Somerville, Massachusetts Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone is now predicting—or threatening—that his environmental appeal of the .7 billion Wynn Everett casino project could take a long time.
Last week he declared, “Assuming the city of Somerville’s needs aren’t addressed, this could take years and years.”
The city filed the appeal of the environmental permit granted by the Department of Environmental Protection on February 12 and almost immediately the project came to a grinding halt on most fronts. The appeal claims that Wynn hasn’t effectively mitigated the air pollution its 18,000 additional car trips per day will create.
The department has said it could take six months, or longer to rule on the appeal. Curtatone says he will also resort to the courts if his appeal is not addressed satisfactorily. Curtatone found an obscure state environmental clause to pin his lawsuit on: A Chapter 91 license, required for waterfront development. Without it, no permanent structures can be built or even begun.
The state has an interest in collecting taxes on the revenues expected from the Wynn resort. House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo announced last week that he plans to include revenue from casino revenue into the state budget for the upcoming fiscal year and certainly by the following fiscal year.
Besides putting the brakes on construction, the Wynn organization has put a hiring freeze on 4,000 union construction jobs and canceled several job fairs in surrounding communities.
At a news conference held with the backdrop of the Mystic River and including representatives of several environmental groups, Wynn Everett President Robert DeSalvio said, “We cannot move forward with the remediation, and that is not by choice,” adding, “Wynn Resorts wants to make sure we do not run afoul of any environmental regulations or laws.”
He added, “If we could, you would see this work going on behind my shoulder right now, The goal today was to make sure everyone understood that we can not move forward with the remediation plan. We wanted to make sure that people understood the reason why.”
At this point Wynn has almost completed the first phase of environmental remediation on the property, which is the former site of a Monsanto chemical plant. The second phase, which includes dredging of the Mystic River, shoreline cleanup and the construction of a river walk, is now in limbo.
“We are absolutely not allowed by state law and environmental regulation to move forward,” DeSalvio told reporters. “If we could continue, we would be more than willing to continue at our own risk.”
Curtatone is under increasing pressure from state politicians and neighboring ones, such as Everett Mayor Carlo DiMaria, who characterized the appeal as “politics at its worst.” He added, “This one person is stopping this from happening. That’s what wrong with government.”
At the press conference the environmental group leaders touted the benefits of the Wynn project and demanded that the mayor withdraw his appeal.
“Get the best you can for your city, but allow this to go forward,” proclaimed George Bachrach, president of the Environmental League of Massachusetts. The other groups at the press conference were the Mystic River Watershed Association (MRWA) and the Boston Harbor Association.
He added, “Joe Curtatone is a good man. He cares deeply about his city. But the environment is not the issue to be challenging this site on. I would urge Mayor Curtatone even in the best interest of his city to withdrawal the appeal.”
Bachrach said that if the question were a new hotel that such opposition wouldn’t exist. “This would be a slam dunk. There would be no issue here.”
EkOngKar Singh Khalsa, executive director of MRWA, explained why his group supports the project: “We recognized that this project…could transform the Mystic River here and perhaps throughout the area.”
Curtatone has reserved most of his scorn for the Wynn organization. In a statement last week he responded to the appeal from the environmental groups: “Wynn’s latest PR stunt seems once again to be designed to draw attention away from the serious matters at hand: Somerville, a small city just yards away from the proposed casino, has been forced to resort to legal action against a casino giant to get them to address environmental concerns and the traffic impacts of more than 20,000 vehicles a day that will spew pollution into our neighborhoods as they drive to and from the casino every day.”
Governor Charlie Baker has made cryptic comments about bringing the warring parties together, but so far hasn’t surfaced with any substantial actions.
Commenting on this possibility Curtatone told the Boston Herald last week: “If the governor calls, I would absolutely talk to him, but I haven’t seen any communication as of yet.”
Southeastern Casino
Meanwhile the Massachusetts Gaming Commission has postponed until the end of April its decision about whether to award a license for Region C. This will allow time for the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, who plan to build a casino in Taunton, and oppose a third casino license being granted, to make a presentation on March 15 to the panel.
The $550 million tribal casino is called “Project First Light Resort & Casino. The 2011 gaming expansion act allows for up to three casino resorts in the state, so the commission could elect to consider the tribal casino the “third” casino. The commission has given licenses to the Boston metro and central part of the state, as well as a slots parlor license.
The commission has been mulling the effects that the Taunton casino will have on the viability of a commercial casino. Rush Street Gaming and its subsidiary Mass Gaming & Entertainment is the only bidder for a commercial license. They hope to build a $677 million casino in the Brockton Fairgrounds. They say that they will be financially viable even with the Mashpee casino.
Neil Bluhm, chairman of Rush Street Gaming, has consistently said that he doubts the tribe will be able to get financing with a lawsuit looming overhead. To help make that happen, Bluhm’s company is providing funding for the lawsuit.
Recently Bluhm told the commission, “We are not questioning Genting’s resources. The question is, would a sound businessman want to risk that kind of money in light of the potential reversal of this case? You might say, initially I will, but once you get down to it, would you really do it? But one thing I think is absolutely clear, a lender is not going to take this kind of risk.”
The tribe does not need a license from the state. It operates entirely under the jurisdiction of the federal government.
The state will collect no taxes from the tribe if it has competition in the region, according to the stipulations of the tribal state gaming compact. The tribe will pay 17 percent if it has a monopoly. However, the commercial casino will pay 25 percent of its profits to the state. So the trade-offs are being considered.
The issue of market saturation will also be a key element when the commission makes its ruling. Whether the two casinos will cannibalize each other and hobble both casinos’ profitability.
It could also affect the Plainridge slots parlor about 20 miles away. New England regional gaming expert Clyde Barrow of the University of Texas told the Sun Chronicle, “Slot parlors such as Plainridge typically draw most of their customers from within a 30- to 45-minute drive time radius.” He added, “Consequently, even without doing a full blown market analysis, it is pretty clear that a resort casino located in the heart of Plainridge’s primary market area will have a significant impact on its slot revenues.”
The Taunton casino could also affect gaming profits in Southeast Massachusetts.”
Commission Chairman Stephen Crosby told reporters last week, “If we make the determination that there is a quality applicant, then we’ll decide on whether to make the award or not, taking into consideration all the variables, including tribal status.” He added, “It would’ve been nice if we could’ve done this earlier so it doesn’t delay the process, but we’ve always said that getting this right is more important than moving fast.”
The tribal casino is under the cloud of a federal lawsuit challenging the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ decision to put the 150 acres in Taunton into trust. Opponents are citing the U.S. Supreme Court case Carcieri v. Salazar, which ruled that tribes recognized after 1934 cannot put land into trust. The tribe wasn’t officially recognized until 2007, but convinced the BIA that it has been under federal (and British crown) jurisdiction since members of the tribe met the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock in 1620.
But the tribe, backed by the Genting Group of Malaysia is moving forward with its project anyway. It plans to break ground in April and has already chosen three companies to do demolition work on the former business park. They are Dimeo Construction Company, the Penta Building Group, and Talako Construction.
“We have a compact with the state, support from the city of Taunton and our reservation land in Taunton,” said Tribal Chairman Cedric Cromwell.
Opponent Adam Bond calls this announcement “false bravado,” telling the Enterprise News, “They do so at their own risk. It doesn’t change the lawsuit that is pending.” Bond speculated that the announcement might be a gambit to add credence to the tribe’s impending presentation before the commission.
Bond noted that the tribe is scheduled to respond to his group’s lawsuit in federal court in early April.
