The following is an article written by Mayor Joe Curtatone which recently appeared in a local newspaper. Though I believe in smart - practical economic development..........I DO NOT BELIEVE a casino is the way to do it. The Mayor makes several good points in the article that I agree with.
Just
one hundred yards across the Mystic River from Somerville’s burgeoning
Assembly Square neighborhood lies the proposed site for a 19-story
casino in Everett. Somerville and other cities in the region, none of
which have a vote on the proposal, are staring down the negative impacts
this casino would levy on our local businesses, economic activity,
social well-being and our health.
On
Somerville’s side of the Mystic River at Assembly Row, we are building a
livable, walkable, bikeable, transit-accessible community with a
sustainable economic base. It’s the payoff from prudent investments in
infrastructure. We’re bringing in transit with the new Orange Line
station. We’re breaking ground on new homes and office buildings,
restaurants and stores. We’re unlocking the magic of the waterfront with
a new 6-acre park. We’re building a neighborhood that will both
cultivate a better quality of life and strengthen our tax base to help
pay for citywide public services. We have learned from the past to play
the long game not the short game, to be diligent not desperate.
On
the Everett side of the river, it’s a very different story. They are
talking about building a casino, a myopic and volatile strategy that has
a detrimental impact on quality of life and drains the tax base,
requiring more and more city expenditures and services to counter its
impact. The data shows that when casinos go up, crime and other social
ills go up with them while spending at area businesses goes down. What
looks now like the promise of glamour and glitz is nothing more than
fool’s gold. There could not be a bigger contrast between two sites a
hundred yards apart.
Playing
the short game with a casino threatens the local businesses that form
the backbone of our city and regional economy. One of the dollar figures
being waved in front of Everett’s nose is $50,000 worth of vouchers to
Everett restaurants and local businesses. These vouchers would be given
for free to gamblers at the casino. But gamblers do not tend to stand up
from the slot machine and decide to drive elsewhere to shop or eat. The
longest distance gamblers travel when visiting a casino is from the
parking lot to the casino’s front door.
In
Atlantic City, one-third of the city’s retail businesses closed within
four years after the casinos opened. Within 20 years, two-thirds of the
city’s independent restaurants had also closed. Similar statistics
abound in casino areas. No amount of free vouchers can compensate for
the decimation of one- to two-thirds of local businesses.
Somerville’s
core value is to make our city a great place to live, work, play and
raise a family. Casinos hurt families. Between 1990 and 1998, as
increasing numbers of states legalized casinos, Gamblers Anonymous
chapters more than doubled according to the National Gambling Impact
Study Commission. In a survey of nearly 400 Gamblers Anonymous members,
28 percent reported either a gambling-related divorce or separation and
others admitted their gambling had led them to stealing, bankruptcy or
thoughts of suicide. We should be building healthy families, not
introducing ways to break them.
An
Everett casino would also worsen traffic and pollution. Somerville and
communities around the proposed casino site already have several
environmental justice zones, where people face a disproportionate burden
of traffic-related pollution. We’re working to correct this by
investing in alternative transportation, or by advocating for the
grounding of McGrath Highway, which the state just announced it will
transform into a ground-level boulevard. But now, just as we’re making
progress, we again face increased traffic impact. An exhaustive study by
MIT and University of California at Berkeley researchers pinpointed the
most traffic-congested Boston-area neighborhoods, and Everett was one
of the worst. A casino would only exacerbate that problem, rippling
through the entire metro area.
In
2007, as president of the Massachusetts Mayors’ Association, I hosted a
panel of casino experts in Somerville. Two were in favor of casinos and
one was opposed, but they all agreed on one thing: You do not place
casinos where you already have an established economic base. You create a
destination resort. Not only has the Commonwealth taken the ill-advised
step of allowing casinos in Massachusetts at all, but it is also
allowing one in the urban core. It defies common sense.
Massachusetts’
casino law alludes to regional cooperation in terms of mitigation, but
then contradicts itself by taking a narrow approach to who has a say in
where casinos are placed. Only Everett residents can vote on whether Las
Vegas tycoon Steve Wynn can build his casino here on the Mystic, but
Somerville, Charlestown, Chelsea, even Medford and Malden and beyond
will be impacted. None of those communities have a say. The facts will
have to instead speak loudly for us. We need to slow down and look at
the data, not the spinning dollar signs.
