{"id":12815,"date":"2014-02-21T13:43:15","date_gmt":"2014-02-21T21:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=12815"},"modified":"2014-02-21T13:43:15","modified_gmt":"2014-02-21T21:43:15","slug":"hey-big-spenders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/hey-big-spenders\/","title":{"rendered":"Hey, big spenders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>MGM Resorts International<\/strong> has only just handing in its plans for <strong>National Harbor<\/strong>, near <strong>Washington, D.C.<\/strong>, and already the tin cups are rattling. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/local\/trafficandcommuting\/april-hearing-likely-on-mgm-national-harbor-casino-project-could-break-ground-in-summer\/2014\/02\/20\/a4aedd7c-9a3c-11e3-b88d-f36c07223d88_story.html\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\">The project doesn&#8217;t sound half-fancy<\/a>: &#8220;<em>a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/MGM-MD-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-11617\" alt=\"MGM MD 2\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/MGM-MD-2-300x138.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"138\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/MGM-MD-2-300x138.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/MGM-MD-2-150x69.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/MGM-MD-2.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>300-suite glass-tower hotel, 3,600 slot machines, 140 gaming tables, a concert theater, several restaurants, a spa, and high-end stores. The resort will have about 4,700 parking spaces<\/em>.&#8221; No wonder that local groups are acting as though MGM is made of money. &#8220;<em>Residents and community leaders say they want improvements made to busy <strong>Oxon Hill Road<\/strong> and <strong>Indian Head Highway<\/strong>. Others have discussed pressing MGM to invest in low-income and distressed neighborhoods near National Harbor and in the county school system<\/em>.&#8221; Excuse me but isn&#8217;t much of that the responsibility of local government &#8212; and why aren&#8217;t <em>they<\/em> doing something about it?<\/p>\n<p>In keeping with its diversity commitment, MGM has hired a minority-owned architectural firm and <!--more-->taken on a minority investor, <strong>Radio One<\/strong> owner <strong>Cathy Hughes<\/strong>. There will be plenty more such opportunities for MGM to address inequalities and provide opportunity in the minority community, I&#8217;ve no doubt.<\/p>\n<p>The spending habits of the <strong>Massachusetts Gaming Commission<\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.masslive.com\/politics\/index.ssf\/2014\/02\/report_mass_gaming_commission.html#incart_river\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\"> have come in for scrutiny<\/a>. The group has blown through $15 million in 20 months, living rather high on the hog. Budget items raising an eyebrow include &#8220;<em>nearly $78,000 on parking, approximately $85,000 on air travel and around $37,000 for food, with many meals tallying at triple the rate the state allows for per diem reimbursements for employees of other agencies<\/em>.&#8221; Every commission meeting is catered, at $1,600 a pop. Although much investigative work was outsourced, the MGC managed to generate $20,000 in airfares to <strong>Las Vegas<\/strong>, <strong>Europe<\/strong> and <strong>Asia<\/strong>. Licensing fees from casino applicants will cover some of this largesse but John Q. Taxpayer isn&#8217;t entirely off the hook for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MGM Resorts International has only just handing in its plans for National Harbor, near Washington, D.C., and already the tin cups are rattling. The project doesn&#8217;t sound half-fancy: &#8220;a 300-suite glass-tower hotel, 3,600 slot machines, 140 gaming tables, a concert &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/hey-big-spenders\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14,72,112,11,25],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12815"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12815"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12816,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12815\/revisions\/12816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}