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City reaches casino mitigation agreement with Suffolk Downs

MassLive.com reports the city is proclaiming it just as good as the sort of agreement it would have gotten had the state ruled Boston was still a "host" community.

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Rendering of Suffolk Downs tuxino. (view facing the tank farm, across from Stop & Shop strip mall)IMAGE(https://elmercatdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/tuxino1.jpg)
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Are we all going to become this beautiful and happy now?

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I for one approve of their decision to cover the outdoor surfaces in matte green paint, and install thousands of oversized blown-glass dandelions. It really gives it a certain fever-dream je-ne-sais-quoi, especially near a pool patronized by androids and three-dimensional Fathead models.

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Will the staff be handing out earplugs since final approach for Logan is right over this site?

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Also, everyone's fit, trim, young and healthy.

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Behind the bar is Orient Heights, and on the far right, the downtown skyline. Therefore, the Stop & Shop is to the right of the line of view at about 3 o'clock, with the tank farm at about 1 o'clock, just out of view.

That said, yeah, even if it is built, it ain't going to look like that. Even though I want the thing built, I don't see the waiter and people lounging by the pool like that. Besides, the dandelions will cause all sorts of trouble. They should get a lawn service to handle that. If there were only an organization in the area that deals with turf care.

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... the people "lounging" at the pool would be facing the lovely tank farm and glamorous Stop & Shop strip mall. However, you can't actually see the Boston skyline from this location at all.

How does this "canopy thing" work? It looks structurally impossible, with one leg way over on the other side of the lake:
IMAGE(https://elmercatdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/screen-shot-2014-07-08-at-11-10-37-am.png)

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Evocative of the days of elevated highways.

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We get a cut of the casino we said no to but is getting built anyway.

Noted.

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Democracy means nothing when big business is involved.

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This is because of Unions and the jobs the project will create!

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But your neighbors across the city line said "yes."

I still can't believe you Mensa rejects didn't consider that when you voted "no."

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provided further, that if a proposed gaming establishment is situated in 2 or more cities or towns, the applicant shall execute an agreement with each host community, or a joint agreement with both communities, and receive a certified and binding vote on a ballot question at an election held in each host community in favor of such a license;

Maybe if we were all geniuses like you we would have known that the whole vote was a charade and that this was already written.

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Once the casino is all in one town and not another.

If you couldn't figure out that was going to happen, we can't help you.

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The casino is to be situated entirely in Revere. How does what you posted apply to a proposed casino at Suffolk Downs?

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The first proposal that we voted on Nov 5 last year was entirely in Boston, but since the track stretches into Revere, we were both host communities. By law they needed two affirmative votes to move on. Also by law the referendum had to be at least 60 days after a host community agreement and the gaming commission had set an application deadline of Dec 31, which would leave no time for a Revere only proposal. Therefore, the Suffolk Downs bid should have been over when East Boston voted no. Joe O'Donnell himself is on record saying that they would live with whatever East Boston decided.

However, when things didn't go their way, the gaming commission created a waiver for Mohegan Sun to create a new proposal after the deadline and only required a Revere vote. They "legally" separated the track from the casino even though Mohegan is agreeing to pay Suffolk Downs $300 million for the land and integrated the track into their design. The gaming commission has been holding the hands of Suffolk Downs and friends through this whole process and they never cared about what the people thought.

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... the illegality of the switched (and special) conditions will be in litigation for years (if not decades). I'm surprised AG Coakley never stepped in to nix these shennanigans.

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I'm surprised AG Coakley never stepped in

LOL

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;~}

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See the casino ballot repeal initiative. She has donors to appease.

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Mohegan Sun, if it gets the license, will be leasing the soon to be former barn area, which is entirely in Revere.

As far as the Gaming Commission being in the tank for Suffolk Downs, ask Caesars about that. They might have a different view of their last minute disqualification, which had to had an effect on the vote. The Gaming Commission made a mess, and they tried to clean it up.

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...allowed the switcheroo-redo that got done.

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That's what they pay lawyers for.

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you're right!

First, let me commend your tactfulness and clearly superior social prowess. You sir, are an absolute wordsmith with your insults, and really know how to get a point across. I am also impressed that you took the time to research the number of East Boston residents who have taken the Mensa test but have not attained the intellectual glory associated with being a member of such a pretentious prestigious organization. While I found myself in the upper 3% on my last attempt, I can assure you that I have obtained a Lumosity account and will come to trivia 5 nights a week to ensure I make the cut the next time around.

Now that we've both gotten the trolling out of our systems, I'll put it simply:

We do not want the traffic. It's bad enough that half of the North Shore comes through Eastie everyday, the Sumner is still falling apart, the city engineers can't even get traffic patterns/intersections right in the neighborhood, and every year 1A north gets more and more backed up on a consistent basis-add casino traffic to the mix and it's too much.

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..anyway in terms of the terrain lay out.

It's an old barrier dune system that has since been wrecked.

I was making video of Belle Isle Marsh in February and noticed how the little peninsula utterly depends on East Boston for a coherent road net at that end..

It is a great example of the conceit built into 'home rule' when the piddling abstraction that has come to be Revere can utterly carpet bomb the adjoining abstraction that is trying to be Eastie while all the speculators get to pretend that these legal fictions trump terrain and road net realities.

With luck the whole gambling experiment will choke at the polls and we can continue with the daily number and scratch tickets as our principle chump tax revenue stream.

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Unfortunately, that's not a decision that was ever solely in the hands of East Boston residents. Maybe you should lobby the city of Boston to annex Revere if you really want to block this.

I'm a 30 year old guy with money and I demand to play blackjack in my city when I feel like it.

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I'm a 30 year old guy with money and I demand to play blackjack in my city when I feel like it.

Then why not lobby for casino licenses to be like liquor licenses? Let's go down to independent Black Jack's Blackjack Corner, instead of Mohegan Sun's Mega-Resort Casino.

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Stick it in your neighborhood then. Or better yet, I have a foldout table I'll sell you for $50 and then you can play at will!

If anything, I'd love to see Boston be Boston, and find a way to toll the shit out of anyone going into Revere if this goes through (with the Eastie resident Easy Pass excluding us of course).

Also, I've seen this whole thing play out before with Turning Stone in Upstate NY. That entire area is a vast wasteland with nothing else to do and it STILL gets old. This won't be any better.

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I don't see anyone drinking Fortissimo and Orange Crush......

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Eastie Revere line. There is no big hair at the pool.

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The waiter looks like he has a long, long walk to the bar. The pool also seems like it''s miles away from the building through a field of weeds.

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