AntiRust believes that most government-sponsored urban redevelopment proposals are scams. (Scroll down.) How does the presence of casino gambling affect that assessment? Well, there certainly does appear to be a lot of money to go around: close to a million dollars a day during the first year, according to this Trib report. That's a pretty nice trough to feed at if you are the municipal tax man.
So what to do with that windfall? Fix schools? Fight crime? Service debt incurred by previous development schemes? Ha! To get a good sense of reality, take a look to Erie. I wish this were a joke. But of course it's not. Seems that there is a proposal floating around Erie to use a chunk of the tax money that a casino generates to build infrastructure for the casino. How's this for convoluted? (From the linked Erie Times News story):
[Erie County Executive] Mark DiVecchio said he will present both sides of the issue to council, though he gave no timetable. "This has to be a joint decision. Council needs to be brought in so we can do this together," he said.
DiVecchio said his consideration of the subsidy has nothing to do with the connection between David Agresti, the head of his transition team, and Greg Rubino, who has represented Presque Isle Downs as its real estate agent. Agresti is Rubino's lawyer.
The controversial subsidy proposal became an issue on the second day of DiVecchio's administration after he talked about it during a town-hall forum in Corry.
But just what DiVecchio said at the forum is murky.
Rick Novotny, executive director of the Erie County Redevelopment Authority, attended the meeting. He said DiVecchio appeared to say that half of the county's annual share of $11 million in slots money would go toward paying some of the infrastructure costs at the planned casino in Summit Township.
Corry City Administrator Gerry Dahl, who also attended, said that DiVecchio described a plan in which half of the money would be used to pay for infrastructure. But Dahl said it was unclear exactly how that money would be administered and how it would be used.
"He just indicated infrastructure. There were arguments on both sides as to whether that money would need to be used on-site or off-site," Dahl said.
That's right. Erie needs a casino to generate more tax revenue. That can be used to support a casino. Perfect.
So maybe a government-sponsored casino is the answer Pittsburgh is looking for. As long as the question is, "How do we give politicians and their cronies an opportunity to bilk taxpayers out of more money?"
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