East Windsor Ct Casino Update
East Windsor is one step closer to having a casino after the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes selected the town as the site of a possible third gaming facility in Connecticut.
This hour, we ask, how will this plan transform East Windsor and the region?
The town’s Board of Selectmen fully support the project-voting unanimously in favor. First Selectman Robert Maynard joins us and we hear from an East Windsor resident who believes a casino will be bad news for the town’s future.
The lengthy legal battle delaying the East Windsor casino has caused the project to be scaled back to reflect the saturated gambling market in the region, Rodney Butler, chairman of the. East Windsor Voters Reject Plans Tied to Casino The Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes have been fighting to build a joint casino on land near I-91. Published October 24, 2019. Updated on. The Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes announced they're hitting pause on the proposed Tribal Winds Casino in East Windsor. In a joint statement released by the two tribes, leaders attributed. A spokesman said the tribal leaders recently briefed local and state officials about their planned delay of the $300 million East Windsor casino, which has faced numerous hurdles, including delays in federal approvals and legal challenges from rival MGM Resorts, which opened a casino in nearby Springfield, Massachusetts, in 2018 and has sought to block the tribes’ project since 2015. An effort by the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribal nations to build a casino near the Massachusetts border has been indefinitely shelved. The proposed Tribal Winds Casino in East Windsor would have been the first Connecticut gaming destination existing outside of tribal lands. Originally proposed in 2017, it was initially planned to open in early 2021 as a $300 million project.
Do you think a third Connecticut casino will usher in the promise of jobs and sustained growth? Or will it be detrimental to local communities?
Plus, Major League Baseball is in the midst of a rule change that has baseball purists up in arms.
GUESTS:
- Kenneth Gosselin - Real Estate and Financial Services Reporter for the Hartford Courant
- Robert Maynard - First Selectman of East Windsor
- Denise Terry - East Windsor Resident, Senior Pastor at the East Granby Congregational Church, Member of the Coalition Against Casino Expansion in Connecticut
- Frankie Graziano - Sports Producer at CPBN
Tribal Winds Casino Ct
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Chion Wolf contributed to this show.
Third Connecticut casino to open in East Windsor
Nadrina Ebrahimi
Two Native American nations that have joined forces to build Connecticut’s third casino announced on Feb. 27 that they have selected East Windsor as the site of their new project.
The Mashantucket Pequot and the Mohegan tribes hope that the new casino, which will be a 15-minute drive from the MGM Springfield casino in Massachusetts, will protect Connecticut’s gaming revenue and keep casino jobs in the state. The Springfield MGM is slated to open in spring 2018.
“Do I think that it means that more gaming would remain in Connecticut as opposed to being transported to Massachusetts?” Gov. Dannel Malloy said in a press release on Wednesday. “The answer is yes and therefore there are more jobs connected to that.”
But before construction on the casino moves forward, the state Legislature must approve a proposal for the project. The bill, which was presented to the Public Safety and Security Committee by state Sen. Catherine Osten, D-Norwich, was discussed in an informational forum on Feb. 23 and is on the agenda for a public hearing in the state Legislature on March 9.
East Windsor Ct Casino Update 2019
If the bill passes in the Public Safety and Security Committee, it will then be heard by the entire legislature. If approved there, ground on the new site can be broken as early as this coming summer.
The tribes negotiated with towns independently to decide where to build, and the Connecticut Legislature did not participate in the decision. As a result, some state lawmakers are upset by the location.
State Rep. Christopher Rosario, D-Bridgeport, called the selection process “secretive” and said Fairfield County would have been a better location because of its proximity to New York City. He also emphasized the need for jobs in Bridgeport.
“Bridgeport has one of the highest unemployment rates in the state, especially in terms of people of color,” Rosario said. “To completely leave Bridgeport out of the question when discussing jobs and creating jobs is a total mistake.”
The casino is projected to generate $8.5 million in taxes for East Windsor every year, which would constitute 18 percent of the town’s entire tax revenue. In negotiating with the casino planners, the town’s Board of Selectmen agreed to the proposal with unanimous and bipartisan support.
Under the terms of the agreement, the casino will also pay a portion of its revenue as taxes to the state, but that portion has yet to be determined by the state Legislature. Connecticut’s two existing casinos pay 25 percent of revenues in taxes.
MGM has been in strong opposition to a new Connecticut casino for months. In a statement at the Feb. 23 informational forum, Uri Clinton, MGM Resorts International’s senior vice president and legal counsel, claimed that operating a competing casino on nontribal land would violate existing compacts between Connecticut and the two tribes.
Malloy is aware of the legal concerns surrounding the proposal and has asked the state attorney general for his opinion on the matter. According to an opinion from the Office of Indian Gaming, an authority in tribal-state gaming compacts, building a casino in East Windsor would not violate any existing agreements.
In his press release, Malloy suggested that the opposition stems from MGM’s desire to curb competition.
“Gosh, people in Massachusetts don’t want a third casino in Connecticut — it really is remarkable — and I think I know why,” Malloy said. “It’s the same reason they wanted casinos in Massachusetts, right? They would like to take a substantial portion of the marketplace in Connecticut.”
A spokesman for the Connecticut casino’s developers, Andrew Doba, said that by MGM’s own estimates, Connecticut would lose about 9,600 jobs with the opening of the Springfield location just 5 miles from the Connecticut border. The opening of a casino in East Windsor could save roughly half of those jobs, Doba said.
Further, the East Windsor developers said at the informational forum that Connecticut will lose $68.3 million in tax dollars and $337 million in total revenue once the MGM Springfield opens — a loss that would be offset by the East Windsor casino.
“The biggest beneficiary by far is the employees and the state,” Doba said.
Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket is operated by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, and Mohegan Sun in Uncasville is run by the Mohegan Tribe.