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WEST WARWICK - The 40-foot "Support the Narragansett Indian Casino - Vote Yes on Question 1" bus continues to roll across the state. Yesterday, it made a stop close to home.
Narragansett Indian Tribe Chief, Sachem Matthew Thomas, along with members of CompeteRI, a coalition of Rhode Island businesses in support of the Narragansett Indian Casino project, have been traveling to various towns and cities across the state in a decorated tour-bus for the past week in hopes of generating further support of Question #1, which would essentially enable the construction of the casino.
Yesterday afternoon, the bus made its way to the West Warwick Country Club.
"If the people of Rhode Island vote to support us, then we, in turn, need to support them," said Thomas. "At the end of the day you've got to work with each other to make things happen. I believe that everybody is ready for that."
While Thomas said he believes that, in the end, on Nov. 7, residents will vote in support of the casino, he said he knows that it won't be by a landslide.
"My gut feeling is that I think it's going to come down to the wire. Hopefully they'll say yes, but I think it is going to be a horserace to the finish," he said.
A major point of contention between those in support and those opposed to the casino is the amount of residual income it would provide for surrounding businesses.
CompeteRI spokesperson and former director of conventions at Foxwoods Resort Casino Rick Simone addressed this topic.
"If I look at what I saw in Foxwoods, this is going to bring in an average of 4 million new visitors to the state," said Simone. "That is something that anybody in tourism turns down is not looking at the full picture. If you think that these 4 million new visitors are only going to stay at the casino, you're completely wrong. In my experience at Foxwoods, I would send anywhere between four to five hundred people every week that were convention delegates out into other areas."
Simone also expounded upon the inherent advantages Rhode Island would have in fostering a casino.
"Normally these casinos pop up in destinations that don't have the amenities that Rhode Island has to offer," he said. "They spend millions of dollars to create the ambiance to surround their casino. We've got it all. We've got the beaches, the museums, the restaurants, and the businesses here. That's the stuff that we need to capitalize on."
Co-founder of the casino drive and former West Warwick Mayor Mike Levesque spoke to the Daily Times about what a casino might mean to West Warwick: the projected home for the casino.
"For the town of West Warwick it means $20 million in tax relief, which could effectively cut everybody's property taxes in almost one half," Levesque said. "In every measure it means a massive injection of economic aid and economic development for the town of West Warwick. It is probably the biggest economic development effort on the east coast right now with the exception of maybe the Utopia project in Connecticut."
While this has been a heavily contested topic among Rhode Islanders, Chief Thomas said he has been happy to see the chivalry shared by those on either side of the issue.
"There are certainly people who don't want to see the casino happen, but they've been ladies and gentlemen about it," Thomas said. "I have to agree with Mayor Laffey in that it's been a great experience so far and that the people of Rhode Island are good people. Whether they like the issue or don't like the issue, they are ladies and gentlemen about it."
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