Happy Gladoween

Back in Blue

You didn't think Gladys and the gang just laid down and died after the Middleboro town meeing, did you?

Well...if so...ye of little faith!

Because we've just been picking up speed.

CasinoFacts.org - PAC is delighted to announce that we have officially become a member of the new Statewide effort to kick casinos out of the Commonwealth.

Check it out!

Who Needs Casinos, Anyway?!

In the dash to cram the commonwealth full of mega casinos, gambling evangelists have failed to account for a dangerous new rival - one which could potentially suck away a healthy share of their imagined profits and do for their industry what the DVD did for the local movie theatre.

No, I’m not referring to Internet gambling. I’m talking about armchair gambling.

That’s right! You can now bet the farm, your kid’s college education and the SUV right there in the comfort of your own home!

This revelation came to me in the form of the latest Hammacher Schlemmer catalog. Leafing through the colorful pages of this big-boy toy emporium, one finds a handsome variety of affordable and entertaining outlets for America’s newest cowboy – the recumbent gamer.

Take, for instance, what you can get for less than $120.00 (plus shipping and handling) -
THE TOUCHSCREEN PORTABLE VIDEO POKER GAME
$119.95

For the more adventurous risk-taker how about
THE CLASSIC DESKTOP SLOT MACHINE
$199.95


But play like a professional with
THE HOME VIDEO POKER MACHINE
$249.95


And for those high-rollers among us who can't get enough - there can be no other than
THE SKILL-STOP SLOT MACHINE
$399.95


What's that? Already blown the Christmas club at Mohegan? Well... next time you'll hit the jackpot! You know you will!! In the meantime ease into the sport with this little gem...
HANDHELD TEXAS HOLD ‘EM POKER


At only $9.95 it makes the perfect stocking stuffer!
Hurry! It's on sale!

And - don't tell me these guys at Hammacher don't have their finger on the pulse, because just take a look at what I found in the toy section!
CHILDREN'S TOUCHSCREEN ATM BANK
$69.95


What a much needed boon for the average casino patron, worn to a frazzle from all those unnecessary trips to the local casino under the guise of catching a Gary Puckett show and throwing away a bunch of Benjamin's on five-star meal - when all they really want is the excitement that only comes from chasing the odds.

And I bet (no pun intended) that there’s more than one slot jockey out there scratching their chin and thinking of the benefits and sheer beauty of this industry interloper.

No more need to explain to the spouse where the mortgage money went.

Can’t find a sitter? Don't leave the kids home alone all night anymore! Put'em to work - make them go get you a beer!

And maybe you can even save enough money to put back in the company bank account before the boss starts getting suspicious!

Obviously, the home-gaming concept has nowhere to go but up. Stay tuned to this trend, people. Studies have shown that most gamblers don’t even care about the money – just the thrill. Apparently, even Jack Whittaker, the $315 Million powerball winner from slot-soaked West Virgina – still gambles.

And you and I both know it won't be long before some quick thinking entreprenuer comes up with a sounds-of-the-slot-parlor CD or a nicotine-and-Old-Spice aromatherapy device to recreate the subtle ambience of the full service casinos.

Let’s face it, when folks start to catch on to the pure adrenaline-pumping joy of being able to pull that lever from the comfort of their own bathroom, we can say so long to those much-ballyhooed local revenue streams!

But cities and towns can rest easy. Deval Patrick and Tim Cahill are are surely studying the home gaming issue at this very moment, and are no doubt prepared to put together a brilliant plan for recouping the revenue the state could potentially lose as gambling moves to individual households. Perhaps by issuing 1 million residential slot licenses?

Adam's New Tool

Every now and then - don’t ask me why - I go in search of Adam Bond’s web site.

Bond’s fabled site has become the stuff of legend. As disputed, elusive and questionable as Sasquatch sightings in the Hockomock swamp.

It's just difficult to understand how, in this century, a self-employed individual as obviously as fond of the spotlight and with as natural a gift of gab and YouTube personality as Mr. Bond, hasn’t managed to so much as pitch a pup tent along the information super highway by now.

Oh, to be sure – he’s got a mention here and a one-liner there on a couple of other lawyer-centric sites. But, let's face it, it's a whole big bunch of nothing considering the fact that Bond's been a deafening, one-man public relations cacophony, not to mention celebrated media darling these past six months.

Mr. Bond, according to his own PR, is a big-shot-Wall-Street-stock-juggling barrister with Supreme Court credentials - hailing from the hippest city on Earth - yet somehow he’s never quite been able to get beyond the “under construction” page of his very own digital universe.

And this vacuum between the disparity of what Adam supposedly is, and what we've actually seen, has been causing a lot of people, including your's truly to speculate as to what he could possibly be hiding.

Well folks, I’m pleased to announce, here on the old blogspot, that Adam Bond has, at last, shed his shroud of mystery. After banging the stones together long enough, he's finally discovered fire. And after checking out the site for myself, I’d like to reassure you all that the only thing Mr. Bond has been trying to hide all this time with his lack of a web address, is his own trademark goofiness. Yes, it’s true.

To learn all about the inner Adam (at least all that’s fit to print) follow the link to:

http://www.middleboroughattorneys.com/index.html

Highlights:

we are selective in the cases that we take, since we DO NOT believe that the purpose of the law is to shift the resonsibility from those at fault to those with money. If we believe in your case we will usually take it. If we do not believe in your case, we will try to find you the name of someone else who might have an interest.

Well, it’s obvious that Adam doesn’t ‘believe’ in many cases.

And, is that the royal “we”? I mean - it’s just Adam. Why try to sound like some sort of deep-pocket, pin-stripe John Grishom law firm? It’s not as if Adam actually employs a vast staff of personal underlings - unless you count the day shift down at the Honey Dew.

And how do you spend all day sipping out of a Styrofoam cup and still make a living practicing law, anyway?

Oh - and have you noticed that suddenly Adam has become an expert at

Gaming Law

Sure… ever since CasinoFacts president Rich Young gave him that painful public lesson in ‘comp rooms’….

And, apparently, Adam's the man to call when you need some

Contract Negotiations

Just be ready to rent some really big expensive tents at short notice...

...and promise to promote something no matter what...
...so that, eventually no one will ever know if you're telling the truth.

And I find it amusing, to say the least, that Adam trumps the expertise of both Pat Rogers and Steven Spataro by claiming to provide a service in something called

‘political engineering'

Is that what they're calling BS these days?

Can you build bridges with those engineering skills? Figure out how to make a campaign run? Mark out a blueprint for the future?

And engineers have to be good at math, Adam:

at one of the largest Town Meetings in New England's history, Middleborough citizens voted 2-1 in favor of accepting the intergovernmental agreement with the Town

2387 FOR and 1335 AGAINST doesn’t = 2 to 1

Go back to school!

Hey, here's a juicy part:

Negotiated the first Tribal/Municipal Compact for a casino to come to the Town of Middleborough,

...so there's going to be a few more Tribal/Municipal Compacts? Good thing we can call on you!

the first in Massachusetts;

Seriously, how do you sleep at night??

handled all press contacts during Casino negotiations,

Alice, Christine... how do you feel knowing you've been 'handled'?

as well as the political marketing of the casino concept;

oh... I thought you were an official elected by the public. My mistake.

participated in the logistical set up and execution of the largest Town Meeting ever held in Massachusetts;

Boy, if I were Roger Brunelle right now, I'd be really PO'd.

And good gracious - despite the fact that he's argued before the supreme court, he can't say enough about that proposed gosh darned casino:

This project required extensive relationship building and strategic thinking in relation to each of the Town's citizens, various Town Boards and Departments, the Wampanoag tribal leadership, the casino resort developers and backers, various counsel, the press from several states, government officials from abutting Towns, the State government, and various opposition groups. This was a complex project (which is ongoing), and, at least, the first stages are complete.

I’m not sure why Bond’s first class strategic thinking didn’t lead him to check into Glenn Marshall’s past. Or why his stellar relationship building skills still managed to leave Middleboro residents at each other’s throats and ruin it’s relationship with surrounding towns. And, as for ‘various opposition groups’ – well, it was none other than Adam Bond who decided to ‘expose’ and ‘sanction’ said opposition publicly for things written in e-mails and on an obscure internet forum.

Way to build relationships, Adam.

But of all the wonderful, amazing, incredible things Mr. Bond supposedly did regarding the casino, it wasn’t him, but Rich Young and the good folks at CasinoFacts who brought the League of Women Voters, the Citizens For Limited Taxation, and the Mass. Council on Compulsive Gambling to Middleboro to speak to anyone who cared enough to listen - organizations which have studied casinos and gambling for decades. Not months.

Unlike that razor sharp gaming expert and political engineer, Adam Bond.

But then, why bother? Adam already knows everything worth knowing – right?

Mrs. Kravitz Goes to Washington

In the wee hours of the morning this past Friday, a small delegation from CasinoFacts.org, including your's truly, threw it’s suitcases, cameras and laptops in the back of a car and drove down to DC to attend the annual conference of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling (NCALG), and the National Coalition against Gambling Expansion (NCAGE).

There are so many things I’d like to share with you about the conference. Over the next few months, I’ll try to devote separate postings to some of the individual topics covered in DC.

But of all the many important things I took back from Washington this weekend – the one thing I wanted you to know right now - is that we are not alone. We are truly a united national fellowship of just ordinary people committed to doing the right thing.

Seated together in that conference room were delegates from California, Nebraska, Kansas, Wyoming, Texas, Illinois, Maryland, Florida, Missouri, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and a few other states I can’t even remember.

We were republican, democrat, independent and libertarian. We were conservative, moderate and liberal, religious or otherwise, and also urban, suburban and rural.

At one point in the conference our delegation was recognized and our state referred to as being ‘the latest victim’ of the shallow promises of the gambling industry and the Svengali-like effect it has on our legislators.

The other delegates smiled at us knowingly. Their states were the early ‘victims’ and most of them have been fighting this battle for many long years. Some, for decades. Which is why I realized how very truly fortunate Massachusetts is to be able to learn from their experiences. Our state’s fight will have it’s own unique challenges, but at least, thanks to them, we won’t be re-inventing the wheel.

But Massachusetts didn’t show up at the conference empty handed. It turns out that, for us, technology in the form of blogs has opened up a new frontier for reaching the generally unreachable - politicians. It's also become a fertile frontier for galvanizing the grassroots, and sharing ideas (not to mention a sense of humor) unlimited by the constraints or opinions of the traditional media - speaking of which - reporters are reading them, too.

Les was just one of a panel of incredibly diverse and knowledgeable speakers, including - for the first time - two inside whistle-blowers. But as someone from a state just entering into this conflict, I learned what may perhaps be the two most important lessons for our commonwealth simply by listening to the more experienced delegates.

At dinner and lunch and during breaks CasinoFacts listened to anti-casino veterans relate an all-too-familiar story of how casinos were supposed to be their state’s salvation. That addiction could be contained, and every problem mitigated. That jobs would multiply, the economy flourish, and taxes go down. And yet, in each and every state, this proved not to be the case, many with disastrous consequences.

Lesson #1 – there are NO success stories for a state with legalized gambling.

Another observation I made was that all of these delegates came from states which initially opened up legalized gambling along with numerous restrictions in place, like those planned for Massachusetts, only to see those restrictions, over time, lifted, subverted or abandoned.

One casino invariably leads to another - despite promises and assurances to the contrary. Gambling parlors onboard riverboats with a maximum $500 per hour limit and a 2 hour tour would eventually become “boats in a moat” – a riverboat shaped gambling casino with an artificial moat dug around it and hence, a never ending cruise - with a $500 per hour limit.

The numerous ‘creative’ ways the gambling industry has found to get around state laws is mind blowing.

And States which legalize gambling for the purpose of acquiring additional state revenue - eventually become dependent on it. And when they need more revenue, gambling will expand.

Lesson #2 – Once you open the door, it can’t be closed.

But Massachusetts will be different, right?

I have no way of knowing how long this battle will rage, but I do believe it’s a battle worth fighting. Legalized gambling is a disease which feeds on the body, mind and soul of both state and nation. Irresponsible government fiscal policy, at the expense of citizens, under the guise of entertainment, for the sole benefit of billionaires.

With only six months of this conflict under my belt, and still much to learn and experience, I’m honestly encouraged by how many things, according to the other delegates, our little group has already done right.

In the last hour of the conference delegates were offered a chance at the microphone. People I’d never met, whose names I never knew, but who share with me a common drive and purpose stood up and shared their success stories, their battle scars and their knowledge.

Looking around that room I saw no victims. Only survivors.

Recall Wrap-Up

They won.
You lost.

My Biggest Fan

I'm delighted to admit that I have quite a few repeat visitors to this blog. Some of these visitors have even left kind comments about their favorite posts. Many take the time to tell me, in person, how much they appreciate this particular post or that. Believe it or not, I've even received praise for this blog from pro-casino people. So, it never fails to amuse me that my biggest fan, my most frequent visitor, obviously hates my guts.

I rarely visit pro-casino blogs or web sites. Once, while doing so I came across someone insisting that the relatives of the late Sandra Gould, the actress who played Gladys Kravitz, should sue me for using her photograph in my blog.

O-kay...

But I was getting so many hits from this particular forum posting that I felt I should investigate. Imagine what I found - from my biggest fan!

I note that one of Gladys' recent blogs includes a post that appears to be accusing a local resident of comitting ARSON! More troubling is the implication that the Fire Department allegedly acted as co-conspirators deliberately allowing the home to burn to the ground. Then, of course, all this criminal activity was allegedly hidden from the public by the allegedly corrupt local newspaper! I don't hold "annonymous" responsible for that posting. I hold Mary Tufts, the self identified blog owner, who screens all postings responsible for that post. When will it stop? Someone needs to take some sort of legal action against this woman, because she is out of control. The longer she gets away with this crap - the bolder and more outrageous she becomes.

I really wonder why someone hasn't sent links to these blogs to these people's employers. I know that if I had someone working for me that was operating or involved with an Internet "hate" site that contained potentially libellous accusations about people, I'd want to know about it. If they were monitoring that site or blog and posting to it on my company's time or from my company's computer - I'd want my IT department investigating that. These people need a real life wakeup call. Their often irresponsible annonymous postings affect the real lives of real people and I feel that they deserve a taste of their own medicine. What kind of people attack victims of a fire? Maybe someone should start a blog dedicated to criticizing Gladys and her blog?

Wow. I sound like a real piece of work.

But let's take a closer look at the accusation, made by someone known as 'VegasVal'. Here's the anonymous comment in question, which was in response to my recent Twilight Zone parody:

Case in point of screwy things in the twilite zone of Middleboro.
In this Saturdays Enterprise Oct.6 theres a story of a small house fire with picture, YET not long ago there was another house fire on Barrows street in Middleboro that was likely arson and just .2 miles from the fire station that almost burnt the three family structure to the ground. "just two walls left standing" flames over 100 feet in the air and and damaging two other property's and the only thing there now is a blue tarp covering the foundation hole, When residents sent pictures to the Enterprise of it fully engulfed in flames the story NEVER even made it into the Enterprise. Theres many why's to this...

Well, the comment does mention arson (small caps), but it doesn't accuse any local resident. Does VegasVal know something that we don't?

What kind of people attack victims of a fire?

Excuse me?

More troubling is the implication that the Fire Department allegedly acted as co-conspirators deliberately allowing the home to burn to the ground.

Or... they could have been busy across town getting a cat out of a tree. In no way does the comment in question imply a conspiracy. Nor does it imply ineptitude or negligence. Simply the irony of a house burning down in close proximity of a fire department. This does occur from time to time.

...this criminal activity was allegedly hidden from the public by the allegedly corrupt local newspaper!

VegasVal, I think your Freudian slip might be showing.

Once again, VegasVal seems to see a conspiracy around every corner. To me, this comment only implies that the Enterprise didn't feel the story was newsworthy - and that the poster disagrees. It's a free country.

I've watched the Enterprise and the Globe take a decidedly pro-casino stance in the past few months, so I understand where this poster is coming from. It doesn't imply corruption - many papers will take an editorial stance regarding an issue one way or another. That's why I now get my news from the Cape Cod Times.

Now... as far as being responsible for publishing the post, fine. They aren't my words, but I have no problem publishing them, and further, I appreciate the people who take the time to comment on posts on this blog, conspiracy theories or not. I welcome my visitor's observations and opinions, and the discussions they sometimes spur. And no, I don't publish them all.

So, why does VegasVal seem to think that she alone has the priviledge to make accusations and cry 'conspiracy'?

I mean, for people to disagree with me or dislike me for things I actually write or do - well that's one thing, but VegasVal's post is a piece of fiction! Jeesh!

So, am I really "out of control"? Is it me twisting a simple comment about 'screwy things' into a call to arms against a vast Gladys Kravitz conspiracy to attack fire vicitims? Is it me inciting people to take legal action against a private citizen - for what? Free speech?

And I'd hardly refer to this blog as "an Internet "hate" site". VegasVal seems to be biggest 'Hater' on either side of this casino issue, projecting her own personal brand of acrimony and hostility onto her posts. And her inflamatory tone makes me wonder if she is merely suggesting that someone out there sue me - or perhaps something more sinister...

Certainly, VegasVal, there are a zillion more interesting things to do when you can't sleep than comb my blog for nuggets of controversy. Have you tried watching Jimmy Kimmel? What about the thousands of internet gambling sites out there just waiting to take your money. No? Then why not spend some time visiting CasinoFacts.org and reading up on some of the research about the effects of a casino on the people who live around them.

Oh, and sorry to disappoint you, Val - but I'm self-employed.

And as far as there being "a blog dedicated to criticizing Gladys and her blog", VegasVal's posting was found on one of them!

The Regional Task Force (of Nature!)

This past Wednesday I attended the meeting of the Regional Task Force on Casino Impacts at the Lakeville library, disappointed but not surprised to, once again, be the only resident of Bridgewater, a town of 27,000 people, in attendance.

I guess our representative to the Task Force, Bridgewater Selectman Mark Oliari, once again, had something better to do. Not venturing out much these days - possibly to avoid a run-in with the roaming packs of torch and pitchfork wielding ex-employees of the library.

To be fair to Mr. Oliari, the representative from East Bridgewater, a town of 14,000 was also a no-show. But still, Bridgewater is an abutter. And there were reps at the meeting from Kingston, Plymouth and Pembroke, taking the matter as seriously as it should be.

If Mr. Oliari and the East Bridgewater rep only knew that Senator Marc R. Pacheco (D – Foxwoods) would be in attendance at the meeting! How exciting! A chance for a free and open discourse with the state rep for most of the Task Force’s towns.

I was joined at the meeting by fellow CasinoFacts friends and board members from Middleboro, Plympton and Lakeville,

As the meeting settled down, an unexpected visitor arrived – Ruth Geoffroy, Middleboro Town Planner – and raised her hand. Nancy Yeatts, Lakeville selectwoman and Task Force chair, avoided eye contact and continued with the meeting.

That’s when Ruth made her first mistake. When her hand was ignored, she spoke out of turn, again and again, and asked that Middleboro be allowed to join the Task Force.

Don’t interrupt Nancy. Don’t ever interrupt Nancy.

I’m not going to lie. It felt a little good to see the gavel on the other foot… eh, in the other hand, for a change. I hoped Ruth would understand that it wasn’t personal. She was just the unfortunate messenger from Middleboro. And actually there wasn’t even a gavel.

(I wondered briefly why the Middleboro Board of Selectmen didn’t send one of their own before it dawned on me that they are, under contractual obligation, forbidden from speaking with any honesty about a casino.)

With Ruth thoroughly, if not brutally cautioned and left to sit quietly in the front row cauterizing the nub of what had been her left arm, Nancy asked the Task Force members to introduce themselves.

Along with all the towns (except Bridgewater and East Bridgewater, of course) was a rep from SRPEDD, and someone from the Old Colony something-or-other I didn’t quite make out because he was mumbling. If anyone knows, please enlighten me.

As I looked across at the table, it was with no small amount of personal satisfaction that I recognized, along with Ms. Lakeville, selectmen from Plympton, Carver and Halifax. These were the towns I’d personally spoken to, hoping to alert them to the true consequences of a proposed casino in our region.

And, while my part in speaking to those towns, was very very small - just a few words, really - the opportunity do it at all meant quite a bit more to me than many of you might realize.

How many meetings in Middleboro, how many hours did I quietly log in that town, through Spring and Summer, as the sole non-resident? I’d written editorials and created blogs and held signs, but to simply have the opportunity to share what I’d learned, as a fellow neighbor, with the concerned citizens of other towns, well - it was like taking a burden off my own worried shoulders, and watching with quiet gratitude as they willingly hoisted it onto their own. To have my neighboring towns recognize that we shared this, that we were all in this together, and to come together, is worth more than I can say – particularly in the face of my own town’s lack of involvement.

Senator Pacheo was introduced. He insisted he could not stay long, then spent an hour and a half letting the Task Force know that Massachusetts is broke and cannot be fixed without a big fat hypodermic full of gambling revenue.

He’s been in office 20 years now and has seen this debate come and go. But now, more than ever, we need the money.

I realized, with depressing clarity that I’d actually voted for Mr. Pacheco in his very first election back when I was living in East Taunton. And not just him, but also, while living in Plymouth, for Therese Murray. Two people who sounded really smart at the time. Now it’s obvious that their sight is so short they can’t see a life for our region beyond the flashing lights of a slot machine. Slide this lesson into the ‘live and learn’ column.

Suddenly, I notice a police officer standing at the back of the room. Do state senators always travel with police presence, I wondered.

Back at the front of the room, Mr. Pacheco revealed that he enjoys his excursions to Foxwoods. Once there, he is greeted by name, slapped on the back and shaken by the hand by numerous South Shore constituents. Constituents he, no doubt, recognizes by their dollar value. Not only to his campaign fund, but to his thinking, revenue which could stay in the region.

But wait! Didn’t we understand? He’s the champion of surrounding communities! He tells us a healthy cut of the gambling revenue will be divvied up by the state and sprinkled like manna from heaven to us - because he has a plan.

He has recognized four categories of need stemming from a casino or two or three or four in the region:

Contiguous – meaning abutting communities like Bridgewater, Halifax and Plympton et al.

Exclusivity – meaning communities which already have some sort of claim to gambling revenue (which can only mean the Raynham dog track)

But For’s – communities which, for example, depend on bingo nights etc. to help fund local organization like cub scouts, churches, you get the idea…

And another category which I didn’t hear because I couldn’t get the image of a butt with a big number 4 being burned into it with a branding iron, out of my head.

I wonder idly if Senator Pacheco had used the word ‘contiguous’ rather than ‘abutting’ for the first category in an attempt to avoid an excessive amount of big butts.

(It's been a long week.)

One of the first things Pacheco did that night, the currently popular strategy of the pro-casino lobby, is to insist the impetus is on the towns to find ways, if not to become dependant on gambling, to solve the fiscal crises facing the region. Want to complain? Come up with an alternative. Pacheco claims a desire for ‘a dialogue’ with the towns on this, yet it becomes clear that this dialogue will one-way. His way.

Through the course of the evening, I come to realize that Senator Pacheco doesn’t drink the Kool-Aid. He is the Kool-Aid.

John, from Plympton, whispers that the police officer in the back of the room was summoned by Nancy Yeatts in response to Ruth's repeated attempts to inject herself into the Task Force.

Well, I thought, that’s a bit harsh. To be honest, having once been gaveled by my own selectman, my heart went out to Ruth. She knows her job in and out, is always there at the meetings and, except for having a blood-Kool-Aid level of about 1.6 and a voice which could put Ambien out of business, she’s always seemed perfectly nice. No reason, I thought, to call in the gendarmes.

Or is it?

Nancy Yeatts saw, as I did, the events transpire over the summer in Middleboro. She’s heard about chest-thumping flying monkeys in orange shirts and executive limos, and she knows that Middleboro voters approved a casino agreement because they were convinced they had no choice. Thanks to CasinoFacts she knows that, instead of studying real casino impacts, the town listened only to the Tribe and a tribe of lawyers. And she watched the whole damn thing go down quicker than a Josh Beckett fastball. Then, she got a great big load of Adam Bond at the first Task Force meeting. Nancy Yeatts has a town - and now - an entire region to protect, and God help anyone from Middleboro who tries strong-arm their way onto her table.

That cop wasn’t for Ruth. He was a big flashing neon casino-sized ‘Keep Out’ sign for Middleboro.

Haven’t you done enough, already?

Something that was becoming clear as I listen to Senator Pacheco speak, is that he really doesn’t quite understand the scope of this project. He, like many people I’ve spoken to and heard from, view giant casino resorts from the lens of contemporary perspective. They drive there, play there, have a good time and come back. They don’t see what was there before, what was lost, and the damage done to the region beyond a casino’s front gate. But we must.

The Senator goes on to repeatedly compare the Connecticut gambling casinos, and what the impact of a similar project (or two or three or four) in our region might be like, to another mall, or a Great Woods, or a Gillette Stadium.

A that moment, my friends and I from CasinoFacts shared with each other a similar expression. We were all thinking the same thing; A Foxwoods-like resort casino is in no way, shape or form comparable to any of these things. Think more... a mall, a Great Woods, a Gillette Stadium, two or three Las Vegas Casinos, a Water Whiz, and every club on Landsdowne Street (if they were open for business and sold free drinks 24/7) – within 5 miles of residential neighborhoods, and about 50 public schools. Not to mention on the direct evacuation route for the Plymouth Nuclear Power Plant. Something more on those lines.

The longer Senator Pacheco continues to speak, the deeper I spiral into my own small personal depression.

I love my town. I love this whole region. And I’ve always loved the state of Massachusetts in a more-than-heart-felt way that it’s hard to explain. To me, it’s always felt like a privilege to have been born and raised here – here in this intellect- rich, politically charged, historically significant, rurally and coastally beautiful, gambling-free, drive-too-fast, talk-too-funny, do-the-right-thing, sort of a state.

I’ve traveled across this country, met people from everywhere and still, no other place could inspire me in the way Massachusetts does. You can keep your OC, your Manhattan, your Hamptons, your 90210. As far as I’m concerned, the world’s best zip code is 02324.

But, as I watch Senator Pacheco perform his pro-casino Macarena at the front of the room, and the empty seat which should have been occupied by my own absentee selectman that evening, and think of the exuberant and uncompromising pro-casino stance taken by Ms. Murray, not to mention Treasurer Cahill, and Governor Patrick, and and my state rep, David L. Flynn (D – Slots) - I suddenly realize how completely and truly unrepresented I am.

So lately, it's been sort of like watching the love of your life turn into a real jerk.

I look, with envy, at the leadership enjoyed by fellow my CasinoFacts co-directors in attendance. Carl, who's fortunate to live in a town where a person like Nancy Yeatts is on the Board of Selectmen. John, whose towns stands, almost to a man, against the casino. And Iron Mike, from Middleboro, the town which, while it's government courted the casino, it's citizens founded CasinoFacts.

Is it any wonder I have a blog? Or write editorials? Or hold a sign? Or have the world’s largest no-casino sign on my front lawn. I am anti-casino. Hear me roar. The more you try to contain the voice of the public in a democracy, the more it seeps out the sides and leaves a nasty stain on your shirt. In the end, you can’t ignore it.

I wake from my reverie when Mr. Pacheco loudly proclaims that he gets more calls to his office from pro-casino constituents. He expects us to be surprised, but we're not. Perhaps I could fax the Senator my chart detailing the make-up of this majority, compiled from empirical data gathered in the field. He claims that, sure, this force is only marginally louder, but it’s still louder.

(Must be the Butt-Force. )

The Senator takes questions. And my faith is renewed. The well-spoken rep from Plymouth trumps the Senator by stating that in his 37 years in politics he’s seen this happen more than once.

"It’s a very old song being played once again," with the state sort of promising tax relief to cities and towns but making no concrete promises. "This is a very quick fix at the state level" but "the buck truly does stop in local communities," he said. "We're at the end of the trail.

The Senator claims someone at that very table, who’ll he’ll leave nameless, called him that week looking for aid, but before he could finish his sentence, brave little Berkley spoke up to announce that she wasn’t embarrassed if he used her town as an example or not.

Carver, West Bridgewater, Pembroke and Halifax all politely rebuke the Senator’s claims that there is no other road to travel than the one lined with casinos.

You're not going to find the South Shore's family jewels at the State House - because they're right here in this room.

Lacking the support he no doubt expected, the Senator finally lays all his cards on the table by proclaiming that there is nothing, nothing that can not be mitigated with enough money.

The room is quiet. We’ve come to an impasse.

Perhaps, long ago, before he set out on his long and glorious career, the Senator once understood what is still obvious to everyone else in the room: Money can’t buy you love. And these representatives from around the table, love their towns, and love what their towns are all about. And you can tell that they're disappointed, some to the point of disgust, at the Senators attitude.

But then, not everyone has an appetite for Kool-Aid.

Finally, after not being able to stay, and yet never seeming to be able to leave, the Senator packs up his Blackberry, and makes an exit.

Ruth Geoffroy bounds up and follows the Senator out the door.

While she is out of the room Nancy calls for the Task Force to vote whether or not to include Middleboro in the Task force.

The result: A unanimous, unapologetic and resounding NO!

Returning to the room, Ruth asks to be recognized and makes another plea for Middleboro. She has no idea that her presence here is like having the person who burnt down the apartment building with their unattended cigarette, demand to be allowed into the tenants association.

When she gets the news, she flees the room to catch up with the Senator.

Meanwhile, with Middleboro and the Senator gone, the group can finally get down to discussing the real issues, and with luck, some real solutions. To my relief, and utter delight, the Senator’s efforts to downplay the impacts of a casino, seemed only to invigorate and galvanize the Task Force.

Well, we’ll just have to do it without him.

I look at my watch. Thanks to Senator Pacheco, I was already an hour late for the sitter. As much as I hated to leave now that the Task Force was getting to work, I had no choice.

But I could tell they were going to be just fine.

On my way out, I passed the Senator, alone and checking his Blackberry, on the library sidewalk. It’s my chance, I knew, to talk to him one-on-one, to tell him all I knew, to try and change his mind.

Instead, I kept walking to my car. It was late. The sitter was probably sitting in her car with the engine on. And I didn't have a jack hammer handy to get through to him. Besides, I was still suffering from butt force trauma to the head.

I think I’ll just give him a call.

At the Sign Post Up Ahead

I'll have another cup of Kool-aid, you'll have another piece of pie

The Boston Globe recently published the results of a poll conducted to determine the level of support Massachusetts residents are willing to give to the Governor's plan to locate three casinos in the state.

This poll surveyed 500 people and determined that 53% of them approved the governor's plan. According to the Globe, "The support is very broad and cuts across all ages, races, and geographic areas."

However, on closer inspection, who exactly are those 53%?

Gladys wanted to know, so she dug a little further...



Polls can be tricky, and statistics can say whatever you want them to. For an actual analysis of the Globe poll, click here.

Why Change Riders in the Middle of the Apocalypse?

I have no interest in Middleboro politics – except when Middleboro politics threaten to decrease the quality of my life in Bridgewater. Like, oh… say, putting the world’s largest casino a few minutes from my front door.

Since the beginning, I’ve never felt that this was only “a Middleboro issue.” And, in the course of trying to understand what was happening, and as part of being involved with it, I necessarily spent a lot of time in Middleboro, most especially, at selectman’s meetings.

A lot of people have been saying that the Recall Effort, which culminates this week, has nothing to do with the casino - but I’m not so sure about that. I've watched ‘Vote Against Recall’ signs and signs for the incumbents pop up on the same yards I used to see pro-casino signs.

This recall movement had been simmering, like hot coals at a clambake, well before the casino issue showed up, and rightly so. Middleboro selectmen had been systematically stoking those coals with thousand dollar bills for years.

Then, like a jack-in-the-box wound too tight, a casino popped up out of nowhere, and something strange happened. Poorly managed government suddenly became bad government. Inability to control spending took a back seat to stifling the public voice. A long history of public input and debate over every building project, from a giant incinerator to a donut drive-thru, was thrust aside in a frenzied hysteria to change the world as we know it.

So, while the casino may not have been at the birth recall movement, it almost certainly caused those hot coals to become the ten alarm gasoline soaked conflagration it did.

Why? Because, under these extraordinary circumstances, and with more people tuning in, more were able to see what Middleboro’s elected and town officials were made of.

Wayne Perkins, for one, perched at the selectman's table like an Easter Island statue, exploding into fiery sentience only when whatever imagined injustice brewing under his thin skin suddenly boiled to the surface - whether it was in response to accusations of a Selectman-Jack Healy-Wampanoag conspiracy, or indignation over remarks that Selectman Bond had made to the press regarding his bud-for-life, Bridgewater selectman Herb Lemon. The most notable of these outbursts, of course, was that infamous and seemingly endless invective he used one evening to justify his official position that a casino would be the single best thing to ever happen to the town of Middleboro, a veritable diamond-studded life preserver flung onto deck of a sinking ship, and exactly what the hell was the matter with you if you couldn't see it that way.

In 2003 Mr. Perkins told the Enterprise, “I won’t support a casino. There is no way, shape, or form.” What a difference four years makes, huh? I guess once you’ve gone through all the firewood and burned all the furniture, there’s nothing left to toss on the fire but your integrity.

It became clear, in the time I spent in Mr. Perkins presence that it didn’t really matter to him what the public thought. He had to pay the bills, not you. And he’d do it the way he saw fit. If he said it, it was so. If he believed it, then it was. End of story. Get in line, or get out of the way.

Personally, I don’t care how many eons Mr. Perkins’ bones have been rattling around on this planet, if you’re going to run for office, especially in a small town where you get right up close and personal to your constituents, you’d better have your ears and your mind open.

I’ll see the incumbent’s signs on the side of the road, and I’ll wonder, why do these people want to stay in office? Do they really think they’re good at this job?

Take chairwoman Marsha Brunelle. Now that’s a mystery. Here you have a high profile job in town government - an official elected by the public, yet seemingly the public isn’t very high on her agenda. Especially when it asks questions and demands answers. No, that would never do.

My most vivid impression of Ms. Brunelle was the day she that announced, to a standing-room-only crowd of pro- and anti-casino forces, that she had made the effort to research the Massachusetts state law regarding selectman’s meeting and discovered to her infinite delight that she was not required to listen to public input. And that was that.

Bring on the dog complaints! Give me those salary negotiations and photo ops in the Gazette! But in my house, you just keep your casino comments to yourself. And out came the gavel if you stepped out of the party line - although, if you did tow the pro-casino line, she’d honor you with a small satisfied smile, like a little treat for a dog which has just learned to stand on it’s hind legs and bark on command.

My gut feeling is that Ms. Brunelle is a good person who wants to make her town better. I know she was involved in the transformation of the old Memorial Junior High school into the beautiful new Kindergarten, which I wholeheartedly applaud and greatly appreciate. I just don’t think she’s suited, at all, for the job of selectman.

For one thing, the Town Hall is not one person’s house. It’s the Town’s house. And whether you like it or not, you’ve got to listen to what the people have to say, obscure state law or not, because it’s the right thing to do, and because you’re there to do the right thing. And a gavel is for bringing order, not beating down controversy.

One evening, in the Plympton town hall, I sat through a selectman’s meeting with my heart beating like a bass drum because, though I wanted so much to share with them what I knew about the proposed casino in Middleboro, I was honestly frightened of speaking up - having been conditioned by watching Marsha Brunelle’s liberal use of the gavel. But to my surprise, in Plympton, as well as in Halifax, Carver and Lakeville, I discovered that my comments were welcome. I would watch, again and again and again, as selectmen in those towns encouraged opinion and debate. And that’s what I’ve always thought selectman should do – welcome the voice of the public because of what could offer, not smother it with a pillow until the legs stop kicking.

Which brings me to Selectman Spataro. I think Steven would have a lot of potential if it weren’t for his complete inability to stand and deliver when it counts. Oh sure, he’ll occasionally offer up some contrived bit of spitfire at odd moments and for no apparent reason, morphing briefly into a cartoon Tazmanian Devil when he’s not actually threatened.

During the casino debate Mr. Spartaro could have easily stood together with Mr. Rogers and strongly denounced Mr. Bond’s motion to move the town meeting forward as fast as possible. The Tribe wasn’t going anywhere. It never was. But Mr. Spataro allowed Mr. Bond, of all people, to put him on a leash. Mr. Bond, a life-size Malibu Ken doll with a law degree and an ego that could fit inside a size XXL Yankees cap - which undoubtedly hangs in his hall closet. The same Mr. Bond, who, when feeling threatened, calls a lawyer or holds a press conference.

Mr. Spataro, how will you ever be able to stand up to big scary unions, powerful town employees and marauding packs of flying monkeys if you can’t even stand up for yourself? How can you think that you will ever be able to look across the negotiation table and turn down another 80% pension or 90% health care plan? How can you promise not to let the Tribe become the biggest voting block in town if they move in? How are you equipped to prevent theoretical casino windfall from becoming a feeding frenzy for shark skinned department heads? Explain.

And for everyone who may be starting to get the warm fuzzies about the incumbents, believing perhaps that they’ve learned their lessons, that they’ve changed, that this little recall dope slap thing will make everything better – be aware that less than a month ago, the Board approved a letter to the Bureau of Indian Affairs which, while pointing out that the town has approved an agreement with the Wampanoag tribe, left out the part about Article Three – the one in which even people in orange shirts remained in the hot sun, after being there all day, so that they could hold up their hands and say “We don’t want a casino”.

And no, article three wasn’t binding. But that doesn’t make it less true.

Towns like Middleboro and Bridgewater, which have grown faster than their local governments have been equipped to deal with in the last decade, are facing enormously difficult challenges. Who we chose as our elected officials to handle those challenges is more important today than perhaps at any other time in either of our town's history. Our very character and life's blood is at stake. Will our leaders respond to these challenges by throwing in the towel? By selling out to the highest bidder? By rushing into decisions, insisiting that they know best, counting out the public, and refusing to fight for what's right?

I don’t believe the upcoming recall election is, at it's heart, about the mismanagement of town funds, nor is it about a casino. Ultimately, it’s about leadership. And from my unique vantage point this summer, the only leadership I ever witnessed, was in someone else’s town. Not in Middleboro and not in Bridgewater - because leadership has nothing to do with a closed mind, a fast gavel or a weak spirit.

Should you support recall? Not only should you support recall, you should draw a little smiley face in the circle provided on the ballot before filling it in.

The Courtship of Massachusetts

For cdpLakeville, my muse...

Putting the 'common' back in the Commonwealth

The Governor sells out the Bay State.
To the highest bidder.

See it on Video!

Holding a Sign

It’s not easy holding a sign.

People tend to forget that you’re a real live person, not just a message on a stick. They’ll avoid you. From car windows they’ll shake their heads or laugh, they’ll give you a thumbs-down (or worse.) Familiar faces from around town, some whose kids have gone to school with mine since pre-school won’t make eye-contact. Friends I’ve known for decades will walk by and snicker.

Fortunately, many other friends, neighbors and even complete strangers will go out of their way to thank me for being there, and for doing what I’m doing. The smiles, waves and thumbs-up, and the people who will just stop and ask for more information, still outnumber the negative faces. So, I guess I should focus on that. But sometimes, it’s hard.

I never wanted to be an 'activist'. This past Spring, with the hectic school year winding down, I was planning on a lazy summer, beach days with the kids, nights on the screen porch, planting a garden, catching up on my reading. I’d never envisioned, in April, that by August I’d be standing with my sign at the State House in Boston. That I’d be part of a group hand delivering a letter of concern to the Governor.

Because back in April, I was just worried. Mostly about my property values, a little about traffic, and some about the size of a proposed casino in Middleboro. And though I’m not a gambler, I wasn’t anti-gambling.

So I thought I should learn more. And one of the first things I learned is that there have been people who’ve been studying the subject of casinos in Massachusetts for a very long time.

Massachusetts Senator Dan Bosley, for example, has been looking into it for 11 years from an economic standpoint and reached the conclusion that it’s a ‘zero sum game’ and ‘a sucker’s bet’.

The League of Women Voters, who pride themselves on thoroughly researching every important issue, have been looking into casino gambling in Massachusetts since 1982 and are still strongly opposed.

The Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling has been studying the issue and reaching out to those with gambling addictions and their families since 1987.

And the Southeast Regional Planning & Economical Development District which has, since 1968 devoted itself to the “expansion of economic opportunity, protection of natural and historic resources, and development of excellent physical and cultural amenities” in many of the towns, including Middleboro, which would be effected by a casino, has gone out of it’s way to express it’s own serious concerns.

One of the things I've learned to count on, when outside holding my NO CASINO sign, are the people who will stop by to tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about. Invariably, they mention Foxwoods. Wonderful place. Nothing to worry about...

Perhaps you’ve visited Foxwoods or Mohegan Sun and had a nice time there. Maybe a great time. That’s the casino’s job, and they’re good at it. So you start to think… that kind of thing would be great in my neck of the woods. What could be wrong with that?

But do you really know what that area was like before the casinos came? Have you ever stopped in any of the surrounding towns for anything to eat or drink, or buy – with the exception of a tank of gas, or ventured beyond the confines of the resort? You probably don’t have an idea of what the traffic was like before the casinos, or how many residents who could afford to, moved away, or that many of their homes are now being used by imported labor for ‘hot-bunking’. You weren’t there to see the schools fill up or the local businesses in the area fail, and you couldn’t have known that before the casinos were built, there was one gambling addiction center in Connecticut, and that now there are 17 taxpayer funded centers. And have you noticed the odd overabundance of gashes in the trees along the route left by cars driving off the road. And obviously, from your car window it’s impossible to see the skyrocketing suicides, bankruptcy and crime in the 35- 50 miles around the casinos.

I don't know what the water situation was in the area around Foxwoods before it was built, but I do know that every summer, in Bridgewater, we are banned from using automatic sprinklers in the garden. Because the water levels are low. And there are a lot of other towns in the area which impose water bans, sometimes starting as early as mid-Spring. And I know that there have been wells going dry in Middleboro in recent years.

A mega-casino requires 1.5 million gallons of water a day at peak. Where's it going to come from? Certainly not from my sprinkler.

This issue goes far beyond whatever benefits someone might envision a Middleboro casino might offer to them personally, from an imagined job for an indigent nephew, to slot machine nirvana, to someplace to catch a show, a nightclub hotspot, a new business opportunity, or another golf course.

The world’s largest casino isn’t in Las Vegas. It’s only a two hour drive away. And it even has a major competitor down the road, in case you get bored.

Do we really need to turn New England into the Land of the World’s Largest Casinos? Is that where most people want to live? Is that the legacy our generation will leave on this state?

The conservative estimate for a Middleboro casino is 50,000 visitors a day, with an additional 6,000 - 15,000 employees.

Think about it... 55,500 people reside in Plymouth, spread out over the geographically largest town in Massachusetts. Which means that every single day, easily, more than the entire population of the town of Plymouth would descend on a few hundred acres off Rte. 44. (Also known as the Evacuation Route...)

More than the entire populations of Middleboro, Bridgewater and Lakeville combined.

More than that of Carver, Kingston, Halifax, Plympton, Raynham and Berkley combined.

Conservatively.

That’s what would be coming down our streets and highways, creating pollution and waste, and utilizing our precious resources, every single day, night and day, 365 days a year.

Can anyone still insist that there's really 'nothing to worry about' ? That a project of this magnitude won't have an adverse effect on the South Shore? That it won't change it forever? That it wouldn’t have serious repercussions?

All this and our taxes won't even go down!

So... how can we possibly plan for an appropriate amount of 'mitigation' so that those of us who already call this place home won't end up paying the price for someone else's brand new city?

Until someone can give me a real answer, I'll just keep holding my sign.

South Shore Super Squad: Meet the Heroes

Middleboro Casino and the Circle of Doom

I'm limited in the number of pixels that they'll let me take up here on the Blogspot, so forgive me if the map above is a little hard to read.

The map itself was provided by the Regional Task Force on Casino Impacts, and we at CasinoFacts added some town lines and color.

At CasinoFacts we know that the impacts of a mega casino will effect communities within a 35-50 mile radius, but the Task Force just wanted to limit themselves to a manageable 10 mile impact radius, otherwise known as the Circle of Doom as indicated by the orange circle. The darker orange circle indicates a five mile radius around a proposed casino at the Precinct Street location.

Notice that the entire towns of Bridgewater, Halifax and Plympton fall within the circle.

All but the very outskirts of Lakeville, Carver, Kingston, East Bridgewater and Raynham are there, too.

And someone might want to get on the horn to Berkley, West Bridgewater, Hanson, Pembroke and Plymouth from the looks of it.

But we all know that it's just a map. Think of it in terms of impacts. Like traffic. 50,000 + visitors a day, 24/7. Thousands of employees. Tour busses, tractor trailers making deliveries night and day. Garbage trucks hauling away the waste of a 'new city' more populated than the town of Plymouth down country roads. Wear and tear on our streets and highways. Trash, pollution, noise, speeders, DUIs.

Look at the already congested Rte. 3, skimming just outside the Circle. It travels through Weymouth, Duxbury, Marshfield and the entire length of Plymouth.

And speaking of Plymouth - I'd like to point out that many of the towns on this map use the roads within the Circle of Doom as an escape route in case of an emergency at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant. Just a thought.

And don't even get me started on Rte. 44.

And 'Traffic' is just one impact.

So let's hear it for the Middleboro Selectmen who appointed a seven person (not expert) impact study group and gave them six weeks to look at how a casino would impact Middleboro (not the region).

Our towns are not the equivalents of Ledyard, North Stonington, Montville or Uncasville Connecticut - communities around the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos. We have our own issues unique to this rural, yet rapidly growing section of Massachusetts.

To assume 'mitigation funds' will somehow take care of all the unforeseen problems that would result from this proposed, inappropriately located monstrosity, is simplistic and naive.

NO CASINO.

Casino U

Yesterday, on my walk through town, I watched teenagers carrying suitcases.

Computers, TV’s and min- fridges were being shuttled down the street in hand carts, while people hoisted boxes and armloads of books. Everybody looked a little lost.

The kids were back for another year at Bridgewater State College.

Watching it unfold, as I do every year around this time, I had to smile. I remember pouring over college catalogs in junior year of high school, trying to decide on the best place for me. At that point in my life, it was the biggest decision I’d ever had to make. I remember filling a cardboard box with albums, some paperbacks, a teddy bear, framed photographs, and loading it into the car, exchanging my bedroom in Middleboro for a dorm room in Boston.

It’s an exciting time for a student.

But if a casino comes to Middleboro, potential students will have to consider another factor into their choice. Do they really want to go to a school located a few short miles from what has been described as‘the world’s largest casino’?

Can't you just imagine the inevitable conversation...

“So… where do you go to school?”
“Bridgewater State.”
“Oh… the casino college?”

Bridgewater State will avoid all connections to a next-door mega casino on it’s web site and in it’s literature, of course, but the fact remains, if you drive down the road that runs right in front of Boyden Hall, BSC’s stately and iconic main building, in less than ten minutes you’ll find yourself at the proposed site.

And parents, too, may want to consider if they really want the lure of gambling and 6,000 slots so close to their kids.

And they absolutely should.

Due to the explosion of televised poker championships and on-line gambling sites, gambling addiction among college students is skyrocketing. The existence of an enormous casino so close to their campus further sends the message that gambling is acceptable, exciting, and even something desirable.

The marketing dollars spent to promote the new casino will be staggering. People in-state and out will be subjected to "The Wonder of It All" type of commercials which will run all night and day on all channels.

The Gaming and Alcohol industries both face the problem of having to market to a demographic which includes those who are legally prohibited from participating. And just as underage college students manage to find ways to get hold of alcohol, they will find a way to get into casinos. In fact, it's already happening and causing a regulatory problem for the gaming industry.

In a study for The College Student Journal, students residing in an environment which affords many opportunities to gamble were surveyed. Though 21 is the legal age for casino gambling, 59.8% of 18 year olds, 72.8% of 19 years olds and 86.1% of 20 year olds admitted they’d gambled at least once in a casino. For college students over 21, the percentage rose to 92.5%.

And making things worse, according to the Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling, "Teenagers have a problem gambling rate of 10%-17%, a rate 2 to 3 times higher than the general population."

College students who become problem gamblers will spend money they don’t have, max out their credit cards, steal money or credit cards from others, resort to other crimes to pay off their gambling losses, lie, borrow and steal from family and friends, do poorly in school, lose jobs and scholarships, and eventually become depressed and suicidal.

And let's not forget that this casino would offer free around-the-clock drinks. How many college students wouldn’t drive ten minutes for that?

Bridgewater State College is still an excellent choice for an education. I’ve watched BSC shine under the leadership of Dr. Dana Mohler-Faria, and am pleased he is pursuing University status for the College. But as an alumna of BSC myself, I would definitely prefer not to see it’s reputation tainted by it’s proximity to a huge casino.

As we can see on maps, this proposed casino is close enough to schools, playgrounds and residential neighborhoods. But it’s most insidious effects may be experienced by the students and their families, of the college just up the street.

The Myth of Inevitability, Part 2

In the 'Cradle of Liberty', the citizens of Philadelphia found themselves facing the prospect of living next door to a couple of mega casinos.

Public dialog was suppressed. Deals were made behind closed doors. Remind you of something?

But then, ten concerned Philadelphians got together and formed an anti-casino grassroots organization with the objective of creating greater government transparency and public input into proposed casinos.

But despite their efforts, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board agreed to license the SugarHouse and Foxwoods casinos.

Casino-Free Philadelphia was not defeated. Their battle cry became “No casinos in our neighborhoods and no casinos in anyone else’s neighborhoods.”

What started as ten volunteers became hundreds.

When the state Gaming board refused to make public site and traffic plans, the group washed the Board’s windows for the media – to make the point of transparency. After two months of focused action, hundreds of pages of casino plans were released.

In less than 20 days, Casino-Free Philadelphia gathered 27,000 signatures to create the first citizen-initiated referendum in thirty years, and which asked voters if casinos should be kept 1,500 feet from homes, schools, and places of worship. In other words, a pretty difficult hurdle in a large city consisting of many distinct, closely knit, residential neighborhoods.

Not to be outdone by an uppity pack of Philadelphians, SugarHouse lawyers went to court and got the signatures thrown out. So much for Liberty.

And yet, Philadelphia City Council accepted that all those signatures did, in fact, represent the true public opinion - and voted unanimously to place the referendum on the ballot.

Still refusing to believe that money can’t buy you love, casino interests paid private investigators to drum up dirt in an effort to discredit the volunteers who had gathered the signatures.

And they teamed up with their old pals on the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, and sued the City to kick the referendum off the ballot. At issue was that a 1,500 foot buffer would effectively prevent any casino from being built in Philadelphia (duh...) And so, the State Supreme Court, confirming that casinos have more rights than it's citizens, sucker punched the people of Philiadelphia by handing down a decision to strip the referrendum off the ballot.

So the citizens held their own election. A citizen's election. This past May, just as we in Middleboro were taking our first steps along the road they knew so well, the citizens of Philadelphia voted YES. YES meaning NO CASINO. In fact they voted 95% YES to 5% NO.

And so the battle moved to the State and Federal level. Meanwhile, ethics violations have been filed against the Chairman of the Gaming Control Board.

Which just goes to show you, when the door opens for casino interests, the voice of the people goes out the window. Yet another reason to keep fighting, and for not getting into bed with these people in the first place.

Thanks to the efforts of it's citizens, Philadelphia, in the meantime, remains casino-free.

Casino-Free Philadelphia credits their success to three factors in their favor: Volunteerism, Passion and Creativity.

I see these same three things every day in the words and actions of the members of CasinoFacts.

It's only a 'done deal' if you don't do anything.

Join.   Volunteer.   Make a difference.

No Casino.
_________________________________________________

I thought you might like to see a few of these inspirational Philadelphian go-getters in action:

This Dog and Pony Show

It was standing room only.

I was sure I’d gotten there early enough, but still… not a seat in the house. I hoped it wouldn’t be a long night.

Then, I noticed some ladies trying to get my attention. Someone had vacated a seat in the middle of their row, and they were offering it to me

Thanks!

It was only May, but the air in the auditorium was as stifling and uncomfortable as any evening in August. Still, the whole room buzzed with excitement. Outside, cars were parked along both sides of the long driveway. Police seemed everywhere directing traffic, people and reporters. News vans from all the stations, with their towering satellite uplinks, filled the lot. Protestors held signs as we walked to the building. People were being interviewed by guys I’d only seen on TV. At the door to the Nichols School, someone was handing out little colored feathers.

No thanks.

I looked around the auditorium for some familiar faces from the first selectman's meeting about the casino, but couldn’t find any. The ladies beside me were wearing feathers. I would later discover that they, and pretty much everyone else filling up the first 20 rows, were from Oak Point. Being from Bridgewater, I didn’t yet know what Oak Point was, or that it stirred up strong emotions among the folks in Middleboro. I also didn't realize that they'd all been fed a free dinner and shipped by bus to the meeting. It was only May, and I still had a lot to learn about local politics.

Someone got up from the chair next to me and gave it to an elderly gentleman. The Oak Point lady sitting next to me leaned in and whispered that he was a 'real' Wampanoag. He and I smiled politely at each other. A photographer from the Globe walked over, took some pictures of him, and asked his name.

The usual suspects were up on stage – the Middleboro selectmen (I still didn’t know all their names), their tribal law attorney, Jon Whitten, a few others I didn’t recognize – and a beefy guy in his fifties with his long white hair tied into a ponytail. He was confident, smiling, shaking hands. No need for an introduction. Obviously this was the Chief of the Mashpee Wampanoags.

The man we were all here to see. And hear.

And, I’m not sure what I’d been expecting, but it wasn’t him.

He gave a little talk about his people, about how he wanted to be a good neighbor to the people of Middleboro. That’s nice. But what about Bridgewater? We’re closer than most of Middleboro. He spoke of being ‘a steward of the land’, which didn’t sit right with me either. Traffic? Pollution? Swamp draining? Forty story mega towers? Multi-acre asphalt parking lots? This was stewardship?

People, including some I recognized, got up to the microphone and asked questions. But, if you didn’t want the casino, Mr. Marshall’s responses were dismissive. Or worse - you were a racist. If you had concerns, he made promises. He’d personally write you a check if your business suffered because of his. He’d cover you if your property values sagged. He’d build green, hire union, take care of everybody, everything. And if Middleboro didn't want them, they wouldn't come. And you could believe him, because he was a man of his word.

Someone asked about New Bedford. Wasn’t the Tribe also looking at New Bedford? Sure they were! They haven’t ruled anything out. They might use the land in Middleboro for housing or a heritage museum.

That’s when the Wampanoag man sitting next to me laughed. And under his breath, where I could still clearly hear it, he said, “They're not going to New Bedford.”

No, they weren’t, were they. Glenn Marshall was lying.

As the night and the questions, lies and promises wore on, Mr. Marshall started to get tired. Maybe he ate too much at Dave's diner earlier that evening. He stood up and indicated the auditorium with a wave of his hand “… this dog and pony show…”

Ut-oh! He knew he’d just screwed up. He tried to backtrack. But it didn’t matter. Few people in the auditorium realized they’d just been dissed by the new king of Middleboro.

But I never forgot it. I never forgot his staggering confidence, his thinly concealed disdain or his shallow promises. How he acted as if he'd just signed the purchase and sale agreement on the entire town of Middleboro.

A few months later, in a room at the Halifax town hall, a local resident who happened to work in Middleboro, and who’d met Marshall for himself, stood up and spoke glowingly of him... his impressive war record, how he was so down to earth. Believable. We’d be impressed, he insisted, if we ever met the guy ourselves.

A lot of other people, just like this man from Halifax, truly believed in Glenn Marshall. And they didn’t meet the rest of the Tribe that night on the stage at the Nichols school – they met Marshall.

The final agreement mentions the term ‘good faith’ numerous times. Exactly what ‘good faith’ would that be? The same ‘good faith’ that members of congress were asked to accept when Marshall blatantly lied to them? There are six signatures at the bottom of the agreement signed at the July 28th Town Meeting. Five Middleboro selectman – and just one Wampanoag. The one so many people beleived in.

This alone should negate the agreement.

I’m not sure why so many people got sucked in by Marshall. Was it admiration or intimidation? Or both? What made Adam Bond run from the room like the Cowardly Lion when the Great and Powerful Glenn Marshall turned down his first agreement - claiming it threatened his Tribe's hard-fought sovereignty? What made the next agreement force Bond and every subsequent selectmen ‘till the end of time speak only flowers and sunshine should talk ever turn to a casino - essentially forfeiting the town’s own 338 year sovereignty – and mostly likely, somewhere down the road, compelling the town to tell it’s own lies.

Marshall is fond of the analogy of the King and the Goat. He claims, with a significant deficit of humility, that he’s never been the goat, always the King. And all summer long it’s been just one big dog and pony show, staring Glenn Marshall, as the new king of Middleboro...

...And, with Jack Abramoff in his wallet, and Congress, the BIA, the Governor, State Legislature and the town of Middleboro in his hip pocket, I’m sure he still believes he's the future king of the world.

Annapolis, Anyone?

I have a confession. I think I have a secret admirer. Well, ok, not so much an admirer – more like a stalker.

This isn't my usual regular visitor. He or she has been searching about me on-line, and visiting all of my other web sites. They've crawled over every square inch of this blog a few times over. And they visit at all hours, too. Just recently, they spent the wee hours, from midnight until 5 in the morning, putting me under their personal microscope. That’s quite a lot of dedication don’t you think?

I mean - I’m a mom. I live in a small town. I drive a mini-van. I shuttle my kids to sports, count calories, and design web sites. Oh yeah, and I also fight a casino in my spare time - a casino it's proponents perpetually insist is a 'done-deal' - so why they should feel so threatened by me, I can’t understand.

My new friend’s IP address is 208.103.143.6 which I was able to trace to a digital telephone company called Coretel America out of Annapolis Maryland. It’s coverage area is listed as being limited to Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and New York City. They have no offices in Massachusetts or even New England as far as I can tell.

So, who is this shadowy figure who finds my mundane life so riveting? And what could someone in Annapolis possibly want with me?

Perhaps it’s the mysterious “Voice of Reason” who assures me that people are looking at everything I write, and taking it quite seriously.

Perhaps the snooping is being done by those very same ‘proper authorities’ of which the Voice once wrote.

And is it possible that my stalker is among that ‘prominent family with significant political ties, on a national level’ of a certain selectman?

Or maybe Denniscula is still sore about that one blog.

Who knows? It could just be the night security guard at Coretel who, possibly bored with the job and lacking his or her own casino fight, has signed on to mine.

As for me, I just can't get over all this attention - and now - mysterious hang-up calls from the vicinity of Mashpee.

It’s just way too much intrigue for this old gal. So I thought I’d share it with you.