The third casino authorized to be operated in Connecticut by the state’s gaming tribes will pay .5 million each year to towns surrounding East Windsor, the host community. The towns named are Hartford, East Hartford, Enfield, South Windsor, Windsor Locks and Ellington. Each will be paid 0,000.
One town was left out, however, Windsor, which is across the river from where the third casino will be located. Mayor Donald Trinks last week told the Hartford Courant, that his town would incur additional costs based on being a neighbor and that it should have been considered.
One of the area’s state representatives, David Baram, said that legislative leaders told him that only towns directly abutting East Windsor were judged to be negatively impacted by the facility.
Rep. Brandon McGee, whose district includes Windsor, said he hopes to find another way to pay the city some extra money.
South Windsor Mayor Carolyn Mirek, whose city will get mitigation funding, defended that, saying that Route 5, which runs through the town is likely to be a main road that patrons will take to the casino.
“They are going to be right next door to us,” she told the Courant. “We will be impacted by this in terms of traffic and we will need to make sure our public safety services are not impacted. So, if we need to allocate money for road and infrastructure improvements or add more kind of services to deal with the impact of the casino, the funding is a good thing.”
Besides a new casino, the recently approved legislation added about ten new off-track betting venues, to bring the total to 25 and installed a framework for online sports betting, should the federal government ever legalize it.
The bill’s main purpose was to create a framework for the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes to build a bulwark against the feared depredations on their market of the MGM Springfield in neighboring Massachusetts.
