Lost in much of the attention to devoted to Twin River's lien issues is how Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick's casino plan has been soundly defeated. It remains to be seen where this issue goes from here in our neighbor to the north (Patrick is continuing related studies), but at least for now, there's less immediate worry for competition for one of RI's leading revenue sources.

Also joining us for today's taping was Pat Crowley, Bob Walsh's right-hand man at the National Education Association Rhode Island, and a peripatetic union-media figure in the Ocean State.

Taking issue with statements made by Governor Carcieri during his recent Newsmakers' appearance, Crowley asserts that rejiggering the state's tax structure is a needed fix for improving the budget. Suggestions that the wealthy are leaving the state are mistaken, Crowley says, and he says they should foot a larger part of the bill.

In talking with Crowley off-set, the activist, chairman of the Lincoln Democratic Town Committee a leader of the Lincoln Town Council, told me about elements of a possible compromise for extending hours at Twin River, thereby possibly increasing state revenue from the facility:

1. Twin River would be allowed to open 24 hours on Friday and Saturday, and any Sunday before a Monday holiday;

2. Twin River would be allowed to stay open until 3AM during on weekdays;

3. The Town of Lincoln would receive 4 percent of the revenue from all gambling machines during the expanded hours (2AM-9AM on weekends, 2AM-3AM on weekdays);

 

4. These changes should be enacted legislatively and not by executive order, given the people the right to have their interests protected by law.

In related news, Dan Kennedy today reports a setback for proponents of casino in Middleborough, Massachusetts.

Rhode Island teeters on the economic brink, as Governor Carcieri told us last night.

In Connecticut, they're looking to fill jobs at the MGM Grand hotel at Foxwoods.

Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, where Dan Kennedy has kept a close eye on the casino issue, he think it's getting less likely that the Bay State will move forward with a series of casinos. That seems like good news for one of Rhode Island's largest sources of state revenue, although it's unfortunate that the state finds itself in such a defensive position in the first place.

When Matthew Thomas, chief sachem of the Narragansett Indians, recently asked the Carcieri administration to disclose any relationships that the governor or his advisers had with the two principals of BLB Investors, the owner of Twin River, Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal told the Providence Journal, in a story published January 8, “There are no relationships.”

The statement elicited incredulity from the Narragansetts and some of their supporters, because Stephen J. Carlotti, a Carcieri confidante who is a partner at Hinckley, Allen & Snyder in Providence, played a leading role in helping BLB to get established in Rhode Island.

Last February, for example, when Carcieri appointed Carlotti to chair the Judicial Nominating Commission, the ProJo’s Edward Fitzpatrick noted that in 2005 the Barrington lawyer “[had] represented Lincoln Park’s new owners in their successful bid for additional video-slot machines . . .” The story described how Carlotti had been a member of Carcieri’s transition team and of his political finance committee.

Similarly, in July 2005, a Political Scene item in the ProJo identified Carlotti as one of the two lawyers “who most visibly helped BLB clear Rhode Island’s executive, legislative, and regulatory hurdles.”

Neal says he recalls the the ProJo’s question as being whether only Governor Carcieri had a relationship with Sol Kerzner and Len Wolman, the two BLB principals. “Mr. Carlotti’s situation [as a Carcieri ally] has already been reported in both the Journal and the Phoenix,” Neal says. “It does not appear to make sense on its face that I would be asked to disclose information that has already been disclosed, and has already been reported on by two major media institutions in Rhode Island.”

The plot thickens a bit considering how Jeffrey Grybowski, who joined the Carcieri administration from a job at Hinckley, Allen & Snyder, ultimately becoming the governor’s chief of staff, subsequently returned to the firm after having helped to negotiate part of a state agreement with BLB.

Thomas says the ties between the governor, Carlotti, Grybowski, and Hinckley, Allen “are very concerning to us.” He calls the connections emblematic of “the old boy kind of network, where everybody kind of takes care of one another and they all work with one another. I just think that reeks and everyone should be concerned about that.”

Yet it’s also true that the Democrat-controlled General Assembly -- which supported the Narragansetts’ casino quest in 2006 -- signed off on the agreement between the state and BLB. Another relevant point is how (prior to BLB’s acquisition of Lincoln Park) the gambling parlor’s former GM and his British boss were indicted in 2003, posing a potential threat to one of Rhode Island’s largest sources of state revenue.

Asked about the chief’s comments, Carlotti says, “No one was taking care of anybody, except to try to take care of themselves.” He says the state struck a very hard bargain with BLB, an agreement that “was fully aired publicly,” and supported by the legislature. “[It] could not have passed unless people thought it was fair,” Carlotti says. “It was all open and above-board.”

(Grybowski did not respond to requests for comment. According to Carlotti, Grybowski was not involved in the initial contract negotiation between the state and BLB. Carlotti says Grybowski was among the state officials who tried to interpret the so-called “slippage clause” after BLB and the state had already agreed on “the original business arrangement.”)

Of course, the frustration of the Narragansetts – who were rebuffed by Cariceri in their call earlier this month for a “gaming summit” – likely stems from the difficulty of generating forward momentum on their own casino quest.

Meanwhile, the big winners in all this are arguably Kerzner and Wolman, who, as the Boston Globe recently noted, own part of the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut and have partnered with the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe for an envisioned casino in Middleboro, Massachusetts.

Today's Boston Globe looks at how the renovations at Twin River are said to be drawing lots of visitors from north of the border.

The makeover at Lincoln Park, now known as Twin River, cost $220 million. Investors doubled the size of the complex, which now stretches the length of three football fields, and boosted the number of slot machines from 3,200 to 4,750. They added a 2,500-seat auditorium, a comedy club, and a slew of bars and restaurants. The latest innovation, virtual blackjack tables, blurs the line between video games and true casino gambling, with "simulated" dealers, life-sized and animated, appearing on video screens instead of in the flesh.

The ambitions behind the expansion - to remake the gritty dog track as a Vegas-style showplace, and attract more gamblers from Massachusetts in the process - have proven lucrative: The average number of daily visitors has swelled 60 percent, from 10,000 to 16,000, since the expansion was unveiled last year, casino managers said, and as many as half of all customers are now coming from the Bay State, according to the University of Massachusetts.

The project shows how closely the casino experience can be approximated, without the games typically thought to define it, and how profitable such experiments can be. With no hotel on site, the slots operation at Twin River now rivals those at Connecticut's Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos, each of which has 6,000 to 7,000 machines. Twin River poured $212 million into Rhode Island coffers last year, according to the state lottery division, more than Foxwoods sent the Connecticut government. That sum will increase if legislators approve a plan to let the complex stay open 24 hours a day instead of closing at 2 a.m. Some legislators, facing a steep budget deficit, have also proposed that table games be allowed there.

Of course, there's the obligatory reference to the buxom digitized video poker dealer, and also a note on how the facility's owners are, er, covering their bets:

As the hour approached 10 p.m. last Friday, players packed the virtual blackjack tables, sitting elbow-to-elbow as they faced the onscreen dealers. The dealers - dimpled young men in silk shirts and buxom women in sparkling bustiers and low-cut evening gowns - turned their heads to make "eye contact" with the players, and spoke in soothing, digitized tones ....

Massachusetts casinos could hurt Rhode Island's cash flow, but the owners of Twin River would stand to benefit. Two of the partners who bought Lincoln Park for $445 million in 2005 and transformed it, Len Wolman and Sol Kerzner, have partnered with the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe to push plans for a casino in Middleborough, 40 miles away. The two also own part of Mohegan Sun, about 50 miles from Twin River.

Fresh from an appearance yesterday with Bill Rappleye on 10 News Conference, Narragansett Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas this morning released a statement, asserting that it is time "for the governor to stop his schizophrenic posturing on the issue of full-scale casino gaming and bring together the various gaming interests to design a comprehensive strategy for the State of Rhode Island."

Thomas calls Governor Carcieri's expression of support for 24-hour gambling at Lincoln and Newport, as well as backing for letting voters decide the subject, "astounding!"

"The governor did not want the people to have the right to vote on the Narragansett Indian casino and totally ignored the vote of the people of West Warwick. Now he is willfully ignoring the recent vote of the people of Lincoln against 24-hour gaming and expansion of the Twin River facility. Does the Governor really think we are that dumb?"

Thomas also described AG Patrick Lynch's ruling that virtual blackjack machines do not represent an expansion of gambling "a farce."

North Providence Mayor Charles Lombardi and Narragansett Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas are the guests this week on WPRI/WNAC-TV's Newsmakers. The show will be broadcast Sunday, at 5:30 am on Channel 12, and at 10 am on Fox 64.

Lombardi sounded an upbeat message about life in NP and didn't seem overly concerned about the expected level-funding of state aid to cities and towns. The mayor's staff shared a copy of a four-page color mailing document, entitled The First 150 Days, A Progress Report for the Citizens of North Providence from Mayor Charles Lombardi.

In response to a question from Arlene Violet, Lombardi said that Secretary of State Ralph Mollis, the former mayor in NP, tried to get in his way "a little" after Lombardi took office, but that that situation has been resolved. In reference to the removal of the images of local public-safety officials from a 9-11 monument in town, Lombardi said that City Hall received 27 calls about it -- all of them in favor.

Thomas, who was recently reelected as chief of the Narragansetts, called it "mind-boggling," considering the presence of gambling in Rhode Island, that elected officials run from him when he tries to discuss the issue. He called the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), from which the tribe was exempted by the so-called Chafee amendment, the best approach for an expansion of casino gambling in Rhode Island.

The chief said that the tribe has entertained the possibility of entering an Alford plea, as well as a not-guilty plea, as efforts continue to resolve the 2003 smoke-shop episode. Governor Carcieri has backed efforts to resolve the matter through some sort type of mediation, Thomas said, although AG Patrick Lynch has opposed this approach.

Before coming to the Phoenix, N4N once wrote an analysis of the Massachusetts lottery (which produces $900 million a year in state revenue) showing how the per-capita play ranged from about $300 to $500 in working class communities, and from about $20 to $50 in affluent suburbs. While the results were eye-popping, it's not exactly a shocker that gambling tends to be a regressive source of revenue.

Now, though, with the casino wars heating up in Massachusetts, elected officials readily acknowledge a reality once voiced only by opponents:

"With that potential economic generator, we cannot reject the casino industry out of hand," [Bay State Governor Deval] Patrick [tells the Boston Globe]. He presented the initiative as an alternative to raising taxes [my emphasis].

Back in Rhode Island, Patrick's desire to go forward with three casinos presents a big dilemma, since gambling is our third-largest source of state revenue. So we find our elected officials very much platying defense after voters last year rejected plans for the Harrah's-Narragansett casino.

Writing in the ProJo, Paul Grimaldi reports that Speaker Bill Murphy says lawmakers will study in January whether Rhode Island should add table games at its two video lottery parlors. Meanwhile, Jeff Neal, spokesman for Governor Carcieri -- who has presided over a major increase of gambling in Rhode Island -- says that the governor believes the state had sufficient gambling when he came into office.

Gambling interests have long tried to convince politicians throughout New England that their state will come out ahead if it simply recaptures the money residents spend at casinos in Connecticut, New Jersey or Nevada, Neal pointed out.

“From a regional perspective, the casino industry has taken a divide-and-conquer approach to New England,” Neal said. “The danger is, once one New England state falls for that argument, all of the other New England states may be forced to take the same step.”

But what happens, Neal asked, when every state has a casino?

Patrick's casino plan in Massachusetts isn't a sure bet, in part because of legislative opposition. Yet the momentum for more casinos in southern New England seems to be swelling. In the absence of other forms of economic development, Rhode Island needs to have a good plan to respond -- unless it wants to take a big hit. 

URI's Maureen Moakley and I discuss "casino creep" in Rhode Island, the gov's privatization push, the Burrillville teachers' strike, a drop in childhood poverty, Peter Ginaitt's departure, and the imminent release of Steve Laffey's book. The segment will be broadcast tomorrow morning, at 5:35 and 7:35, on WRNI (1290 AM).

Two days after the Sunday ProJo outlined how the advent of casinos in Massachusetts would devastate one of Rhode Island's top sources of revenue, we learn that "virtual blackjack" has been proposed for Twin River.

You didn't have to be a genius to see things heading in this direction. As I wrote back in June, it seems to be just a matter of time before Twin River and Newport Grand are expanded into full-fledged casinos.

Yet Dan Kennedy, who has kept a close focus on this issue in Massachusetts, asserts that the envisioned Middleboro casino "will never be built."

I like the outlook of RI EDC director Saul Kaplan, who says the state needs a greater focus on creating high-wage jobs. Still, considering the volatility of the casino landscape in southern New England, Rhode Island has a big stake in the outcome.

We're all waiting for the next shoe to drop. RI Report wonders aloud about what might be happening.

Local talk radio has gotten more interesting, IMHO, with the return of John DePetro. I don't agree with everything he says, but John is smart, he knows the terrain, and he regularly does some strong shows.

The same is true of Dan Yorke, and yesterday was a case in point. Yorke (upon whose show I am a weekly guest) nailed it in talking about how the owners of Twin River are covering their bets by backing the casino plan in Middleboro, Massachusetts, and how Rhode Island stands to lose a lot of revenue in the process.

Yorke, however, opened the door to anti-gay rants when he offered an earlier focus yesterday on Connie Grosch's "Love Stories" photo-feature in the Monday ProJo, which this week profiled two gay men who reside together on the East Side.

The tacit message seemed to be: it's OK for there to be gay and lesbians -- as long as their picture isn't in the newspaper. Not surprisingly, one caller said a short time later that he was concerned about "the promotion" of homosexuality, "not the actuality of it." This caller hastened to add, of course, that he has "fully researched the psychiatry of [homosexuality]." No doubt.

Providence Schools Superintendent Donnie W. Evans, fresh from his first State of the Schools Address, appears on Newsmakers this Sunday. The show is broadcast at 5:30 am on Channel 12 (CBS) and at 10 am on Fox 64. Also appearing this week is UMass/Dartmouth professor Clyde Barrow, a close observer of the changing casino landscape in RI and Massachusetts.

Evans defended plans for Providence to pursue a $792 million school-building program at a time when the state is financially in dire straits.

Asked whether the moving forward of a casino proposal in Mass. makes it inevitable that Twin River and Lincoln Grand will become full-fledged casinos, Barrow wouldn't go that far, although he acknowledged that it's much more likely. He also notes how Sol Kerzner has covered his bets across three states, a development much to the chagrin of Narragansett Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas.

Thomas this week released a statement saying that Rhode Islanders have been stabbed in the back by the casino partnership between the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and the owners of Twin River.

Today's Boston Globe has the details of how the town of Middleboro, Massachusetts, appears to be closing in on a deal to host a casino:

The Middleborough Board of Selectmen has agreed to support an Indian-owned casino in exchange for a promise from developers to pay the town $7 million a year in compensation for accommodating the millions of expected visitors, according to town officials.

The agreement, if formally approved at a public board meeting tomorrow evening, would significantly advance the proposal of the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian tribe and its equity partners, Sol Kerzner and Len Wolman, the billionaire developers of Mohegan Sun in Connecticut.

As part of the deal, the tribe would be precluded from considering offers from other municipalities interested in having the casino, including New Bedford, where city officials had aggressively courted the Wampanoags.

Town Manager Jack Healey called the agreement "a great deal."

Meanwhile, the Globe previously reported on the casino wrangling in Mass., which is reminiscent of similar battles here in Rhode Island. 

With the state heavily dependent on gambling revenue, it won't be a surprise to see intensifying efforts to turn Twin River and Newport Grand into full-fledged casinos.

UPDATE: The growth of the blogosphere is leading to greater discussion of hyper-local coverage as an alternative or addition to the waning newspaper industry. I learned of Dr. Denny's interesting proposal -- an offer to pay someone to cover his community for the same amount that he gives to a newspaper -- through Dan Kennedy's Media Nation.

A six-page A section, on a Wednesday? You've got to be kidding. Tom Mooney and Elizabeth Gudrais have important stories on the front of today's ProJo, but this limited amount of space doesn't leave room for much else. Worse, it conveys a vague sense that not much important or interesting stuff is going on.

While Rhode Island voters last year overwhelmingly rejected a Harrah's Entertainment-Narragansett Indian casino, it increasingly seems a matter of time before the gambling parlors in Lincoln and Newport are converted into full-fledged casinos. In large measure, this is due to how, as the ProJo's John Kostrzewa pointed out yesterday, it's a good bet that Massachusetts will soon get casinos:

Watching the gambling debate unfold in Massachusetts is like looking in a mirror that reflects what went on last year in Rhode Island.

There’s a Native American tribe that wants to open a gambling complex.

There’s a lineup of top politicians who argue that a privately run casino will keep gamblers from spending their money out of state.

There are legislators, lobbyists and anti-tax advocates saying that gambling will generate new state revenue to pay for state services.

There are gambling opponents who say a casino is not economic development, will siphon money from existing businesses and will bring a raft of social consequences.

But there’s one big difference.

While Rhode Islanders pushed casino gambling away by soundly defeating a ballot proposal by the Narragansett Indians and Harrah’s Entertainment to build a complex in West Warwick, Massachusetts is moving toward legalized gambling.

If I had to bet, I’d say at least one and perhaps two casinos, one on Indian land and one at an old racetrack, will open in Massachusetts in the not-to-distant future.