14 May 2005
Bruce Jackson
Joel Giambra's plan to kill Buffalo
A plan announced this week by a Las Vegas gambling corporation to build a $350 million gambling casino in Buffalo's outer harbor permitted Erie County Executive Joel Giambra (who recently presided over the meltdown of Erie County's government) and Buffalo Mayor Anthony Masiello (who presided over the most recent phase of Buffalo's economic decline) to give further evidence why neither should ever again be entrusted with public office.
Pinnacle Entertainment, Buffalo News reporter Sharon Linstedt wrote, wants to "build a complex with a 90-table gambling facility, 300-room hotel, six restaurants, a 12-screen movie theater and a live performance venue. The casino complex would be on a 40-acre parcel along Fuhrmann Boulevard between the Bell Slip and the Small Boat Harbor. Pinnacle, which already owns eight casinos, said it would help the Senecas finance, build and operate the casino. The nation would own the facilities as part of its sovereign territory."
The space Pinnacle wants for its gambling joint is where Buffalo Lakefront wants to put "housing, marinas, a convention center, two hotels, an amphitheater and public green space." The first key difference in the Buffalo Lakefront and the Pinnacle proposals is that the entire Pinnacle/Seneca operation would be off the tax rolls. It would contribute nothing to the local economy other than the small percentage of the slot machine take Buffalo would get, which would not come close to paying the city for the problems the casino would cause. The second key difference derives from the fact that the bulk of the clients would be local, not distant travelers, so the money spent in the casino, restaurants and theaters would be primarily local money—money that would otherwise have gone into local taxpaying businesses. The low-paying jobs that a casino generates do not compensate for the huge losses a community incurs when a casino (which sends all its profits out of town) suffocates locally-opened theaters, restaurants, hotels and stores.
For visual evidence of this process at work, drive through Niagara Falls: with few exceptions, the only renaissance that has happened there since the Seneca casino went in is in property that is connected to the Seneca casino. More local business have closed than have opened. And once the Senecas complete their hotel building project, the few local hotels left will probably close. The city is getting a few million dollars a year from the casino, and will soon be worse off than before the casino was built.
Giambra used to be an opponent of a casino in Buffalo but, according to Linsted he now says, "I'm being a realist. If the Senecas are going to open an Erie County casino, it has to be in Buffalo. And if it's going to be in Buffalo, it should be on the outer harbor.... We have desperately needed something to spark outer harbor development and I think this is exactly what we've been waiting for."He should be fighting that "if" clause, not rolling over and greasing the way for it to happen. This is like saying, "I'm being a realist. If we're going to have narcotics sold in Erie County they should be sold in a nice building rather than on streetcorners because that way we'll get a nice building out of it."
Masiello opposes the outer harbor plan, but only because, writes Linstedt, he thinks "A casino belongs downtown where it can support the hotel and entertainment infrastructure we already have in place. The outer harbor should be for housing, recreation and passive activities."
This is so mindless it defies argument. Gambling is active but sports activities are passive? A gambling joint/hotel/restaurant/bar downtown owned by the Senecas that will draw clients from already-existing hotels, restaurants, bars and theaters, starving them to death, but, unlike them, it will pay no taxes. That's "support"? The only local people who will make money out of a downtown casino will be people who sell the Senecas property or who do the contruction. After that, it's screw Buffalo, all the way.
Can anything be done to stop this foolishness? The gambling interests have spread a lot of money around, so it will be difficult, but there are things still worth trying.Joel Rose, chairman of Citizens Against Gambling and co-chairman of Citizens Against Casino Gambling in Erie County, sent this long email on May 13 detailing the current situation and various attempts to block both Giambra's and Masiello's attack on Buffalo:
It comes as no surprise: the Senecas are looking at the Buffalo waterfront for their third casino.
What's even more dismaying is that a one-time gambling foe, Erie County Executive Joel Giambra, is pushing the waterfront proposal. So we now have the spectacle of two local political leaders — Giambra and lame-duck Buffalo Mayor Anthony Masiello — squabbling about where to put a Buffalo casino that no sane person wants anywhere. Neither of these men, having led the County and the City respectively to the brink of financial ruin, has any remaining credibility. How outrageous that the future of our community should be in their hands.
We have been fighting over this issue for four years now, and I know many of you have gotten tired. Some of you probably believed this was just going to be one of those Buffalo projects that never happen. But this threat never went away; it was just dormant for a while, while the Senecas considered their options in the wake of the decision in State Supreme Court that precluded their building their third casino anywhere besides Buffalo.
Now, if we don't act, it appears that this third casino is going to happen. We know that the area will become more devastated financially than it already is. We know there will be new crime, new bankruptcies, new wife battering, new child neglect, and new suicides. All of those dire predictions we've made will come to pass, and if we haven't done everything in our power to stop it, part of the responsibility will be on us.
Let's not let that happen.
If you are a resident of the Buffalo area, this is your community. If we don't make a major effort to stop this casino, then we certainly cannot expect people from outside the area to come in and save us.
For those of you who live elsewhere in the state, we know this is primarily our fight, but we do need your help. What happens in Buffalo will affect what happens in your town, and vice-versa.
For those of you who do live in the area, we need you to come to our meetings (first Tuesday of every month, 7 p.m., 1272 Delaware Avenue). We also need you to come to our rallies and other special events.
There are lots of community events during the summer. We'd like to work the crowds, handing out literature, etc. Contact Diane Persico at 885-4849 if you'd like to volunteer.
Here's something all of you can do, regardless of where you live: Contact public officials at all levels. Buffalo Common Council members, Erie County Legislators, State Assembly Members and Senators, and our Congressional delegation should be at the top of the list. You'll find addresses for state and Federal officials at http://www.lwvbn.org/officials.html , and links to the local levels of government, with legislators' contact information, at http://www.lwvbn.org/otherinfo.html .
We also need a steady stream of letters to the editors of the Buffalo News. See
http://www.buffalonews.com/contact_us/guidelines.asp#news_everybody for submission guidelines. That's also something you can do no matter what part of the state you live in.
One of our best chances for stopping this development is the Dalton v. Pataki case. The New York State Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the state in that case, but the decision, insofar as it affects Indian casinos, can be appealed to the United States Supreme Court.
But that's going to take money. O'Connell and Aronowitz have already done approximately $300,000 worth of legal work in this case at about 50% reimbursement. They cannot be expected to subsidize this effort further without help from the rest of us. If we cannot raise $15,000 fairly quickly, no appeal will be filed. And assuming an appeal is filed and the Supreme Court agrees to hear it, we're going to need an additional $30,000 to $40,000 to litigate it.
So, one thing each of us can do is to help fund the appeal. This is a statewide effort. Please send a donation to:
Rev. Duane Motley, Treasurer, CAGNY
c/o New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedom
P.O. Box 107
Spencerport, New York 14559
Make the check payable to "Coalition Against Gambling in New York" (or just "CAGNY") and mark the memo "legal fund" to distinguish it from contributions to CAGNY's general operating budget.
If you'd prefer to contribute to our local efforts, you can send a contribution to:
Rev. Merle Showers, Treasurer, CACGEC
401 Highgate Avenue
Buffalo, New York 14215
Make the check payable to "Network of Religious Communities" and mark the memo "CACGEC". Donations to CACGEC are tax-deductible.
And while you have your checkbook out, the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling is a very worthwhile organization that provides us support in the form of information, strategy, and occasionally in person. NCALG Executive Director Tom Grey was here a few years ago, and he's coming back in July.
NCALG is in dire need of financial help too. You can donate by sending a check payable to "NCALG" to
NCALG Treasurer
100 Maryland Avenue NE, Room 311
Washington, DC 20002
Or you may call 800-664-2680 or donate via PayPal at http://ncalg.org/contact_us.htm
Donations to NCALG are tax-deductible. If you don't need the tax deduction, please donate to NCALG's sister organization, NCAGE, instead. In that case you probably should call the 800 number for instructions.
Thank you for all you've done and thank you in advance for all you are going to to do.
Sincerely,
Joel Rose, co-Chairperson, Citizens Against Casino Gambling in Erie County
http://NoCasinoErie.org
and Chairperson, Coalition Against Gambling in New York
http://CAGNYinf.org
Most of Joel Rose's suggestions in that email are about places you might send money. The cost of this effort now is nothing compared to what a casino in Buffalo would cost us later. Every time the tax base declines—which it will certainly do if a casino goes downtown—the quantity and quality of city services declines and the tax burden on the rest of us increases. Giambra and Masiello's gambling deal would make losers of us all.
Copyright 2005 by Buffalo Report, Inc.