As is my habit, I tuned in CNN‘s Your Money yesterday. No sooner was the TV on but there was Gov. John Kasich (R), taking justifiable pride in Ohio‘s having recently added 73,300 jobs. The inescapable irony — and fact — is that thousands of those are construction and permanent jobs in Penn National Gaming and Caesars Entertainment casinos that Kasich opposed, then stymied. Too bad there isn’t a Truth in Politics Law that would require him to say, “Ali, in the last year we’ve added 73,300 jobs — many of them against my will.”
Taunton voters had their say on a Mashpee Wampanoag casino and it wasn’t even close. (You’d never know it from this story, with is preponderance of quotes from opponents.) Sixty-two percent supported the idea and, with compact talks progressing smoothly, odds are suddenly looking very good that the tribe can make its July 31 date with the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. I erred when I said there was “no way” this could be pulled off: The still-vexing questions of getting the “Carcieri fix” through Capitol Hill and having land taken into trust by the Interior Department can be tabled for months, perhaps years, if the Mashpee file their paperwork by the end of next month. However, they did just get a thumbs-up from the National Indian Regulatory Commission. The MGC has plenty of other things to worry about in the meantime, especially with Penn National Gaming and MGM Resorts International rumored to be converging on Springfield, setting up a three-way brawl with Ameristar Casinos — to say nothing of several non-Springfield applicants. In the meantime, Saturday’s vote represents a sort of distant proxy victory by Genting Berhad over archrival Las Vegas Sands. The latter abdicated any claims to Massachusetts and the Mashpee are backed by Arkana Ltd., which is owned by the Lim Family Trust, partly controlled by PK Lim … who is CEO of Genting.
Opponents in Taunton clearly saw defeat coming. Last week, they retained attorney Lesley Rich, who says the casino deal violates some fine print regarding the use of the Liberty & Union Industrial Park, namely that it contravenes certain deed restrictions. (I find it interesting that opponents accept the proximity of an industrial park to schools and environmentally sensitive areas, but a casino — horrors!) By a truly amazing coincidence, Rich also represents another group of would-be spoilers, the Pocasset Wampanoag band. I can’t imagine how Taunton ‘antis’ found him. As for the Aquinnah band, they suffered a humiliating ballot-box defeat in Lakeville last weekend, with 91% of voters registering disapproval. Tribal leaders blew Lakeville a raspberry, saying they’d see them in federal court.
Comments by S&G readers from the greater Boston areas have me questioning my own previously held opinions about Steve Wynn‘s seemingly foredoomed Foxborough casino plan — and indeed about Wynn’s own perspicacity and due diligence. As in Philadelphia, Wynn seems to have walked into an ambush umprepared — far less prepared, certainly, than the Mashpee were in Taunton. I know he regards fellow billionaires like Robert Kraft as his natural constituency, hanging on the sidelines of New England Patriots games is way cool and all that, but might he not have been better off figuratively rubbing elbows with the hoi polloi in cities that feel a sharper need for economic enhancement than did Foxborough? Just wondering.
Kasich is simply following the lead of other Republican Govs who balanced his budget with stimulous money, then claimed he was some sort of fiscal dynamo who is opposed to the Federal government lending a hand. Heck, Romney now even tries to claim “credit” for the Auto Bailout he opposed with gusto.
Well said.
Actually Kasich did not oppose the casinos – what he did was hold out for a better licensing payment than the previous administration.
Actually, he *did* oppose them; it’s buried in paragraph #23: http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011/04/unsettled_tax_and_fee_issues_c.html
As for the licensing payment ($50 million, same as Pennsylvania), it was approved in a constitutional referendum, so I suppose you can say Kasich held out for a higher entry fee than did his constituents.