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City, Suffolk Downs reach casino deal; now it's up to voters in East Boston, Revere

The Globe reports the operators of the would-be casino and Mayor Menino have come to terms on payments to the city (tough nougies, Winthrop) and minimum employment levels.

The move clears the way for a referendum in East Boston and Revere to decide the fate of the proposal. Everett voters recently overwhelmingly supported a competing plan in an industrial wasteland in their city - over which Menino has made noises about fighting it, since a small piece of the land is actually in Charlestown.

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Comments

What could possibly go wrong?

I for one welcome our new crime wave

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More details on the proposed agreement, which includes $45 million in transportation mitigation, including the ferry.

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5,000 parking spaces, so much for smart growth! And a flyover on rt 1a, just as the state is taking down flyovers in Jamaica Plain and Charlestown (and committing to taking down one in Somerville). Poor East Boston is getting the 1950s transportation treatment.
If its not worth doing right, its not worth doing. Do people in East Boston, Revere and Winthrop really want 5,000 more cars a day driving through to get to the casino?

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Winthrop doesn't even have a chance to vote for it which is nuts since it's sandwiched there.

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I love how on one hand Boston gov't wants only Eastie to have a vote rather than the whole city and on the other will sue to stop Wynn from putting something in Everett because "Boston deserves to be heard." By that logic, Winthrop should get a vote, too.

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Dollars to donuts the flyover never happens because revenues will be less than expected (duh). So Eastie and Winthrop will be stuck with ridiculous traffic forever.

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$120 million dollar first payment to East Boston neighborhood, this is showing that billionair casino owner will be comitted to East Boston concerns, $120 M wow , get busy(1), I would like to see every sidewalk in east boston be replaced with bricks...( 2) Tar every street in East Boston (not just Orient heights) 4000 jobs said Menino, ya 4000 jobs for all connected hacks..

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East Boston & Winthrop mass residents will see home values decline, crime will go up, drug dealers will sell their crack to the whores that will eventually hang outside the casino with thier PIMPS! Logan hotels and hotels along rt 1 will be occupied by crack dealers, whores and their PIMPS, These whores & PIMPS will travel as far from Brockton and Lawrence & Bristol , Connecticut!! Bringing along with them other PIMPS!! People will start moving out of East Boston & Winthrop mass, it will lead to a foreclosure high crime rate neighborhood similar to Detroit!!

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The pimps from East Boston and Winthrop can now go to Lawrence and Brockton, causing a favorable terms of trade situation between the two locations, as the crack whores from Lawrence and Brockton can now go to the casino area.

Win/Win

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To Pete Nice, according to statistics When Atlantic city casino's were developed in the 1980s people from Nyc and Nj loved it for the first 5 years, until economy went down and people could not afford a pot to piss in, let alone gamble there money, so, the average new yorker said I cant afford to gamble at atlantic city, so it left the casino in desperate situations finding ways to make money, so they charged pimps and whores from jersey city and Trenton , New Jersey to lease out parking spaces outside casino.Casino created a tax for the pimps and whores to operate their business.

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Pete has it right. AC would be more like Brockton or Lowell. I'd love to say Suffolk Downs will be like Foxwoods, but the reality is that it will be like the scores of racinos no one knows about, like Canterbury Downs or Louisiana Downs.

However, I am curious about your statistics. Please cite.

The debate should be based on facts, not scaremongering.

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"LOVE BROKERS"?

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It won't affect Winthrop since Winthrop is isolated. Winthrop will be affected by the traffic when they try to get onto Bennington St. to leave town.

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I hope your wish for brick sidewalks is sarcastic. They are a totally unsuitable as a pavement for pedestrian pathways!

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yup. Also, the jobs the people will get will be low paying and non union.

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24 hour shuttle bus service to East Boston is curiously (and distressingly) absent from the proposal. Shuttles from Maverick Square to the casino and all that are fine, but how do you cross the harbor after the T shuts down? Still walking though the Callahan Tunnel, I guess.

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Maybe they're expecting all of the post midnight gamers to be from Eastie. There is also language in the mitigation agreement requiring the gaming area to be open 24 hours, so perhaps they'll just keep everyone till 6 when the T opens again.

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If there is language in the mitigation agreement requiring the gaming area to be open 24 hours,
then as an East Boston resident this is a disaster waiting to happen. I am under the impression that
liquor will stopped being served at 2:00am and the gaming area would close at 4:00pm. That's what
we have been lead to believe. If gaming is 24 hours just wait and see how long it takes for trouble
to start. According to the old adage "nothing good happens after midnight"

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If you have never had any positive experiences past midnight, I feel sorry for you.

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I think the transportation needs of the employees should count for something, too.

In fact, 24-hour transit to Boston should be tacked on to this "package" in the casino deal, as many of the people who live in East Boston are the people who do things like open Dunks at 5am or work night shift to clean offices downtown.

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This (funding 24 hour MBTA access) and reducing the parking by 2,000 spaces would be the best transportation mitigation Menino could have gotten, maybe a pedestrian walkway connecting Govt center (blue line) to Park St (red line), which is less than a quarter mile.
I hope the city council works to amend this and really pushes the idea of a 24 driving destination next to the airport that needs to be staffed 24 hours a day is a bad idea without making some public transportation improvements to make that more convenient. Shuttle buses and ferries that aren't part of the system don't integrate well.

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No, the drunks drive. Wonderful, isn't it?

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The city is going to do everything in their power to make sure that Suffolk/Caesars pays every penny that they've committed to, but who makes sure that the city does everything they've committed to? The ward of East Boston has no elected representative since we share our city councilor with other neighborhoods, so who looks out for Eastie? How does the neighborhood know that the mitigation funds it receives won't be offset by the city sending less of standard funding? The mitigation agreement calls for improvements to two parks and a middle school that the city is already obligated to maintain, but has ignored. It also calls for the building of a new youth center, but we already have one with a newly renovated pool area (Harborside) that the city closed last year. The city does not have a very good track record of taking care of East Boston, so why should we expect this to change?

The nicest parks in the neighborhood were built by and are maintained by Massport. Our brand new T stations are courtesy of the MBTA. Our beautiful new neighborhood health center was funded with Federal money, as were the new ferry boats the city already purchased for a service that was supposed to start this summer. Having all of East Boston's mitigation money filter its way through the hands of city hall doesn't give me confidence that East Boston will benefit as much as we're being told now.

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I hope the transportation mitigation improves transportation to East Boston as a whole, and not just to the casino. With the T shut down at 12:30 and the blue line not running very frequently outside rush hours, not to mention the lack of a red line or silver line connection, this should be an opportunity to make East Boston, one of the best neighborhoods for food, more easily accessible by public transpiration. Not just shuttles to the casino.

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Okay, it is a bit pie in the sky, but here's the deal. East Boston does have a City Councilor. It should be that person's job to make sure the City is doing what they're supposed to do.

If the City Councilor doesn't to that job, someone should run against them. If East Boston is mad enough, there will be a new City Councilor. Look over at District 2 to see what happens when a City Councilor is overlooking some it his constituents (which is not to say he is, but the claim is out there). East Boston is big enough that the voters could make a lot of noise in a City Council election.

If the Councilor is fighting hard and, say, the Mayor, who holds the power, still is not doing what they're supposed to do, then someone runs against them.

That's politics at its essence.

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it's the voters that keep the politicians accountable.

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$20 M to redo Orient Heights projects, a couple of million to fix up Umana school, several million to reconstruct noyes park , (Where's Noyes Park)Paris street gym needs to be bulldozed and use billionaire funds to rebuild a new one because the old one looks like something from The 3 stooges era. Paris street pedestrian bridge is old and decaying, that needs to be replaced, free tolls for all east boston residents for 3 years, compliments from ceasars palace, free casino buffet (Lobsters included) for all east boston residents for 1 year. Free sound proof windows for every single house in East Boston compliments from Ceasars Palace, A Free Tony Bennett concert at Piers Park compliment from Ceasars Palace.

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Having watched what happened when Foxwood and the Mohegan Sun arrived, I was hoping to not see casinos here. The casino parking lots will be a haven for car thefts and, break ins. Causing my insurance to go up because I suddenly live in an area with more car thefts and break ins. More cars means more auto accidents too, and an increase in insurance rates.

In CT parents are leaving children in locked cars so they could go gamble. Which means Child Services and local ambulance companies spent so much time at the casino they had no time to deal with local problems. The last thing anyone wants to live near is a casino they are bad neighbors.

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