and selectively harm the poor. Or, we can stop it." (Mait Jüriado/flickr)


Casinos should have no place in Massachusetts, and Ballot Question 3 is our chance to stop them. (A “yes” vote on Question 3  TWEET says “no” to casinos and repeals the law that permits them.) If you care about the state’s economy, jobs and the overall health of our state, this is not a close call.

Consider first that the casino industry is in decline. Moody’s recently downgraded the industry’s outlook from “stable” to “negative.” Six out of 12 casinos in New Jersey have filed for bankruptcy; four large casinos in Atlantic City have closed this year, and another soon will.

If Massachusetts tries to rely on casino revenue, it will become a stakeholder in the gambling industry itself, tied to failing casinos. Delaware has had to spend $8 million to bail out its casinos, and Rhode Island projects losses of over $422 million in casino revenue over the next five years.

 

If Massachusetts tries to rely on casino revenue, it will become a stakeholder in the gambling industry itself, tied to failing casinos.

 

Casinos harm their local economies. In its 3,000-page review of the economic toll that casinos take on their surrounding communities, the U. S. International Gambling Report series found consensus among 40 economists regarding casinos’ net negative effect on economic development. No research study not affiliated with the industry-funded American Gaming Association has found otherwise. The Massachusetts Restaurant Association, the Boston Business Journal and the Wall Street Journal oppose casinos.

In Atlantic City, one-third of retail businesses closed within four years of casinos’ arrival in 1978, when there were 311 taverns and restaurants. Twenty years later, there were 66.

In Norwich, Connecticut, median family income fell by $20,000 per year after a casino opened nearby. Mayor Wesley Johnson of Ledyard, Connecticut, the home of Foxwoods, says, “There has been no economic development spin-off from the casino.” And a study by the Realtor Association of Pioneer Valley estimates that average home values near a Western Massachusetts casino could fall by as much as $3,300.

What of the argument that casinos create jobs? “Bogus,” according to The Boston Business Journal, which debunked the claim that Massachusetts casinos will create 20,000 jobs, “…because the diversion of billions of dollars in one sector is destined to cause job losses in other sectors.” And, most of the jobs that casinos do provide rank among the worst paying in America, according to Forbes Magazine. A full-time gaming dealer, for example, has a median annual salary of $18,480.

Slot machines generate 60 to 90 percent of casino revenue, but money dropped into slots does not stay local: It’s shipped off to headquarters to the tune of $300,000 of foregone consumer spending per year, per slot machine. Those are dollars that are drained from and not returned to the local economy. As a result of that drainage, according to University of Illinois researchers, one job is lost per slot machine every year.

Casino proponents claim that a Massachusetts casino will prevent “leakage” of government revenues to other states. It’s true that Massachusetts residents contributed approximately $77 million in gambling money to the Connecticut treasury in 2013. But only a fraction of that would be retained in Massachusetts if casinos opened here.





In fact, revenue projections for the Massachusetts casino deal are based largely on data from Las Vegas-style destination resort casinos, which bring in almost entirely outside money. Massachusetts casinos, in contrast, will draw mostly on local dollars, not dollars from other states.

Estimates of what casinos will add to state and local government revenues are inflated. Casinos in Massachusetts will cannibalize from the state lottery, which cities and towns depend on for discretionary funds for local services such as schools, police and fire protection, parks and public works. Even if every single gambling dollar now spent in Connecticut were to revert to Massachusetts, that would not make up for even a 10 percent decrease in lottery income. The former president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation has stated that cities and towns will see no new revenues as a result of casinos.

Meanwhile, state and local expenditures would increase for law enforcement and public safety, the treatment of gambling addiction and its consequences, unemployment benefits and subsidies for businesses adversely affected by casinos, and a multimillion-dollar regulatory apparatus just to keep an eye on the casinos.

Casinos hurt public safety. In Norwich, Connecticut, Driving Under the Influence (DUI) arrests doubled after Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods opened; today, nearly 25 percent of drunk driving arrests in the area involve casino patrons. One national study found that, within a few years of opening, casinos account for about 8 percent of the crimes in the counties they occupy.

 

…money dropped into slots does not stay local: It’s shipped off to headquarters to the tune of $300,000 of foregone consumer spending per year, per slot machine.

Gambling addiction doubles within 10 miles of a casino. Casinos depend on gambling addiction and problem gamblers for their business success. They use marketing science to determine how best to attract those most likely to become addicted.

An estimated 20 to 40 percent of casino revenue comes from addicts. Overall, about 90 percent of casino profits come from 10 percent of their customers.

And gambling addiction can be devastating to addicts and their families. Gambling addicts have the highest rates of suicide of any addicted population, and personal bankruptcies rise by more than 18 percent in the area around a casino. Communities of color experience higher gambling addiction rates, even after adjusting for income, and casinos disproportionately harm the poor and vulnerable.

Some argue that this decision can and should be made city-by-city, not by state policy: “If Springfield wants a casino, it is Springfield’s right to have one.” This is not a matter for pure local choice, however, because the effects are not at all localized. The drunk-driving injuries and deaths won’t be confined to Springfield; nor will be the larger Massachusetts state budget costs, the mental health burdens, the net job losses, or damage to the state’s safety net. A Massachusetts city ought to have every right to build a local swimming pool but not to add a toxic chemical to our water supply or a casino to our Commonwealth.

So, what a deal! We have a chance in our state to invest in a declining industry that will harm our economy, reduce property values, kill more jobs than it adds, lower incomes, injure public safety, reduce net government revenues, increase a major mental health burden and selectively harm the poor.

Or, we can stop it.

Selling Fall River Down The River?

Excerpts below -- worth reading in its entirety from Fall River Herald News about Mayor Flanagan selling Fall River down the river to win re-election.

Poor man's confused!

City Councilor Linda Pereira said that during contract negotiations with the firefighters, the union requested a 4 percent raise, but Flanagan offered 7.5 percent, and education and clothing allowance go into the base pay, increasing a pension and further burdening the pension system.

“I had a conversation about that with the mayor because it was wrong to do,” Pereira said. “ ... And I know you as a union representative said (to Flanagan) can you afford this, and he told you yes. ... You are not the only ones in this community that have been deceived because I’ve, too, been deceived.”

 It was the same agreement Flanagan negotiated with the police union, she said.


Firefighters union, City Council say SAFER application from Aug. 2013 contradicts mayor's recent statements

Herald News Photo | Jack Foley |

[ON LINK]
Fall River Fire Department District Chief James Mellen, left, who is vice president of the firefighters Local 1314, points out what he says are discrepancies in Mayor Will Flanagan's statements regarding proposed fire department staffing levels. Seated next to Mellen is the union local's president, Firefighter Jason Burns. Union members in the audience are wearing white T-shirts.


Jo C. Goode
Herald News Staff Reporter Posted Mar. 26, 2014

FALL RIVER — Mayor Will Flanagan’s administration identified a $10 million budget shortfall in August 2013 and acknowledged that a reduction in firefighters would put the city’s safety at risk, according to information contained in a 2013 SAFER grant application.

But those facts contradict recent statements made by the administration claiming that the shortfall wasn’t discovered until January and claims by Flanagan that the planned layoffs of 60 firefighters would still keep the city within federal fire safety standards.

During the public comment portion of the City Council meeting Tuesday night, union representatives of the firefighters Local 1314 outlined those facts after a request from City Councilor Michael Miozza to review the 2013 SAFER grant.

Union President Jason Burns said that, when he was hired as a firefighter for the city, he took an oath to protect and serve, whether it was to fight fires or respond to other emergencies.

“Tonight, it’s a little bit different. But it’s still protecting and serving,” Burns said. “I’m here to sound the alarm, not with my words, but the papers before you, in the mayor’s words.”

Burns said Flanagan was either being untruthful to the federal government or untruthful to the residents.

Contacted Tuesday night, Flanagan said he didn’t recall the details of the SAFER grant application and would meet with the financial team today and will make a public comment after the meeting.

The city is seeking funding for 16 firefighters, which would total more than $3.2 million. It identified in the application to the Federal Emergency Management Agency that it was committed to funding the 79 firefighter positions currently paid for through a $14.4 million SAFER grant awarded in 2011.

But in February, Flanagan announced plans to lay off more than 30 percent of the fire department staff — 60 firefighters. It would reduce the complement of firefighters from 213 to 153.

Until December, according to firefighter union representatives, Flanagan had promised the department that the city would fund a staff of 200 firefighters.

In the application, a projected $10 million gap was identified as the reason the city could not support its staffing needs.

The fiscal 2015 budget shortfall wasn’t made public until this month, and it wasn’t mentioned by City Administrator Cathy Ann Viveiros and Treasurer John Nunes when they delivered the City Council’s first quarterly budget update in January.

The council briefings passed an ordinance requiring the administration to make quarterly updates on the municipal budget and the water and sewer enterprise funds.

During questioning by city councilors, Viveiros and Nunes reiterated that the shortfall was found in January, but Miozza quizzed Nunes, who was part of the finance team at the time the grant application was written, on whether he was aware of the $10 million gap in August.

Damning Costs!

Sheriff: Florida can't afford to gamble on casinos

Nov. 8, 2013

On Thursday, the Florida State Senate Committee on Gaming is coming to Pensacola to give our citizens a chance to express their comments and concerns about expanding gambling in our state and allowing big casinos to open around Florida.

The expansion of gambling is a “crap shoot” at best, pun intended. One only has to look to Las Vegas or Atlantic City to see that the expected panaceas of fiscal stability and work for all were clearly false promises. In fact these two cities have crime rates double the national average.

Formal studies wave red flags about crime and casinos. The Florida Council on Compulsive Gambling reports that 35 percent of callers to its toll-free, anonymous problem-gambling help line say they committed an illegal act to support their habit. One study that examined 167 counties where casinos had been open more than 20 years estimated that 5.5 percent to 30 percent of serious crimes in those counties could be attributed to gambling. Particularly alarming, these counties with casinos saw 157 more aggravated assaults per 100,000 residents than non-casino counties.

If gambling is expanded in our region, our community will be forced to deal with the resulting public safety issues. Our leaders will have no choice but to raise taxes to expand law enforcement coverage to deal with the sharp and sudden increase in crime.

There are those who will argue the tax coffers filled by the gambling industry will offset these increases. Let me be clear, as a state, we will spend more fighting crime than we will ever receive in taxes from gambling.

According to a study by the International Association of Police Chiefs, “for every dollar collected in gambling taxes, the government, on average, spends ten dollars fighting the problems directly related to legalized gambling including prostitution, embezzlement, bad checks, police corruption, racketeering, etc.” Additionally, a report released by the Florida Office of Planning and Budgeting in 1994 projecting costs of legalizing casino gambling in Florida showed that the biggest potential government expense would be incarcerating all the new pathological gamblers who turn to crime. The study reported, “Not counting the cost of prosecution, restitution or other related costs, incarceration and supervision costs alone for problem-gambler criminal incidents could cost Florida residents $6.08 billion.”

If those seeking to expand gambling through the Florida Legislature were successful, it would be opening an entirely new avenue of crime.

Consider these sobering findings from the report “Casinos and Florida: Crime and Prison Costs”:

» Approximately 13 percent of pathological gamblers have assaulted someone for money.

» In the first year after a casino opens, there would be 34 more robberies per 100,000 people, which increase to more than 60 robberies per 100,000 people three years after it opens.

» Casinos would increase crime, burdening the state prison system with billions of dollars of additional costs over a 10-year period.

While these statistics are disturbing, the societal and cultural impacts are not so easily quantified and their damage is lifelong. Often those who turn to gambling are the very people who can least afford to do so. Studies have found a direct link between problem gambling and increased rates of divorce, child abuse, domestic violence, bankruptcy, crime and suicide.

Gambling’s rate of return must not be assessed in monetary measure alone. We must understand that the resulting problems associated with expanding gambling in our state are greater than any potential short term bump in our economy. They are issues we cannot ignore or walk away from. To allow for an expansion in gambling is to allow for an expansion in crime, broken families, and poverty.

http://www.pnj.com/article/20131110/OPINION/311100009/Sheriff-Florida-can-t-afford-gamble-casinos?nclick_check=1

Genting: Duo robbed & kidnapped

Duo robbed & kidnapped at Genting not the children of VVIPs


BENTONG - The two people who were robbed and abducted at a hotel in Genting Highlands two days ago are not children of dignitaries as was stated in news circulated on social networking sites and blogs, police confirmed today.

Bentong OCPD Supt Mohd Mansor Mohd Nor said the 19-year-old male victim was a direct sales personnel selling cooking equipment and was the son of arestaurant operator in Subang Jaya, Selangor.

"The 26-year-old female victim is a saleswoman dealing in beauty products and the daughter of a fish bait dealer," he told a news conference at the Bentong district police headquarters, here.

In Sunday's incident, police arrested four suspects, including a woman, forallegedly robbing a Proton Perdana from the two victims at a hotel in the resort.

All the suspects have been remanded for seven days until Sunday, and the case is being investigated for gang robbery and illegal confinement. -- BERNAMA


Full article: http://www.malaysia-chronicle.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=172261:duo-robbed--kidnapped-at-genting-not-the-children-of-vvips&Itemid=2#ixzz2hGG995cJ
Follow us: @MsiaChronicle on Twitter

Vegas: Ignoring Patrons Safety

In Vegas, eye in the sky guards money, not guests

By HANNAH DREIER, Associated Press | October 7, 2013 | Updated: October 8, 2013

• 

Photo By Jae C. Hong

1 of 1

FILE - In this file photo taken Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2007, guests descend an escalator to the main casino floor of the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. While casinos have thousands of cameras watching the gaming floors, entrances and some elevators, cameras are absent in the hallways of the guest room floors where thousands of crimes occur.

 

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Hotel maid Brandi Patrick was chased down the hallway at the Flamingo casino last year by a nearly naked man. She said she had to lock herself in a cleaning closet and, as the man rattled the handle, fumble around in her pockets to find her cellphone so she could call security.

 

She said she's haunted by the thought of what might have happened if she hadn't had her phone. "Something could happen and no one would know it 'till the end of the shift," she said.

 

Las Vegas casinos— some of the most closely-watched spaces in the world— don't have video cameras in guest room hallways, an absence that hotel workers like Patrick, patrons and prosecutors say can act as a green light for crime.

 

Casino bosses say there is no need for extra security: America's playground boasts more cameras per square foot than any airport or sports arena in the country, with thousands of high-tech lenses watching the gambling floors, lobbies and elevators.

 

All four major Strip casino operators, however, declined further comment.

 

Closed circuit cameras hidden behind plastic ceiling domes are omnipresent in pop culture portrayals of Sin City. They play a pivotal role during the heist in 2001's "Ocean's Eleven" and in the reconstruction of a crazy night in the 2009 buddy comedy "The Hangover."

 

Yet the Associated Press found that 23 of the 27 major Strip casinos have no surveillance in hotel hallways or elevator landings. All but four of the 27 hotels are owned by MGM Resorts International, Caesars Entertainment Corp., Las Vegas Sands Corp. or Wynn Resorts Ltd.

 

The AP arrived at the tally by interviewing casino officials and visiting the hotels that wouldn't comment. Only Caesars Palace, Planet Hollywood, the MGM Grand and Tropicana Las Vegas monitor the halls above the gambling floor.

 

"People have a false sense of safety when they go to a casino," security consultant Fred Del Marva said. "You think, 'I'm going to Bellagio, they have 2,000 surveillance cameras, so I'm going to be safe.' And you're wrong. The level of security at the hotel level is zero."

 

Tourist Allyson Rainey said she wishes she'd known no one was monitoring the hallways of Harrah's hotel-casino before her computer was stolen from her room last year. A police detective caught the thief after spotting him clutching her distinctive laptop bag in hotel lobby footage.

 

But Rainey said more cameras at the Caesars-owned hotel could have prevented the crime.

 

"The detective told us that the guy had a keycard made, and he was going from hotel to hotel," she said. "He had been doing this for the last eight years, so he obviously knew they didn't have cameras there."

 

Gary Selesner, president of Harrah's and Caesars Palace, said cameras cannot stand in for vigilance when it comes to preventing "door-push" crimes, or crimes in which a burglar finds a room to target by pushing on doors until one swings open.

 

"As a hotel operator, I think what you really need is cameras in foyer and in the elevator. That said, we are putting cameras in as we complete renovations because of door-push concerns," he said. The company has installed cameras in at least one tower of Caesars Palace.

 

Hotel room burglaries account for the great majority of casino crimes, and they've been on the rise in recent years, while burglaries have declined in the rest of the city, according to an analysis of police statistics.

 

Las Vegas Chief Deputy District Attorney James Sweetin said the absence of cameras not only encourages petty crimes such as burglary but makes more serious crimes harder to prosecute.

 

He wondered whether stepped up surveillance might have prevented the rape of a 13-year-old boy in a hotel room at MGM's Circus Circus last New Year's Eve, or the assault of an unconscious woman at the Cosmopolitan. He said the woman's assailant avoided cameras by taking the stairs.

 

Housekeepers have their own scare stories. Patrick said she never reported her brush with the man in the hallway to police or her managers. Hotel officials said they would have conducted an investigation had the incident been reported.

 

Other hotel maids can recall similar scares, though they too say they don't report them.

 

In 2011, a 65-year-old maid was punched in the face, pushed into an empty guest room and raped at Bally's casino. Again, the assailant used the stairs. A man has been charged in the case, which is ongoing.

 

The main obstacle to increased hallway security is cost, experts say.

 

A midsized hotel might pay $2 million to install the system and $100,000 a year to monitor it, according to Art Steele, who directed security at the Stratosphere Las Vegas from 1996 to 2009. The casino, located between the Strip and downtown, is one of the few to place cameras in its hallways. Steele said they helped every day.

 

The other concern is lawsuits. If casinos set up hallway cameras but ignored the footage, guests might

sue for negligence, according to Les Gold, who litigates liability issues for Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp in New York City.

 

"When they put these cameras in, it deters crime," he said. "But to have a camera that is not monitored is a huge mistake."

 

http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/In-Vegas-eye-in-the-sky-guards-money-not-guests-4877118.php

 

 

Foxwoods taking control of Milford

Russ: Foxwoods taking control of Milford
Posted Sep 18, 2013

MILFORD —

I have read of Foxwoods’ joy over “getting everything they wanted” with two of our selectmen signing the Host Community Agreement. The future of Milford as a place with hometown appeal where folks have raised their kids and plan for retirement has been offered in sacrifice to the cash waving, trash pandering gambling industry.

Large scale gambling is simply legal looting. Gambling provides no societal benefit beyond yielding potentially huge profits for the purveyor and the promise of some fast cash to the subverted community. We, the residents, have to plan for more police, more fire rescue, more water restrictions, more construction dirt and noise, more traffic congestion, more crime, more loss of control over our town’s future, more disruption, etc.

How all this is supposedly justified through Foxwoods’ overused claim of “more jobs” and “better future” truly reveals a serious shortage of foresight by our leadership along with abject scheming on the part of Foxwoods management. Foxwoods espouses their “hometown” credentials when, in fact, they just shoved their way in, bought off town leadership with the promise of fabulous riches, and are now in the process of attempting to coerce Town Meeting members. For those of you unable to see what is going here it’s simple; Foxwoods will take control of Milford. With all this promised cash derived from gambling Milford will be at the casino’s beck and call. A NO vote on November 19 is a vote to preserve what many Milford residents have for decades worked so hard to achieve.

TOM RUSS
Milford

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The arguments presented echo the same arguments employed elsewhere, including Middleboro, to the Regional Casino Task Force.
 
The Cliche King of Plainville, Joe Fernandes needs to find more appropriate quotes, even more so because Plainville has historically ignored opportunities offered that would have written a brighter future.

All representations of financial gain ignore the KNOWN future expansion of the proposed Slot Barn into a full blown 'casino' with no amenities. [Joe Fernandes attended the Gam[bl]ing Commission's Educational Forum at which FUTURE EXPANSION  was discussed. I know! I was there and saw Joe Fernandes, along with the Plainridge entourage, including Sticky Finger Piontkowski.]

Plainville vote renews bid for compensation

By Ellen Ishkanian / Globe Correspondent / September 14, 2013

 

With last week’s vote putting plans for a slots parlor in Plainville back on track, officials in Foxborough are renewing efforts to get financial compensation for the uptick in traffic and “social problems” they say the casino may cause.

 

Wrentham and Mansfield are also considering their options.

 

That doesn’t sit well with Plainville officials and many residents in the small town just a few miles south of Gillette Stadium.

 

“I don’t think people in glass houses should be throwing stones,” Plainville Town Administrator Joseph Fernandes said, referring to Foxborough.

 

Foxborough Board of Selectmen has put the topic on the agenda for its next meeting Tuesday night, according to acting Town Manager Robert F. Cutler.

 

“I fail to see how, in any significant way, this could impact them anywhere near to the degree [Gillette Stadium] impacts us. It’s extremely disingenuous considering their impact on other communities,” he said.

Dale Bergevine, a 55-year resident of Plainville and member of the pro-casino group People for Plainville, took it even further.

“They should be embarrassed to come here and ask for anything,” he said.

Foxborough’s officials, as well as those in Mansfield and Wrentham which also border Plainville, tabled any effort to negotiate mitigation when it appeared the Plainridge project was dead last month after the state Gaming Commission determined its owners unsuitable to hold a license.

But plans for a slots parlor and restaurant complex at Plainridge Racecourse at the junction of
Interstate 495 and Route 1 were resuscitated two weeks ago when Penn National Gaming made an eleventh hour move to secure an option to buy the harness racing track after its bid for a slots parlor in Tewksbury failed.

Last Tuesday town voters endorsed the proposal by a slightly better than 3 to 1 margin in a townwide binding referendum.

That has pushed the Foxborough Board of Selectmen to put the topic on the agenda for its next meeting Tuesday night, according to acting Town Manager Robert F. Cutler.

As chairman of Foxborough’s Racino Review Committee, established by the Board of Selectmen to study the impact slots at Plainridge would have on the town, Michael Davison said his town is only protecting its interests, as the state’s gaming law allows.

“Was it fair for the people in Plainville when Gillette was built? Possibly not, but that’s how the law was written. The law in this case says we can ask for mitigation.”

The state’s gaming law requires casino operators to identify surrounding communities and to negotiate agreements with them to address any potential negative effects, such as traffic.

Eric Schippers, senior vice president at Penn National said the company plans to meet with each of the surrounding communities before the Oct. 4 application deadline.

Davison’s committee in Foxborough spent several months researching the impact of a casino at Plainridge before the original proposal was derailed, he said.

The committee found that the town can expect to see a 5 percent spike in problem gambling, “along with the attendant social ills that come with this, such as DUIs, bankruptcies, divorces, ambulatory and police calls,” according to a letter from the committee to the Board of Selectmen.

In addition, traffic in South Foxborough will see an increase, which will overburden roads that already see more traffic than they were built to handle, the letter continued.

Davison said it is the social impact that most concerns his committee.

“The development will be small enough that there won’t be a tremendous impact on our infrastructure,” he said. “But there is going to be a social impact, and we are going to ask for mitigation.”

In Wrentham, Town Administrator William F. Ketcham said the town’s focus has been on the traffic impacts along Interstate 495 expected from the casino being proposed in Milford, just 15 miles north of town, rather than the slots parlor proposed next door in Plainville.

“There is not so much concern as much as interest in at least having MAPC [the Metropolitan Area Planning Council] look at the possible impacts in Wrentham,” he said.

In Mansfield, Town Manager William R. Ross said there are people in town who have some concerns, and that the town is looking at its options.

“But you need to feel comfortable in doing something, and feel ethical about what you’re doing instead of saying, ‘You’re getting a pot of money and we want some too.’”

To Dale Bergevine and others in Plainville, any amount of mitigation given to neighboring towns is too much.

“We’re here in no man’s land, we’re the Burmuda Triangle stuck between the Wrentham Outlets and Gillette,” he said. “We get nothing but traffic.”

If the state Gaming Commission grants the lone slots license to Plainridge, the town will get about $4 million a year in new revenue, 300 construction jobs, 400 full-time positions, and improvements to Route 1 and Interstate 495 to mitigate increased traffic.

“Four million dollars for a postage-stamp size town like ours is a lot of money,” Bergevine said.

Penn National has also committed to keeping the harness racetrack operational if it is granted the slots license, something that is not considered economically feasible without the additional revenue generated by the added gambling operation.

There are two other competitors for the slots license: The Cordish Cos., planning a gambling parlor in Leominster, and Raynham Park, the simulcast betting parlor and former dog racing track in Raynham. Like Plainville,Raynham voters endorsed the Raynham Park proposal in a binding referendum. Residents of Leominster will vote Sept. 24.

 

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2013/09/14/foxborough-renews-mitigation-efforts-compensation-plainville-slots-plainville-compensation-revives-revives-revives-compensation-plainville-efforts-renews-efforts-efforts-mitigation-casino/kbzTrs5Pr19C8ioh1H9UgK/story.html


Foxborough, Wrentham, Mansfield worry over slots parlor proposal in neighboring Plainville