Tag Archives: casinos

From the Repeal the Casino Deal folks …

Shady land deals.

A corrupted licensing progress.

Calls for a new vote from the owners of Suffolk Downs.

It’s a mess.

We are now less than four weeks away from a Yes on Question 3 to stop the casino mess.

This week was a busy week for us at Repeal the Casino Deal. We released the findings on the devastating impact on local aid for cities and towns with the introduction of casino gambling. The casinos are taking aim at our lottery – which distributes nearly $1 billion back to cities and towns in the form of local aid.

What does that mean for you and for me? Less money for police officers and fire fighters, fewer dollars for road repair and snow removal.

According to our broad analysis, all 351 cities and towns across the Commonwealth will be affected. Even if a casino is miles away, the cuts to local aid will affect your community.

No town is immune. It’s imperative for us to get this message to each and every community in the Commonwealth-from Provincetown to North Adams and all points in between. We need you now.

Casinos are bad for communities, bad for families, bad for us all. Recent polling has shown us closing the gap. Our message is resonating, but we need to finish strong.

Thank you for your support!

John Ribeiro, chairman

Repeal the Casino Deal

When Worcester was grand!

This photo comes from The Worcester Historical Museum …

It evokes a golden time before the casinos came to town, our branch libraries closed, our neighborhood swimming pools drained dry, and our teacher/municipal unions decided that city cops and firemen should retire millionaires. (The unions also pushed for and got city pension plans that will eventually bankrupt Worcester.)

This photo takes me back to simpler times in my city. When we had the money to focus on city families and kids, and our Parks Dept. did things like bring a bus-load of city young uns to Boston, to see the Sox play. Fantastic!!!

Why can’t we muster the generosity, the civic pride to do the same today?

Why are we going bonkers for slot parlors – and not going bonkers for our kids?

I miss the days when Wusta was grand!

– Rosalie Tirella

Red Sox fans on bus trip sponsored by Worcester Parks, August 29, 30, 1950, Worcester Massachusetts. Photograph by George Cocaine. Want a copy of this photo? >Visit our rights and reproductions page for more information.

Red Sox fans on bus trip sponsored by Worcester Parks, August 29, 30, 1950, Worcester Massachusetts. Photograph by George Cocaine.

 

The proposed slot casino would bring jobs …

By Rosalie Tirella

… to Green Island. GOOD PAYING jobs if we play our cards right (bad pun intended).

But we can’t even begin to have a conversation around this intriguing project because the city has gone all puritanical on us and said NO WAY. City councilors are taking this interesting option off the table by taking/buying the site away from the owners of the site, at the old Wyman Gordans. It’s called eminent domain.

Good fucking luck!

This is insane. When a municipality takes someone’s house or property it is to make way for, usually, a huge public project like a highway, not because the owner’s plans for it gets city fathers’ panties all knotted.

Worcester shouldn’t take acres away from THE OWNER OF A PIECE OF PROPERTY because he wants to do something with it. Even if it feels a bit controversial, even if they pay the owner the fair price for it, in this case around four million bucks.

Worcester’s unskilled folks need good paying jobs, jobs that could pay them around $40 K a year. Good union jobs if we play our cards right.

Why keep our unskilled folks in Mcjobs when we can get them GOOD JOBS? Jobs that will turn their lives around.

This is wrong.

We need to discuss this option and work with the developer to leverage a bunch of good paying jobs FIR GREEN ISLANDERS.

The factories are gone. Not everyone is gonna go to college or even get a certificate to be a vet or lab tech or nurse. Some people haven’t the time, the money, the interest, and maybe even, and we have to face facts, the smarts.

That’s why the factories were so great. They provided good pay checks to just average or below average folks if they just showed up each day ready to work.OR If they had a good work ethic.

I have been to Mohegan Sun at least 20 times over the years.

Lots of fun. Great music. Great White Russians, one of my fave drinks. No I didn’t play the slots, and yes, the folks who did play slots looked a bit desperate. Many of them hooked up to mini oxygen tanks. Lots in wheel chairs. Lourdes for unlucky i guess.

But who is Worcester to judge? Let’s squeeze as many union jobs as we can. Let’s make sure the place provides at least second tier rock bands. Let’s make it classy and fun.

Let’s blow on the dice and give them a tumble.

Casino gambling numbers don’t add up

New report cites harm to local aid and tax base as reasons against casinos

A new report says predatory gambling proposals in Massachusetts will hurt local aid to towns and cities and divert millions in discretionary income from the state and its taxpayers.

The report also says that predatory casinos and slot machines will push more people deeper into personal debt, burdening social service networks and taxpayers. Continue reading Casino gambling numbers don’t add up