The Southeastern Massachusetts town of Brockton will be the latest community in the Bay State to render a verdict on casino gaming when its residents vote May 12 on a community host agreement for a casino resort.
Brockton is one of three communities in the Southeastern casino zone (Region C) in the running for the state’s third casino license. Also a possible player is the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, which awaits a ruling from the Bureau of Indian Affairs on its application to put land into Taunton into trust.
Leaders in other nearby communities will be watching the results with interest.
Easton town administrator David Colton told the Boston Globe last week,
“If it passes the ballot, we will be talking with them about the impacts on Easton, and there will be impacts.” Colton is an old hand with this process since his town was involved in impact discussions with the developer who unsuccessfully proposed a casino resort for Raynham Park two years ago.
The difference is that the $650 million Brockton proposal by Mass Gaming & Entertainment is larger and closer to Easton, said Colton. The proposal also includes a 250-room hotel, retail shops and an events venue.
Mass Gaming & Entertainment is a consortium of George Carney, owner of Raynham Park and the Brockton Fairgrounds and Rush Street Gaming.
The gaming expansion act authorizes towns such as Easton to negotiate “surrounding community” agreements with casino developers.
West Bridgewater is in a similar position and its town administrator David Gagne, also plans to “reach out to the developers” should the referendum pass. He told the Globe that there is “no doubt” that the casino would increase traffic in his town. He added, “My guess is there will be other social issues potentially that would affect West Bridgewater.”
City officials in Avon, East Bridgewater and Stoughton say they are also watching the voting closely.
Also watching the vote is Governor Charlie Baker, just completing his first 100 days in office. Baker told the Herald News last week that the vote will probably be influenced by how much gaming voters believe the state can accommodate.
“The complication, I think, for Region C is the potential for a Native American license, which changes the dynamic and the dialogue for everybody who’s down here. This really is a Gaming Commission issue by statute more than it is an executive branch decision,” said the governor.
If the BIA rules that the Mashpees can build a casino, “it will be hard for the market to support another one. If that doesn’t happen, I think it changes the dynamic down here of what the market can support,” said Baker.
Patrick Kelly, chairman of the Accountancy Department at Providence College, agrees with Baker. “The fate of these applications depends on whether the Mashpee Tribe receives federal recognition and permission to go ahead with its plans for a $500-million dollar casino in Taunton,” he told WGBH last week. “If the Mashpee Tribes gets approval to build a casino in SE Mass prior to a state approved casino, it’s conceivable that there could be four casinos in the state.”
And it’s not just the Mashpees. Proposed casinos in Rhode Island, and possible casino expansion in Connecticut are creating what Kelly and many others are calling a “Casino Arms Race in New England.”
Once Brockton votes the shift in attention will switch to New Bedford, where voters go to the polls on June 23. The city council two weeks ago scheduled a host community agreement vote for the $650 million casino being proposed by Foxwoods and KG Urban.
City Councilmember Linda Morad asked residents to eschew past apathy displayed in elections and show up in force to register their opinions. The council voted 10-0 to set the election. She said a strong vote couldn’t help but influence the Massachusetts Gaming Commission when it chooses between competing proposals and cities.
Councilor Debora Coelho, while against casinos on principle, voted for the proposal. “I am pro-development, I am pro-waterfront development, and I am pro-jobs,” she said.
Council President Brian K. Gomes predicted that the casino resort would create jobs, clean up the contaminated former power plant site and “put us on the map.”
Before the vote, KB Urban must meet another requirement: a May 4 deadline to find a financial backer.
The two communities, Brockton and New Bedford, both economically depressed for years, have similar demographics and have both previous shown support for gaming.
Clyde Barrow, an expert on New England gaming, told the Boston Herald that New Bedford’s attitude towards gaming has been “overwhelmingly supportive” in votes in 2011, 2001 and 1995.
He observed, “The whole debate on expanded gaming was launched from New Bedford in 1995.”
The city’s mayor, Jon Mitchell, said recently that residents’ opinions are not so easy to pin down. They “run the gamut and range from absolute no to absolute yes under any circumstances, but the vast majority of New Bedford residents are somewhere in the middle,” he said.
The third city in the triad of applicants is Somerset, where Crossroads Massachusetts proposes a casino resort, but has so far not nailed down a host community agreement or a vote. It faces the same May 4 deadline to find equity funding for its proposal.
