Hollywood Casino in Bangor, Maine has requested the city to lower its assessed valuation by almost million.
The casino’s revenues have declined since 2012 and an outside review shows that property values on the casino site have declined.
The city’s assessor Phil Drew insists that the assessment is accurate. However when the casino hired an attorney to challenge the assessment, he was willing to sit down with him to go over the valuation. So far, he says, nothing has come up to change his mind.
If nothing changes, the casino’s assessed valuation will be around $98 million, including the casino, hotel, racetrack and other amenities.
Not surprisingly, the accounting firm that the Hollywood Casino enlisted calculates the valuation to be $61 million.
The city is due to make a formal ruling on the request this week.
In a related development the legislature is considering legislation that would give the state government more control over future casinos. Both existing casinos occurred as a result of the initiative process. Lawmakers want to impose a bidding process on any further casino expansion.
According to Senator Linda Valentino, leader of these efforts, “We have seen both Bangor and Oxford to be well-managed businesses, employing lots of people, and good corporate citizens. Unfortunately, though, they will be the ones that have the hundreds of thousands of dollars to mount campaigns to defeat these bills coming up in the Legislature – for the reason that they don’t want competition.”
