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Columbus
Dispatch...
Clean
Ohio funds
Kasich cancels check
to casino
Transportation bill rider prevents Penn National from getting $2.5
million
Thursday, March 24, 2011
By Joe Hallett
The Kasich administration has blocked Penn National Gaming from getting
about $2.5 million from the state that it was counting on to help clean
up the site of the West Side casino it plans to open late in 2012.
A two-year, $7 billion state transportation budget sent to Gov. John
Kasich yesterday thwarts Penn National’s attempt to use Clean Ohio
money in cleaning up the site of the former Delphi auto-parts plant
near W. Broad Street and I-270.
An amendment prohibiting the Ohio Department of Development or other
entities from using state assistance for casinos, or other gambling
sites such as racetracks, was included in the transportation budget
approved by the Senate on Tuesday and ratified by the House yesterday.
Rob Nichols, spokesman for Gov. John Kasich, said the administration
requested the amendment because it thinks casinos have sufficient
resources and don’t need help from the state’s taxpayers.
“The administration believes that the casinos do not need any
additional development incentives in order to build these facilities,”
Nichols said.
The decision to deny the funds, he said, was not coordinated with the
city of Columbus, which is involved in lawsuits with Penn National.
In January, the Franklin County commissioners voted to apply for
$2.5million in state Clean Ohio funding for the 114-acre Delphi site,
where Penn National is to build a 300,000-square-foot Hollywood Casino.
Dan Williamson, spokesman for Mayor Michael B. Coleman, said the city
supported the application and he expressed surprise that the Kasich
administration had moved to deny the money to Penn National.
“We support those funds, and we continue to support those funds for the
Hollywood Casino,” Williamson said.
The city agreed to back the Clean Ohio funding after Ohio voters in May
2010 moved the Columbus casino site out of the Arena District.
So far, Penn National has spent about $16 million cleaning up the
Delphi site and about $ 4million on the Arena District site it owns and
is seeking to sell.
“We’ve spent close to $20 million remediating two brownfield sites on
our own dime,” said Eric Shippers, senior vice president for Penn
National.
Since Clean Ohio money cannot be spent on sites that already have been
cleaned up, Shippers said, the transportation bill’s denial of the
money to the firm “may be sort of a moot question at this time.”
Columbus has been involved in a stalemate with Penn National over
annexation of the casino site. The city has refused to provide sewer
and water services to the site unless it is annexed. The company has
balked at annexation unless the city agrees to breaks on taxes and
utility rates and other financial help.
While denying Penn National money it expected to receive, the
transportation budget does provide about $5.5 million for the Ohio
Casino Control Commission. Chairwoman Jo Ann Davidson told the six
other commission members yesterday that the money should be available
by April 1.
Davidson said about $250,000 would be available for the commission to
begin hiring a staff, leasing office space and paying the members’
$60,000-a-year salaries. Money for the commission, which will govern
the state’s four new casinos, had to be put in the transportation
budget when it was discovered that no funds were available because of a
legal oversight.
The commission will draw money as needed and pay it back to the state
once its primary funding sources - casino license-application fees and
an allocation of 3percent of the tax on gross casino revenue - start to
flow.
Davidson said the commission hopes to hire an executive director within
two months.
Read it at the Columbus Dispatch
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