Place your bets, place your bets!
"Questions trail state gambling commissioner; Critics raise doubts about Stephen Crosby’s judgment after revelations he waited months to disclose potential conflict" by Andrea Estes and Scott Allen | Globe Staff, December 08, 2013
After Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn toured the former industrial site in Everett where he was thinking of building a casino in November 2012, state gambling commission chairman Stephen Crosby didn’t mention that one of the land owners was his former business partner.
A month later, when Wynn negotiated an option to pay an estimated $70 million for the land if Crosby’s commission approved a casino on the site, Crosby again said nothing about his four-decade relationship with Paul Lohnes, co-owner of the land.
Even when Everett voters overwhelmingly approved Wynn’s proposal in June, leaving the fate of the $1.3 billion project up to Crosby’s commission, Crosby said nothing.
Only after state and federal investigators began looking into whether Lohnes’ more recent business partners include people with extensive criminal records did Crosby tell Governor Deval Patrick about his connection to Lohnes. And only when the Globe began asking questions about the connection did Crosby announce he was withdrawing from the commission vote on the Everett land deal, scheduled for Dec. 13.
Now, some are wondering why Crosby waited so long to make public his seven-year business partnership with Lohnes and whether disclosing it is enough to allow him to continue taking part in the decision over who should receive the license for Greater Boston’s only casino.
Not me.
“I think he owes it to the public to recuse himself in any decision involving the Greater Boston region,” said Gregory Sullivan, a former state inspector general and now research director at the Pioneer Institute, a public policy think tank. “A secret disclosure made to [Patrick] does not in my view begin to address the conflict in question.”
The state Ethics Commission has informed Crosby that he could continue to vote on matters related to Everett, after he filed a detailed disclosure in late October about his relationship with Lohnes, a friend since they served in the National Guard together in the 1970s.
Patrick, who appointed Crosby in December 2011, agrees. “We are confident that the commission is acting in a fair and impartial manner,” said Patrick’s communications director, Jesse Mermell.
But Sullivan says Massachusetts’ fledgling casino industry is a special case with significant public concern about its integrity, creating a mandate for regulators to do more than simply meet the letter of the law. Crosby himself, the former dean of the McCormack School of Policy and Global Studies at UMass Boston, said on the day Patrick selected him that he should be a symbol of good government.
“It will be up to me and the commission to assure both the public and the participants in the gaming industry that the process for developing expanded gaming in Massachusetts is honest, transparent, and fair,” Crosby said.
Crosby said he learned about Lohnes’s potential involvement in the Everett casino project in the fall of 2012 — around the time Wynn visited the land — but he didn’t immediately disclose that he and Lohnes had made large amounts of money together as publishers of cable TV guides from 1983 to 1990. A third business partner has said Lohnes provided crucial investment money in the early years when the company was struggling.
Crosby now says he waited to reveal the connection in part because “nobody knew if Wynn was for real or not,” and because he had not had any contact with Lohnes for years.
“I never see the guy. He wasn’t a public figure,” Crosby said. Under state ethics rules, he wasn’t automatically required to disclose personal connections to people selling land for a casino, he noted, but he did when it became relevant.
“You disclose when there is an action to be taken that could be influenced by your relationship,” Crosby explained on Friday. “As soon as there was an issue on the table,” he said, he not only disclosed, but recused himself from voting.
It's not that, it's the APPEARANCE of a CONFLICT and the attempt to HIDE IT!
And now some new light is shed on why Caesar's was denied. It's conflict of interest.
Let's face it, there are no clean casino companies. They all have an element of organized crime, and always have. But it's a fun place for the wealthy elite with loads of disposable income.
Going even further one has to wonder if this sudden revelation by the mouthpiece media is a way to move the tough standard commissioner off the case.
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Crosby himself has set a high bar for ethical behavior in the way he has grilled applicants who’ve appeared before the commission, warning them that even the appearance of impropriety may be too much.
“You are in the gaming industry, where issues of appearance matter more than in other industries,” Crosby admonished one witness who had been the subject of a misconduct probe by the Securities and Exchange Commission in the 1990s.
Now, Crosby concedes that his tough questions for applicants could be turned toward him.
“I’m taking this one step at a time. It’s a complicated area,” he said....
Then I'll just go with what it looks like, and it looks bad.
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"Gambling panel chair to recuse self from Everett site review" by Andrea Estes and Mark Arsenault | Globe Staff, December 05, 2013
The head of the state gambling commission is withdrawing from next week’s crucial review of the land deal for a $1.3 billion casino proposed for Everett, after disclosing that he is a longtime friend and former business partner of one of the owners of the proposed casino site.
Stephen Crosby, who has led the five-member commission since it was created in 2012, said that he has known Paul Lohnes, co-owner of the 29-acre Everett site, since the two were in the National Guard in the 1970s, and that they were business partners from 1983 to 1990 at a company that made cable television guides.
If Wynn Resorts wins the right to develop the former Monsanto chemical site into a casino, the sale of the land would potentially be worth millions of dollars to Lohnes.
Crosby, who disclosed that he knew about Lohnes’s ownership of the land for roughly a year before revealing their relationship in August, said he is confident that he could be unbiased in deciding whether to approve the land deal between Lohnes and Wynn. But Crosby said he withdrew to preserve public trust in the casino selection process, especially after gambling commission investigators raised concerns that Lohnes was working with “hidden ownership.”
As if we had trust in gamblers or government! What a laugh!
The Globe reported last month that a federal grand jury and other agencies are investigating whether Charles A. Lightbody, a Revere businessman with a long criminal record, is a secret partner with Lohnes and had boasted that he could make up to $18 million from selling the land to Wynn.
“Given how demanding we’ve been with everybody else, it was appropriate for me to say: Look, this is a funky situation,” Crosby said in a Globe interview. “I could certainly be objective. I’ve complied with all the rules, but nevertheless I’m going to let the other commissioners figure out how the land gets handled.”
The commission has scheduled a Dec. 13 meeting to review a proposal by Wynn to address concerns about the land option mainly by reducing the planned sale price from an estimated $70 million to prevent any potential windfall for secret investors. The new price has not been disclosed.
If the Everett land issue is resolved, Crosby said, he plans to participate in the commission’s ongoing evaluation of the Wynn proposal, as well as its rival proposed for Suffolk Downs. The commission is scheduled to hold a hearing Dec. 16 to review the full state background check into Wynn Resorts, setting up the first significant vote on Wynn’s plan.
“As long as I’ve abided by all the ethics laws and feel this would have no impact on my objectivity, then there is no reason to recuse,” Crosby said. “My business relationship with Lohnes was over 23 years ago. I’ve seen him a handful of times since then.”
The State Ethics Commission concurred, asking Crosby to provide more details about the relationship before concluding: “You may perform your duties as Gaming Commission chairman” in matters involving Wynn and Suffolk Downs.
Just because authority says it's legal doesn't make it so -- or make it right.
But the gambling commission has adopted ethics standards that are even tougher than state laws, requiring commissioners to recuse themselves from any licensing decision in which a potential conflict of interest exists, as well as abstain from participating or voting in any proceeding in which their impartiality may reasonably be questioned.
A leading casino expert said Crosby should consider withdrawing from all deliberations about which site should get a casino in Eastern Massachusetts, despite his disclosures.
‘‘It will still raise questions in the public mind . . . about his objectivity in ruling on competitors’ proposals,” said Clyde Barrow, director for the Center for Policy Analysis at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. “It’s a competitive bid process. These are not isolated from one another; they are in competition.”
Crosby has also disclosed personal ties to the Everett proposal’s rival. He is a friend and former Harvard football teammate of Joseph O’Donnell, one of the principal owners of Suffolk Downs.
One disappointed casino developer has already raised questions about a possible conflict for Crosby in the year before he disclosed his personal and business ties to the Everett land owner. In summer 2012, Crosby infuriated a development team working with Hard Rock to bring a casino to Western Massachusetts by suggesting to Hard Rock executive Brad Buchanan that the company apply instead for a license in Eastern Massachusetts.
Will Caruana, assistant to a developer working with Hard Rock on the Western Massachusetts proposal, said Wednesday that he recalled Crosby telling the group that it should look at sites in either Boston or Everett, though Crosby did not name a specific location.
Crosby said he never steered any developer to any site.
“Absolutely not,” he said.
However it came about, the Hard Rock team did investigate the Everett site owned by Lohnes within weeks, though it never pursued it as an option.
Translation: Crosby a lying piece of crap.
Under Crosby, the gambling commission has held potential developers to strict ethical standards, grilling casino executives about questionable corporate behavior, as well as the perception of impropriety.
Officers and gentlemen, hypocrite$ all!
The panel bounced one applicant, Ourway Realty, from the license competition after state investigators discovered that a key member of the development team had taken more than $1 million from the money room at Plainridge Racecourse.
Another applicant, Caesars Entertainment, was dropped from the Suffolk Downs proposal after commission investigators found it had made a licensing deal with a company linked to Russian mobsters.
A.k.a. the untouchable Jewish mafia.
Crosby said in his state ethics disclosure that he realized he had his own potential ethical problem in fall 2012, when he learned that Lohnes was an owner of the land Wynn had selected for his casino....
In July, Crosby disclosed that his wife, Helen Strieder, is chairwoman of the board of Care Group, a medical group represented by Foley Hoag, which also represents a casino applicant and a slot parlor applicant.
But in his interview with the Globe, Crosby said none of these ties would be a reason to withdraw from the debate over the casino proposals.
“Knowing somebody is not in any ways a ground for a recusal,” Crosby said. “I know people involved in the two remaining projects and have known people in many of these projects as they have wound their way in the process.”
That's the problem with politics and public policy in 21st-century AmeriKa.
Barrow disagreed, saying Crosby’s ties could undermine faith in the fairness of the process. “If the issue is public perception, yes, he should recuse himself.”
Like odds in favor of the house?
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Related: Crosby’s recusal shows caution, commitment to high standards
Pfft!
Just the Globe getting back in the game, I gue$$.
Meanwhile, over in Revere:
"Suffolk Downs casino bid likely to proceed in Revere; Panel looks poised to let Mohegan Sun compete for license" by Mark Arsenault | Globe Staff, December 03, 2013
A Mohegan Sun casino proposal at Suffolk Downs appears closer to joining the competition for the Greater Boston resort casino license, after a majority of the state gambling commission signaled Tuesday that they would accept such a bid on the track’s property in Revere.
Allowing the Connecticut gambling company to pursue a new proposal at a new site on the Suffolk Downs property would preserve a sense of competition for the state’s most lucrative gambling license, while enraging opponents who beat back a casino at the track in East Boston in a Nov. 5 vote. It could also open the commission to a court challenge, because the project no longer resembles the proposal that was before Revere residents when they voted to support the bid on the same day.
Both votes were taken on the original proposal by Suffolk Downs, which straddles the city line, to build a casino on a portion of land that lies entirely within East Boston. Mohegan Sun was not involved in that proposal.
Officials from Suffolk Downs and Mohegan Sun maintain they have secured a valid referendum vote on a straightforward “land-use question” to permit casino gambling in Revere and a valid agreement with Revere city officials to host a casino. The host agreement was negotiated before the vote and will be revised to increase the benefits to the city to reflect the new circumstances, according to Suffolk Downs.
The gambling commission, which usually makes decisions through broad consensus, seemed uncomfortable Tuesday discussing an issue on which the members appeared split. The debate focused on the question of whether Revere’s Nov. 5 vote constitutes a legal endorsement of the new project.
One commissioner, James McHugh, a former appeals court judge, said he is troubled by the legal issues around the new proposal, noting the state’s requirement that each casino project win the endorsement of its host community in a referendum before it may be considered for a license.
“It seems to me this proposal is so different in so many dimensions . . . it stretches the concept of a knowing community vote past recognition,” he said.
There is not enough time under current deadlines for a new vote, but McHugh hinted Tuesday at extending the deadline to permit a new vote in Revere.
“I think it’s always helpful to plant seeds and see what grows,” McHugh said after the meeting, declining to comment further on the possibility of a new vote.
Casino opponents, who attended Tuesday’s meeting but said they were not invited to speak, did not rule out a lawsuit if the commission permits Mohegan Sun to apply for a license in Revere without a new vote.
“We’re going to avail ourselves to every option,” said Celeste Myers, a leader of the group No Eastie Casino. She said the group “would not be thrilled” with a new vote, but it would be fairer than allowing a new proposal to go forward without facing a campaign.
Mayor Dan Rizzo of Revere told commissioners Tuesday that his community remains enthusiastic about a Suffolk Downs casino and urged the members to “allow us to move forward and bring this first class, world class” casino to Revere.
Whether to accept a Boston-area bid from Mohegan Sun announced by Suffolk Downs last week will be among the most consequential decisions to date for the five-member commission created in 2012. It put off a decisive vote on the proposal until next week....
Stephen Crosby, the commission chairman, who made it clear he supports Rizzo’s position, said he sees the issue less as a legal argument and more of a public policy debate. “I can’t see a right reason, a compelling public policy reason . . . to deny the people of Revere the opportunity to play out the string on this,” Crosby said.
Commissioners Gayle Cameron and Enrique Zuniga also seemed to lean in favor of allowing the project to go forward.
Cameron noted that the commission had not received an outpouring of complaints from Revere residents about the possibility of permitting the new development to compete for a license. Zuniga said he disagreed that the new casino plans at Suffolk Downs are fundamentally different than the earlier version.
Commissioner Bruce Stebbins was less clear about his position, though he said a community vote to authorize a casino is more than a simple land-use question....
Related: Revere OK’s change in zoning for casino
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Also see: Gambling panel to rule on Revere casino plan
The final say is supposedly up to us:
"Casino, gas tax increase repeals may make ballot" by Michael Levenson | Globe Staff, November 29, 2013
Major casino and gas tax initiatives designed to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for transportation, local aid, and other needs could be undone by Massachusetts voters at the ballot box next year. All the more reason for me to suspect massive vote fraud in 2014.
Even if we don't get it, the legi$lature will ignore the vote citing some little known codicil.
Secretary of State William F. Galvin said two proposals — one that would repeal the state’s casino law and another that would eliminate automatic increases in the state gas tax — are among seven ballot questions that appear to have garnered enough signatures to qualify for the November 2014 ballot.
The proposals would allow voters to eradicate two key items that state lawmakers and Governor Deval Patrick spent years devising.
And that will not be allowed.
The ballot questions would also have serious implications for the state budget, which relies on gambling and gas revenue to pay for road and bridge projects and basic services such as trash pickup in cities and towns.
Thus we will get rigged results or some other explanation.
“It would force difficult choices to be made,” said Stephen M. Brewer, a Barre Democrat who is the state Senate’s budget chief. “We would be governed by what the vox populi says.”
Oh, and we can't have that in a democracy!
Related:
Slow Saturday Special: Intel Tax Deal Was Dumb Idea
Time For Buffett
Yeah, why not start cutting there first!?
Supporters of the ballot questions say they were able to gather enough signatures by tapping into a deep vein of anger over the legalization of casinos and at the prospect of automatic increases in the gas tax — two items that were championed by Patrick.
I'm part of it (smile).
“It’s a taxpayer revolt,” said Steven W. Aylward, a Republican activist from Watertown and leader of the Tank the Gas Tax coalition.
David Guarino, a spokesman for the group Repeal the Casino Deal, said the coalition also harnessed voter discontent.
“We know from experience that David doesn’t often topple Goliath, but we have the deep-pocketed casino industry on the ropes, and we think voters deserve the chance to deliver the final blow,” Guarino said.
Tank the Gas Tax, a group made up of Republican lawmakers and activists, is pushing to repeal a law approved earlier this year that triggers automatic increases in the tax when inflation rises.
Tax goes down when prices fall, right?
The measure was part of a larger tax increase that raised the gas tax from 21 cents to 24 cents per gallon.
The ballot question would leave that 3 cent per gallon increase intact, but would prevent future increases tied to inflation.
The governor and Legislature pushed the gas tax increase to help fund repairs to deteriorating roads and bridges, and to expand rail and bus lines.
We are always told that and it never happens.
State officials say that linking the gas tax to inflation will generate $5.7 million for the state next year and then grow annually to about $183 million in 2024.
Holy $hit!
But Aylward’s group says the law flies in the face of basic democratic principles, by eliminating the need for legislators to vote every time they increase taxes.
“They’re changing the paradigm, and they want the taxes to be automatic,” Aylward said. “That removes the accountability for elected officials, and that’s what’s so infuriating to people.”
************************
Brewer asserted that it would be a mistake to repeal the gas tax law. He said that linking the tax to inflation guarantees that it does not lose its purchasing power as the cost of goods rises.
“The cost of steel never goes down, road materials — because they’re fossil-fueled based — never go down, and labor costs don’t go down,” he said. “And, we hadn’t adjusted our share of the gas tax in 23 years.”
Then why is my government always telling me inflation is under control and not occurring, and look at the arrogant mindset of the greedy public $ervant who wants his "fair share" -- as if they were entitled to your hard-earned dollars.
The ballot question that would repeal the 2011 casino law is facing a tougher road.
Galvin said the question appears to have enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. But Attorney General Martha Coakley has ruled that the question would violate the Constitution by taking away the contract rights of companies that applied for casino licenses, without compensating them for their losses.
Repeal the Casino Deal is challenging her ruling in the Supreme Judicial Court, and says it is hopeful that, if it prevails, it can build on the recent string of defeats that casino proposals were dealt in elections in East Boston, Palmer, and Milford.
“We remain hopeful and optimistic, though we know we have a long road to go to reverse this ill-advised casino deal,” Guarino said.
Brewer said outlawing casinos would pose a serious challenge for the state, which is counting on $300 million to $500 million in future gambling revenue to help pay for police officers and firefighters, among other essential services....
Yeah, casinos are going to $ave us.
Five other questions appear to have qualified for the ballot, Galvin said.
A question sponsored by environmental groups would extend the nickel deposit on soft drinks to noncarbonated beverages such as water, iced tea, and juice.
I signed the guys petition but I'm voting no.
Four union-backed proposals would raise the minimum wage from $8 an hour to $10.50; allow workers to earn up to 40 hours a year in paid sick time; establish limits on the number of hospital patients assigned to each nurse; and seek to curb hospital operating margins and pay for hospital executives.
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NEXT DAY UPDATE: “They made a mockery of the democratic process here”
Also see:
Casino law’s foes are still in the game
State files lawsuit to block Martha’s Vineyard casino
I guess the state is only for certain casinos.
"Investigators call MGM fit to operate Springfield casino; Western Mass. venture given a boost" by Mark Arsenault | Globe Staff, December 09, 2013
State investigators recommended Monday that MGM Resorts be declared fit to operate a casino, capping a 10-month investigation into the background of the only remaining contender for the sole Western Massachusetts license.
They are running out of companies.
The recommendation came with several conditions, including that MGM explain its business practices in Macau, China, and its association with a former board member convicted of illegal wiretapping and conspiracy. MGM executives, who won the support of Springfield voters in July, answered the investigators’ questions at an all-day hearing Monday before the state gambling commission.
The investigators’ recommendation, however, is not binding on the commissioners, who are expected to issue a final decision on whether the company is suitable to hold a license in coming days....
Monday’s hearing also was critical for an emerging gambling industry that has been rocked by rejections at the hands of Massachusetts voters and that faces a petition to repeal the 2011 law that legalized Las Vegas-style gambling in Massachusetts.
Repeal proponents learned Monday they had cleared an initial hurdle: State election officials certified 72,901 signatures on a petition to put the repeal on the statewide ballot next year, surpassing the 68,911 signatures required. The next stop is the Supreme Judicial Court, where casino opponents are challenging a ruling by Attorney General Martha Coakley that the petition is unconstitutional.
Through much of 2012 and the beginning of this year, the western region was the most hotly contested casino zone in the state, but the competition has withered. Ameristar folded up its plans for a Springfield resort; Hard Rock failed to strike a deal in Holyoke or Springfield and then lost a referendum in West Springfield; Penn National Gaming was outbid by MGM in downtown Springfield, and then moved on to compete for a slot machine parlor license in Plainville; and Mohegan Sun lost a referendum in Palmer.
MGM owns 99 percent of the Springfield casino venture, and Springfield businessman Paul Picknelly owns 1 percent.
Last week, MGM chief executive Jim Murren told the Boston College Chief Executive’s Club that the company plans to hire 3,000 permanent workers and another 2,000 to build the $800 million gambling and entertainment resort in downtown Springfield....
Much of the testimony focused on the widespread practice in Macau, the most profitable gambling market in the world, of using “gaming promoters” to recruit patrons to play at the casinos. Macau casinos pay the promoters commissions or a share of gambling revenue, according to the report....
Investigators also focused on the company’s relationship in Macau with businesswoman Pansy Ho, daughter of a Macau gambling mogul linked to organized crime, Stanley Ho. MGM’s relationship raised red flags with New Jersey regulators, who in 2009 issued a report recommending that Pansy Ho be found unsuitable, “mainly out of concerns that she was acting as a front for her father,” the report states.
Massachusetts investigators concluded: “There is no dispute about the fact that when MGM was negotiating the 2004 partnership deal with Pansy Ho, MGM did not conduct any investigation into her source of funds for the project; nor did MGM conduct any investigation into whether she was acting independently from her father.”
Massachusetts investigators interviewed Pansy Ho June 19. She told them she pursued the partnership independent of her father.
Her comments contradict a 2009 report by New Jersey investigators that said that Stanley Ho had told two MGM officials that his daughter represented him, according to the Massachusetts report.
Other US casino jurisdictions reviewed the relationship without objection, including Nevada, Michigan, Mississippi, and Maryland, the report states.
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Also see:
Globe Glum About Casino Votes
Globe Concerned About Casino Losses
Globe Broken-Hearted By Casino Votes
I hopeful for repeal, but recognize the odds of that being allowed to happen.
