Casino news from http://www.projo.com/
News that U.S. District Court Judge William Smith is keeping the Harrah's/Narragansett Indian casino referendum on the ballot is disappointing.
News that Harrah's last month spent more than $2.7 million to promote the West Warwick project is disgusting.
Governor Carcieri was onto something when he said some time ago that he opposes amending the Constitution here "to help an out-of-state gambling company make a buck off the people of Rhode Island."
That Harrah's is spending so much tells me:
It expects to make a fortune by fleecing people here.
It needs to spend a ton because the pro-casino case is flawed and depends on slick, incessant propaganda.
Opponents of the casino need to wake up and put up some serious money of their own. Truth is powerful and can overcome a lot, but you still need bucks in order to be heard.
I didn't need former Gov. Lincoln Almond to tell me any of this, but when I called yesterday to see how he was taking the news about the $2.7 million, we were in perfect accord.
It's stunning, he said. "I assume they'll spend a lot more -- significantly more. That gives you an indication of what the future holds for Harrah's if they win -- a lot of money coming out of the Rhode Island economy. . . . They just take from the existing economy and that means the existing businesses are going to get hurt."
Like an old war horse smelling the smoke of battle, Almond sounded on the verge of agreeing to chair Save Our State, the casino opposition group. "It's an important issue," he said.
Almond said he expects Lincoln Park and Newport Grand to help finance a "no" vote, but that the business community in general also needs to come through. "You've got to get the facts out," he said, to counter the promoters' "baloney."
Laurie White, president of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, which opposes the casino, said there's no way the anti-casino forces will be able, dollar for dollar, to match Harrah's outlay, a figure she called even more "astounding" when you think of it as $87,820 a day. Still, she said, "I'm very confident that the anti-casino coalition will raise and spend what it takes to defeat this."
I think casino opponents can win by exposing the proponents' tax relief promises that are as evanescent as skywriting, by arguing that the casino would gouge state revenues from Lincoln and Newport, and by painting the West Warwick arrangement as a cozy State House insider-legislative deal without competitive bidding.
Although I was disappointed in the court decision, I do not criticize Judge Smith. At Monday's hearing, he demonstrated exactly the kind of rigorous, probing intellect and even-handed, pleasant temperament one looks for in a jurist.
On Tuesday he ruled that there were serious questions under the U.S. Constitution about the ballot proposition but there'd be no irreparable harm in proceeding with the vote. The constitutional issues, he said, can be revisited.
It was, for the moment anyway, a triumph for Harrah's and the tribe. I thought back to something that happened after Monday's hearing. Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas told reporters, "I never seem optimistic when I come out of courthouses. . . . We always remember we're in Rhode Island."
He refused to elaborate, and walked off. Thomas is a classy guy, and this seemed like a cheap shot. I hope Smith's ruling gave Thomas more confidence in judges here.
And now it's on to the people, whom I'd like to think are a lot smarter than Harrah's thinks they are.
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