The city council in Richmond, Virginia voted against placing on the November ballot a referendum that would allow voters to decide if tax revenue from a casino, if one were to be built, should go to renovate or replace more than 30 obsolete schools.
Council members dropped the proposal after City Attorney Haskell C. Brown III advised that the proposed charter change did not measure up, since it would involve nonexistent casino tax money.
The council still is considering other policy resolutions regarding the use of casino tax revenue that would not be sent to voters. For example, Mayor Levar Stoney supports a proposal that would use casino revenue to cut property taxes by two cents.
The proposal seemed to gain momentum recently after being endorsed by the Richmond Crusade for Voters organization and Cathy Hughes, founder and board chairwoman of the media company Urban One, which was the city’s choice to develop a casino resort in South Side in 2021.
However, Richmond voters narrowly rejected the project; voters in majority African American districts tended to support the casino, while voters in majority white districts tended to oppose it. Voters will have a second chance in November to support or reject Urban One’s proposed casino.
The state Department of Elections has stated it won’t challenge a Richmond Circuit Court order allowing the issue to be on the ballot. But even if the casino is approved, the legislature has prohibited the state lottery, which regulates casino gambling, from considering any Richmond application for a license to operate a casino for one year. Meanwhile, the legislature appears to support the city of Petersburg, instead of Richmond, as the site of the state’s fifth casino.
