7/2/09 Run, don't walk, to buy this week's Middleboro Gazette if you want to read two smart people come to opposite conclusions and offer opposite recommendations to the town on opposite sides of the opinion section of the newspaper.
On the sublime side is editor Jane Lopes who explains in detail using good logic why using the annual $250,000 payment by, as she put it in her title, "behaving as if the casino will come is a reasonable choice".
Sensible.
Sublime compared to what comes next.
Mark Belanger , in his "Bumpkin's Corner" column, is so convinced that the casino won't come to Middleboro that he advises that the town should stop spending the money now. He wants us to "save the money and start investigating what we need to do to get this money available for other purposes once somebody official calls time of death on patient casino".
In other words, he wants the town to figure out a way to break the agreement which stipulates that we will use the money for preplanning.
He also wants the town to recover the land.
How, you might ask?
He wants the land "gifted to us in exchange for all the effort, pain, and disruption this five-star resort has caused".
Back to his suggestion that we break our agreement to use the money for preplanning, he suggests we consider using the money to buy the land back.
So go buy The Gazette to read the Lopes' reasonable sublime and Belanger's wishful thinking ridiculous (with a touch of reneging on a contract).
Rick McNair offers his take on what he calls the "dueling Gazette casino opinions" on his blog here.
7/3/09 Update: From Indian Country Today, the latest actual NEWS related to the casino is here.
From The Gazette: Some specifics for spending the planning money.
Ms. Geoffroy, who has been working with Town Manager Charles Cristello to develop the plan, is also proposing that $25,000 be spent for a study aimed at the redevelopment of the Everett Square area; $15,000 for a medical facility feasibility study that could help bring an urgent-care facility to the town; $50,000 that would represent half the cost of a consultant to look at plans for improvements to Rte. 44; and $64,000 for a rental housing inspection and certification program. Read article here
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4 comments:
Speaking of "wishful thinking" Hal, at no point in the column do I suggest breaking the agreement.
How can anyone read "once somebody official calls time of death on patient casino" as a suggestion to renege on the agreement.
You are doing what you always do - putting the worst possible spin and read on something because the author is anti-casino.
For the sake of argument, let's say the casino comes in three to six years - a timetable that Cedric has quoted to the tribe. The traffic studies and other planning we do today will have reduced value, or possibly no value, depending on how traffic patterns and other variables change naturally over time.
Even if land went into trust today - we are years away from the casino opening - plenty of time to spend the pre-payment money for it's intended purpose. You'll note that the article calls for using the pre-payment money to buy the land back "after it goes back on the market". That statement implies that the land did not go into trust - which would nullify the agreement.
In fact, I'd be willing to bet that the Cedric and Aaron would advise us to hold off planning until we are closer to a realistic date.
First, knowing your casino opinion had nothing to do with what I wrote. I stand by my interpretation of your column. I believe the intent of the agreement regarding the pre-planning money was for the town to use it to plan for the casino every year until the casino opened.
I believe we are acting in good faith to do so. To use it for any other purpose, including not using it every year for planning, in my opinion is acting in bad faith.
Some casino opponents like yourself are certain the casino is at death's door. I disagree. I don't think the evidence supports such a conclusion.
I would rather not use the word spin because it suggest a deliberate attempt to mislead. I do think however that people on both sides have a bias and must attempt to look at the actual facts knowing they may allow wishful thinking to color their conclusions.
Is wishful thinking "ridiculous"? No, it isn't, no more than being realistic is "sublime". I used these terms for effect in my title because of the physical juxtaposition of the two opinion pieces in the paper.
I make every attempt to be objective on my predictions. In this case I see that many more impediments to building the casino arose than were ever anticipated. These will need to be overcome before it is built.
As I wrote previously, I do not put odds on it except to say that I agree with the BOS, the town planner, and the editor of The Gazette, that it's better to be prepared than not. Therefore the longer we have to use the annual payment for pre-planning the better.
If the casino isn't built some of that money will have been wasted, but there are elements, perhaps many, of the pre-planning that may be helpful. Your own example of traffic studies is one area I am thinking of.
My limited understanding of how these are done is that experts in the field analyze all variables using methods I know nothing about to reach their conclusions.
As for the chair and vice-chair of the tribe advising us to hold off on planning, I can't see any reason why they wouldn't expect us to use the money for planning.
Continued:
Mark Belanger goes from writing that the casino "has little chance of ever happening" to a the absolute statement "there is no conceivable path that leads to a Middleboro casino. None"
He goes from little chance to none.
He says there is "no conceivable path" when it seems to me that there are certainly paths.
Then he goes back and writes the slightly less unequivocal statement that we are "flushing money down the toilet by a project that has essentially a zero chance of being built". He used the modifier "essentially".
Then he writes that the casino "doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of seeing the light of day". That's not ambiguous.
He goes on to call it the "mythical Loch Ness Casino of tomorrow". I've been to Loch Ness. I doubt there's a monster in it's depths, but it's 24 miles long and over 750 feet deep in parts so you never know. Still, I count this as an unequivocal statement.
He ends by commenting on Cedric Cromwell's prediction that the casino will come in 2012 or 2015 with: "Sheer nonsense but even if true, that's up to six years away." Here he SEEMS to allow that while the casino coming is sheer nonsense, perhaps, just perhaps it might happen.
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I neglected to include in my article that he wants the land left as open space, part of a greenway trail system. It's an interesting idea but I think he should consider it's proximity to Route 44 and Route 495 and its potential for tax producing revenue either in being zoned commercial or used for housing.
Suo Myona has an excellent response to Mark's arguments on the Bogofree blog (at July 4 2:54 AM). CLICK HERE and scroll down the comments
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