Steve Wynn‘s attempts to buy a former Monsanto chemical plant in Everett have been stymied by the antics of the sleazy characters who own the land. First, there was convicted felon Charles Lightbody, whose hidden ownership had to vacated (saving Wynn a lot of money, as the parcel’s price dropped to $35 million). Then co-owner Anthony Gattineri lawyered up, raising questions of whether Lightbody was still involved, especially when Gattineri refused to sign a pledge disavowing any secret partnerships. (The guy, frankly, stinks to high heaven.) “We only know what we hear, and what we hear we don’t trust,” said City Council President Michael Marchese.
Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria now proposes to cut this Gordian Knot by using the city’s eminent domain powers to buy the land and seven adjacent parcels — 55 acres — for $41 million, then re-sell it to Wynn at the same price. Wynn can accept the acreage with mani pulite (clean hands) and Gattineri, et. al. can save face. “My administration is committed to realizing the extraordinary potential of this area and the city as a whole,” said DeMaria of his drastic proposal, which will evidently go ahead even if Wynn’s casino application does not.
The is a case for Situational Ethics 101. As a matter of principle, eminent domain should be used rarely, if ever. What City Hall thinks your land is worth may not be its open-market value. (One property owner has already raised this red flag.) And maybe you don’t want to sell, although that’s not applicable here. But good things would come from eminent domain in this case, wresting the land from some sleazoids and enable Wynn to proceed. It’s a tough call. Besides, does a Wynn casino benefit the public, as is required for eminent domain? It will create thousands of jobs, so you could eke out a “yes” answer to that one. But the profits will be privatized, no question.
The clock is running, as Wynn has two months to secure control of the site. As for Everett, it’s caught between bad (eminent domain) and worse (Gattineri, Lightbody, etc.).
Tomorrow is D-Day for Argosy Sioux City. The fate of the Penn National Gaming riverboat rests with the Iowa Racing & Gaming Commission, which will vote on its future Thursday. At present, Argosy is operating without a local nonprofit partner, in contravention of Iowa statutes. Forcing it to close is one of the options on the table before the IRGC. Penn could, however, appeal the matter to Iowa District Court, which seems a near-inevitable course of events at this point.
Squeezed between Twin River Casino to the east and Resorts World New York to the west, Connecticut casinos had a rough March. Mohegan Sun slot revenue fell 12% and Foxwoods Resort Casino dropped 10%. Foxwoods CEO Scott “Woody” Butera wasn’t kidding when he called it “an ultra-competitive marketplace.”
Meanwhile, an impressive-looking coalition of 40-plus business owners has banded together behind David Flaum‘s E23 project in Albany, New York. Of all the casino projects in the Empire State, none has shown the galvanic power of this one. “E23 can be a significant piece of Albany’s bright future. We’ll see an increase in tourism, and jobs, and with those increases come many benefits,” said coalition leader Angelo Mazzone. If the Albany Common Council doesn’t endorse E23 in its May 5 vote, it should probably have its collective head examined.
Stepping in politics for a moment: Eminent domain can and does need to happen for the government to create “greater good” projects. Clark County used a lot of eminent domain to have a path for the 215 Beltway, for instance. And it would be nice if the RTC stopped expecting property owners to care if people die at roadside bus stops and used eminent domain to move the shelters a bit further back from our six-lane roads.
On the other hand, the kind of eminent domain uses that people tend to really dislike, the kind that inspired the Kelo decision and then required a bunch of legal gymnastics in order to preserve the uses outlined above, was the kind where a government seizes land on behalf of a private business. I can’t help but see the Wynn situation in Massachusetts being one of those: ultimately, the Mayor feels Wynn’s project would bring in more taxable income than whatever the current landowner is going to do with the site, so they’re going to force a change of hands.
It’s mid-upper class Massachusetts, so the local politicians aren’t likely to be booted by some sort of libertarian-esque uprising at the polls. But it is yet another dive into cognitive dissonance for “Steve Wynn: Big-Government Opponent.”