MEETING MINUTES OF THE PALMER CITIZEN CASINO IMPACT STUDY COMMITTEE
Social, Cultural and Environmental Sub Committee
Palmer Town Library
February 13, 2008 - 6:30 PM
ATTENDANCE
PRESENT: Michael Swiatiowski, Carol Sugrue, Charlotte Burns
ABSENT: Paul Wisnewski, Ranjan Ghosh
AGENDA: To decide on a focus as a group and how we might accomplish this.
We discussed what areas we should focus on, and came up with the following:
1. Impact on local businesses
2. Impact on the environment
3. Quality of life concerns
4. Impact of problem gambling
5. Effect on crime rate
We discussed issues regarding these concerns and how we would proceed at
studying them.
1. Impact on local businesses
Carol Sugrue expressed concerns over the impact of the casino on local
businesses. The two main areas of concern that she expressed were accessibility to
businesses being affected by traffic and the impact of competition by the
casino and its host businesses on existing businesses.
We discussed avenues of research such as contacting the Quaboag Valley
Chamber of Commerce, contacting a variety of local businesses that are listed at
Town Hall and asking them their opinions on the issue. We discussed phoning local
business owners, dropping in their establishments.
We discussed inviting businesses to attend a committee meeting to discuss
their concerns.
We agreed to come up with a list of questions to ask local business owners.
Carol Segrue agreed to contact the town hall and get a list of businesses to
contact.
2. Impact on the environment.
We discussed contacting experts in this area such as George Bachrach of the
Environmental League of Massachusetts and Philip Warburg of the Conservation
Law Foundation. These gentlemen wrote an op ed piece for the Boston Globe on
February 11, 2008.
Michael Swiatiowski suggested contacting Mohegan Sun representatives and
asking them how they would meet these environmental concerns. He expressed the
necessity of being unbiased and getting both sides of every issue.
3. Quality of Life Concerns.
Carol Sugrue expressed concerns about how the quality of life will be
affected in Palmer, such things as the possibility of enormous population growth.
She said that she would contact a friend who recently moved from Wilkes
Barre, PA, a host community of a casino, and get her feedback.
We discussed having each of us visit a host community and question people
there, asking locals and business people how their life has been affected, either
positively or negatively, by having a casino in their town.
Michael Swiatiowski. suggested e-mailing their town halls to find people to
contact and asking local business associations for contacts.
4. Impact of Problem Gambling
Carol Sugrue mentioned that she had heard that a day care center located in
the former Tambrands Building in Three Rivers was doing a study on the effects
of problem gambling on children, which they planned to present to Mr.
Fitzgerald. Carol Sugrue said that she would find more information on this.
Charlotte Burns had seen several articles in newspapers including the
Worcester Telegram about a social worker from Sturbridge who has recently started a
support group for gambling addiction. This person was concerned about the
impact of casinos on problem gamblers. I agreed to get her name and contact her.
Michael Swiatiowski. expressed the necessity of contacting Mohegan Sun and
asking them how they would deal with the issue of problem gamblers.
5. Crime
We discussed looking into possibility of increased crime in Palmer as a
result of the casino such as robberies and embezzlement due to people desperate for
money to gamble or impoverished by gambling, drugs, prostitution, drunk
driving, and serving of alcohol to minors in the casino.
We discussed looking into crime statistics for host communities.
Other Items:
Charlotte Burns brought in an article in the League of Women Voters
Newsletter about League member Elaine Bono, a 16-year veteran planning board member in
Ledyard CT who described the downside of hosting Foxwoods in her town. She
will provide copies of this article to the full committee next week. She also
agreed to write a summary for the committee of a League of Women Voters sponsored
forum on gambling impacts (Feb. 12 in Easthampton) by Professor Robert
Goodman, former executive director of the United States Gambling Research
Institute, and author of The Luck Business.
Homework:
Michael Swiatiowski felt we needed to have homework assignments. He agreed to
find a list of towns that are similar to Palmer and that have become host
communities to casinos, communities that we could contact.
Carol Sugrue agreed to call her friend from Wilkes Barre, PA and to also get
information on the Three Rivers daycare study.
We all agreed to come up with a list of people to invite to speak to the
committee. I mentioned that Representative Todd Smola had asked to speak to the
committee. I also said that Robert Goodman expressed interest in speaking in
Palmer. I suggested contacting the two environmentalists who wrote the
previously mentioned article in The Boston Globe as well.
We agreed to meet again Thursday, February 28 at the Palmer Library in the
Historical Room.
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