EAST HARTFORD — Town officials have expressed frustrations about the process municipalities must go through to apply for a new casino in Connecticut, issued by the operators of Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun.
Town council Chairman Richard Kehoe said he feels the request for proposal form filed to the state by the Mohegan and Mashantucket Pequot tribes doesn't provide municipalities with significant details to determine whether their town is a proper site for the casino.
"Our feeling is that the process established here, which is not really the fault of the tribes, is one where they somewhat put the cart before the horse," Kehoe said. "We need to figure out as much detail as possible and decide how we want to respond to the RFP."
Last month, planning and zoning commission members approved a plan for a restaurant and entertainment venue development at the vacant Showcase Cinemas on Silver Lane. Developer Anthony W. Ravosa Jr. of Glastonbury, a member of Silver Lane Partners LLC, said the approval was the first of a proposed two-phase plan to create a $200 million gaming facility at the site.
Earlier this year, Ravosa pitched the idea of a casino at the former theater. The theater opened in 1973 and closed in 2008.The RFP is due Nov. 6 and the tribes expect to select a site in December.While the RFP requests information such as a municipality's tax rate, assessment percentage, government type and details on zoning matters, highway accessibility and utilities, Kehoe and Minority Leader Esther B. Clarke both said the town needs more information about what the tribes envision at a potential site.Kehoe said Tuesday that the town had sent a list of four questions to the tribes, asking for traffic projections, types of entertainment, whether local police and fire would coordinate safety at the casino, size and scope of the facility, and forecasted local tax contributions."The sum of this is that there is significant information that the town council will need and we are asking the tribes to give us as much detail as possible as we decide our next step in this process," Kehoe said.Tribal spokesman Andrew Doba said in a statement, "The RFP is designed to draw a wide array of proposals. Putting out specific guidelines runs contrary to that goal because it would automatically rule out some sites."Clarke called for a public hearing for residents to review the requested information and provide input on the possibility of a casino in town, but Kehoe said that a hearing at this point would be counterproductive.Kehoe said because certain details have yet to be provided by the tribes, the council would likely be unable to answer specific questions from residents. And although there is an existing development proposal, it will be changed as the tribes release more information."People have no understanding — and, quite frankly, neither do we [the council] — of what exactly we'd be talking about," Kehoe said. "It would be unfair for the public to come out and weigh in on something when, legitimately, people could come to the council and say, 'You want our comments, tell us a little more,' and we say, 'We don't know.' That's a waste of the public's time."According to the frequently asked questions section of the tribal joint venture website, the estimated size should range between 150,000 to 350,000 square feet with more than 2,000 gaming positions, and at least 3,000 parking spaces to accommodate 10,000 visitors per day.Ravosa said Silver Lane Partners LLC is tweaking its original design, which called for a 134,000-square-foot building with 1,000 to 1,800 gaming machines and 1,200 parking spaces, to fit the tribes' request."We began this early on," Ravosa said. "We were speculating based on expert opinion on market demands."Kehoe said the town's submission will depend on the kind of response it gets from the questions."It's somewhat of a wait-and-see at this point," Kehoe said. "We'll take this carefully and methodically, as we do most of the time with issues, with an eye toward being a pro-business and pro-development town, but we also want to be very careful that anything we support, we support knowing clearly what the benefits are for the town, especially the taxpayers, and whether there's any drawbacks."East Windsor First Selectman Denise Menard said Tuesday that she agreed that the RFP was unusual and unlike an RFP that a town would typically issue, "but if that's what they want, that's what we're going to be providing them," Menard said."We've had that discussion with the folks we're dealing with and agreed we'll give them as complete a picture as we possibly can. I don't think we can do much more than that," she said.Menard added that no developer has come forward with a plan, but the town has had conversations with a potential developer. In the meantime, Menard said, the town is moving forward with submitting an RFP on its own.Any decision to move forward with a casino plan would be voted on in a community referendum, she said.Thomas E. Deller, Hartford's director of development, confirmed Friday that the city has a copy of the RFP and will take a close look at it in the next few days. The city's review is in the earliest stages and might not result in a bid, Deller said.Deller said there are "three, four, five possible locations" but he declined to identify them. They are not all in the downtown area, he said."This has the potential for being a positive for Hartford and a negative if it is somewhere else," Deller said.But that view was met with pushback from Luke Bronin, the Democratic nominee and front-runner to become the next mayor."I don't see a casino as the solution to Hartford's challenges, and I don't agree that it hurts Hartford if the casino goes somewhere else," Bronin said in a written statement late Friday. Whoever wins the mayoral race in November will not yet be in office by the time the bids are due.More than 200 people attended "a community conversation" in Enfield earlier this month, and those who spoke gave a nearly resounding "no" to the idea of a $200 million casino at the Enfield Square mall.Mayor Scott Kaupin said he will ask his fellow town council members whether they want to move forward with the casino proposal process. He said the council would have to act on the item at a council meeting, and if there's any interest it would likely be placed on the town council agenda for its meeting on Monday.Courant staff writers Kenneth Gosselin and Mikaela Porter contributed to this report.| < Prev | Next > |
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