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Walsh: You can move your casino a couple hundred yards into Revere, but Boston's still a 'host community'

The Globe reports Mayor Walsh wants the state Gaming Commission to declare Boston a "host" community for the potential casinos in both Revere and Everett, which would let the city negotiate for the sort of benefits Boston would have gotten under the agreement with Suffolk Downs before East Boston voters rejected the idea of a casino within city limits.

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Comments

Sorry Marty, your voters in Eastie have spoken. You really do not have any say now, and no, you can't have some of the money either. The dice were rolled, and you lost. Time to move on and accept what the voters voted on.

sigh.. everyone wants a piece of the money, but no one wants it in their community (except Everett and Revere). Sorry you can't have it both ways.

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The voters in Eastie did spoke, the issue is that the state is not listening. The voters rejected the Suffolk Downs casino, it should not be allowed just because it was moved a few feet over (and, of course, massive donations/bribes to Murray, Menino and Deleo).

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You think Boston should have the authority to tell another city what it's allowed to build? I don't think so.

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Although it should have the ability to pressure / lobby the state.

Also, seeing as a casino will effect Boston (roads, municipal usage, crime, local businesses) they should be considered a host community.

One of the major issues with Casinos elsewhere is the town they're built in gets all the spoils, leaving the other towns to foot the bills of people coming and going (DUI, emergency response, increased traffic, ect). If a giant casino is going in, in needs to lighten it's burden on all the local players.

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Okay, since I live in Chelsea, I want money from BOTH Everett and Revere, since we're squished between them, if that's what you are saying should happen.

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That actually seems reasonable to me. There's no reason to think a casino at either of those places wouldn't have some effect on Chelsea...

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Yeah, this also makes sense, along with the Mayor's argument. A Casino right across the border is still in the "community," as the negative externallies pay no attention to municipal boundaries.

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Boston can go screw. They said no to the casino, they don't get to be a host community. Boston (despite the thoughts of its inhabitants) is not special. It's this kind of attitude that makes Western Massachusetts hate Boston.

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Boston could have had the spoils, but they screwed up and said no. They should've known this was going to happen. I did, and I'm some loser on a computer and not an important politician. YOU LOSE YOU GET NOTHING GOOD DAY SIR

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I WANT BON BONS TOO! GOD FORBID ANYBODY BUILD ANYTHING NEAR ANYBODY WITHOUT PAYING ME OFF FIRST! IT ISN'T MY COMMUNITY OR LAND BUT I GET A SAY SO! PAY ME OFF NOW!

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Voters in Eastie spoke, but all that did was put the casino a little further away, and not far enough. Some surrounding communities will still be affected by a casino: traffic, crime.... so Walsh made the right move to try to protect their interests. I come from a small city in another state that recently built a casino, and much of the craziness that proponents said wouldn't happen... happened. The towns and neighborhoods along the main routes to the place need to have a say.

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You misread the article. Read it again. Marty only wants the benefits. He isn't asking for the casino to be in Boston.

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and your facts!

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I believe what you mean is "Some compensation for the significant costs that this business is going to impose on Boston and its residents," do you not?

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Won't that be a benefit to Boston - taxable land?

This whole thing sounds like the Pheasant Lane Mall: the stores are in NH where there is no sales tax, but the bulk of the land (parking lot) is in MA where the property taxes are much lower.

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To parking lots?

Doesn't ring a bell. I think that mall is in NH in toto

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The Pheasant Lane Mall building is in Nashua NH but some of its parking lot is in Tyngsboro MA.

Also, it's a land border. The portion which follows the Merrimack River is actually about 3 miles north of it, keeping both banks in MA.

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The state and the casino are going to have to build some sort of roadways through the City of Boston to facilitate transportation to the casino. If Mohegan rejects Boston's host community petition, and the board complies, then the City need not facilitate the state's roadways. I double-dog-dare them to try and build a road in Boston that Boston doesn't want. Any land transfer or right-of-way transfer from the city to the state to make it happen will be held up in every single board and commission in the city, and probably with legal action to boot.

Pay the man.

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Main road there is route 1 - the state already has jurisdiction and if it needs more space they can just take it by eminent domain.

The mayor can lobby, cajole and perhaps has other leverage - but if the state wants to improve/expand route 1 or build a whole new road for that matter, they can just take it - for fair compensation - and that's not a negotiation - a third party comes in and says this is what it's worth - and most of that would likely be negotiated with individual landholders anyway - not the city.

You could see this coming from outer space. For or against, I don't know what the Eastie voters were thinking. Best case scenario is the casino goes to Everett - so you still end up with all the problems and none of the bennies. They should have held their noses and voted for this. Now we'll probably pay and get nothing back.

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She could totally see that violent rape coming....she shoulda just laid back and enjoyed it.

It doesn't matter what deal is cut, no one is getting anything back in the big scheme of things (unless you are an elected official).

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Cambridge actively encourages developments on its edges that intentionally mostly impact neighboring communities and does everything it can to prevent road building, even constricting roads, like Concord Ave on the Belmont border.
HERE is just a current example.

This practice is very old, including building the town dump at town lines. Cambridge takes it to the next level by constricting roadways to reduce traffic from property tax cash cow developments at its edge from impacting the city's interior.

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If the Red Line ended at a big park & ride out at 128 instead of funneling all the traffic down Rt 2 to the Alewife garage, traffic wouldn't be in this state. (The Red Line would be even busier, but hey, maybe there'd have been more of a constituency for maintaining the infrastructure....)

Of course, Arlington (*cough*cough* "02474") voted to block the extension...and now they reap the whirlwind.

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Those Arlington votes were before my time. I would have rather had a stop in Arlington Center, and a flyover intersection at Alewife Circle.
I suppose Rt. 3 is so lightly traveled due to the Red Line stations and parking on the southern end?

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Given that Lexington had already torpedoed any extension to 128, Arlington absolutely did the right thing by blocking the Red Line and thus saving Arlington Heights from being ruined with some godawful terminus building.

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Lexington had already nixed the red line plan to go through. Arlington Center and Heights are both bad places for a terminus given the lack of highway linkage and need for lots of eminent domain taking for stations and parking garages. Not long before, the town had put in zoning rules to halt construction of any more tall buildings, so had enough urbanization for a while.

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Revere and Everett would be the "host" communities; Marty's jockeying for the "parasite community" position.

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Totally agree with this! Hope the casino is never built. It's a money drain for the local economy and it won't produce solid long term employment for anyone. Mohegan Sun is shockingly depressing.Haven't been back there in about 3 years after going with a group of friends on a Saturday night for an acquaintance's birthday celebration. It was unnerving to see so many frail elderly with their oxygen tanks desperately playing three slots in a row in a smoke-filled room. They didn't seem happy and they weren't socializing -- they just seemed hopeless and paranoid. A few in our group played table games, but they lost their money so quickly it was just a bummer. We spent the rest of the night in a crappy overpriced restaurant. Lame.

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It will likely produce solid long-term employment for casino employees. This will be helped if they are allowed to unionize (I don't know if anything in the legislation addresses employees. I read through every word of it a year or so back, but I was specifically searching for patron protections - minimum payout percentages on slots; specific wording to prevent card counters from being barred; that sort of thing, of which there is almost none - so may have missed it.)

As for the elderly and their oxygen tanks, it's their business if they want to play slots, not yours. You and your buddies at the table games? Unless I see you play, I can't pass judgement on that one. It may be that you don't know what you're doing. What games? What strategy? How much money?

A crappy overpriced restaurant? You spent the rest of the night there? Why? They don't chain you to the table. Oh, but it was for a friend's birthday, right? OK, blame your friend for picking a crappy place. There are decent places to eat there for not much $.

Suldog (former blackjack dealer, roulette croupier, craps stickman/dealer, and operator of various carnival games, as well as a possessor of voluminous knowledge of odds and how to - if possible, which it is on some games - beat them.)
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com

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If you were at a crappy restaurant at Mohegan, why didn't you just leave and go to one of the better places they have there? Next time, try Michael Jordans Steakhouse!

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Living in Hopkinton, I would have liked to have had the same arrangement with the proposed (and defeated) casino in Milford, but that's not what is written in the law.
Sorry, Marty.

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Thats why we should run the Marathon in reverse.

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That whole tunnel discussion a week or so ago? I'm really not certain about the merits of this argument but if Mohegan Sun is expecting it to affect Boston to the extent that they're asking us to reroute traffic then I'd say yes--Boston has done skin in the game.

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Hopkington:Milford::Boston:Revere?

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A casino in your backyard is a casino in your backyard.
If you think you're so important because you live in Boston/Revere/wherever, you might want to take your head out of your ass.

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The whole law argument is a little fishy itself. Nobody here has quoted the law. I would like to see the law. It appears, and I could be wrong, that there was a vote on whether or not to have the Casino at Suffolk Downs. Not a vote to have the casino on the East Boston side of Suffolk Downs. Just Suffolk Downs. Period. But Maybe I am wrong. Maybe it was a vote for or against a Casino on East Boston land. What is the language of the ballot question and the language of the original agreement that voters voted on? What does the law actually say?

It appears that the original vote was for or against a casino at Suffolk Downs. When voters voted against that, it appears that the rules changed - "Hey, let's see if we can just move it over a little." That is pretty suspect to me. But again, maybe the rules were clear from the beginning. However, if the Casino and the gaming commission changed the rules after the vote, Marty should be allowed to as well.

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Boston voters said no.

Revere voters didn't vote in that referendum.

Boston doesn't get to tell Revere what to do.

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If you pool the Revere and East Boston vote totals, did the Casino get a majority? If it didn't, then it shouldn't go at Suffolk Downs at all. And if it was a majority, then it should go there, with both cities receiving benefits.

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yes- 9,920
no- 8,515

Boston was 3,354 to 4,283
Revere was 6,566 to 4,232

It passes in a joint total. It passes Revere easily. It loses in East Boston by a tighter margin.

For what it's worth, that's the answer. I will save my commentary on the issue.

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The way I recall the law was written, it was like a logic puzzle. The casino can go on the Suffolk Downs property if both A (Eastie approves) and B (Revere approves) are true. Since one of them was false we can stop right there and don't need to evaluate the other one. It doesn't matter where on SD's property they put the thing, the rule still applies.

As far as which communities get the vote, I'm all in favor of all of the surrounding communities getting a say. However, it would be the same logic. If any community votes no the project is stopped.

Frankly, the whole way that the rule seems to have been dropped by the wayside makes me want to start a new movement to close Suffolk Downs (the horsey part) on principle: Animal cruelty, an establishment leading to corruption of minors, being the kind of douche den that went out of fashion around the time that men stopped wearing hats, anything really.

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It is pretty hypocritical of Eastie residents (I am one) to be very adamant about only Eastie having a vote on this thing and then to be saying that they should also have a vote on a project in a different municipality. We weren't willing to have Chelsea vote on Suffolk Downs even though a casino at SD (or over in Everett for that matter) obviously affects Chelsea - as Cybah stated but now we want a vote and a pound of flesh from either Revere's or Everett's casinos....? I don't want either of these shithouses to be built but even I can see that this attitude is really dickish.

But the point that is being missed is that the corrupt shit-eating bottom dwellers that we call "our elected officials and Gambling Commission Representatives" have gone out of the way to ensure that the project will move forward even though the proposal was beaten by the rules THAT THEY SET UP IN THE FIRST GODDAMNED PLACE. The proposed project was defeated by popular vote. If they want to propose something new that is not at all in Boston, then the whole thing has to start anew with another non-refundable payment, a new proposal, a new vote on the same time frame and under the same conditions that were originally laid out. The gambling enablers at the commission thought it was in the best interested of the Commonwe...uh someone to bend the rules for this project to ensure that it moves forward to the next level.

So if they're not going to play by the rules (you can just smell the lawsuits coming) then fuck 'em. Let's be dicks.

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It is my considered opinion that the city should construct a wall around the Suffolk Downs property and any access to route 1a, the T station or any other access point into the city. Yes those are state assets not municipal, but fuck it. We can bend the rules right?

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Everett or Revere , they better start a Revere Beach Parkway trust fund , that's the road that is going to get hardening of the artery !

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Get Boston to buy the city of Revere or get off your soapbox. I want to like you, since you're new at this, but it's East Boston's fault that they're too stupid to grasp the simplest concepts of geography. Get mad at them.

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I'm laughing this all play out. Eastie rejects the casino, and Revere accepts it. So the commission will now allow it to be built on the Revere side of Suffolk Downs, merely hundreds of feet from the originally proposed spot. So now Eastie gets NONE of the benefit, but still gets ALL the headaches, such as traffic. Revere stuck it to Eastie good. He who laughs last, laughs best. Sorry Marty. I'm sure you'll try leaning on your union support, but Revere has nothing to do with you or your cronies.

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They are planning on putting the casino where the stables are. You need some stabling on the site, if only for the 80 to 100 horses that will race on live racing days. That means the stables are moving to East Boston. That's right, Eastie will be getting the horse shit.

Suffolk/Mohegan Sun should still build the flyover at Boardman Street, but there's no way in hell we're getting the bennies that we would have got if the vote went the other way. Sorry, folks.

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