 |
Litchfield, NH Community Message Board
|
|
|
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
User: Frank Byron
|
 |
Posted: 2010/03/10 11:22am   |
|
Folks,
Below is an email sent from Lynne Ober to various town officials, etc. talking about the proposed Hudson Casino and her reasons for sponsoring the proposal. The town of Litchfield (School Board, Budget Committee and Selectmen) will be meeting with the State Representaives and the movers of the Casino legislation to understand this issue. That meeting will be televised on the 18th at 7 PM from Town Hall. I
I would suggest if you have questions, please contact Lynne on this.
| Lynne Ober wrote: | At the introduction of SB489, Kevin Smith, Director of Cornerstone and a Litchfield resident has some legitimate concerns about the Hudson piece of this proposal. Because the bill is 30 pages long, many people are not reading through the intricate, and somewhat, arcane, language found in any legislation. I thought that others might share his questions.
This bill proposes six different locations where a minimum $10 million dollar enterprise (in Hudson's case a resort hotel) will be built in NH and along with each location comes the right to have some gaming.
Kevin was concerned that a "dump" or eye-sore would be developed and that is a legitimate concern, but is not going to happen with the minimum construction budget required. That minimum construction budget was written into the bill just to ensure that people who wanted to pop up a concrete block structure and load it with slot machines could NOT do so.
At the time Kevin asked me about a specific site in another state and I laughingly told him that I didn't gamble so hadn't been there. What is a non-gambling representative doing as a co-sponsor of this bill? Well, this bill isn't really about gambling, per se …. Let's look at it.
So what is involved and why am I a co-sponsor of this legislation.
· The Hudson proposal is for a 300 bed resort hotel with a minimum of 50,000 square feet of convention space (this is actually spelled out in the legislation) with a minimum construction budget of $10 million dollars. The hotel will have restaurants, undoubtedly some retail shops, an 18 hole golf course, a theater and landscaped grounds along the river, including an outdoor smaller theater and a set amount of space for table gaming. If you go to Google.com and click on maps and then search for Green Meadows Golf Course, you will see the property which today has two 18 hole golf courses, a pro shop, etc. The resort hotel will be built on one of the golf courses.
· This property sits back from Lowell Road (the main road closest to it) and just south of the southern bridge in Hudson. You can see the golf courses as you cross the Merrimack River. The hotel will be on this property and will not be seen from Lowell Road --- just as the golf courses aren't seen.
· The Friel family owns this property now and expects that a total of $300 million will be spent by the time construction is complete and the hotel is open.
· This is a bill about jobs. I do not believe that we can tax our state out of the recession ---- we need to provide jobs. So let's look at that:
o At the height of construction, it is expected that 1,900 construction specialists will be on site. Throughout the construction, it is expected that an average of 1,200 construction specialists will be on-site. These people will buy gas, food, etc throughout the building project.
o Once the hotel is open, there will be hospitality staff, retail staff, restaurant staff, staff running conventions and staff running the gaming. The gaming is NOT the majority piece of this project, however. Conservative estimates are that nearly 4,000 direct and indirect jobs will be created. Direct jobs will be employed at the hotel facilities and indirect jobs are as a result of having this business in town. People who come to conventions, eat at the hotel restaurants, shop at local stores will creates jobs throughout the community.
· If commuter rail comes to Nashua, one percent of the resort's gross revenue would go to fund the operations of the commuter rail.
· An interesting piece of this legislation is that the hotel will provide 5,000 square feet of the allowed table gaming area for charities to hold events ---- bingo, Texas Hold ‘Ems, etc. Today in NH the charities (especially the Catholic Church) run all the gambling. This would give them a new, up-scale venue. We all know that much of the money garnered by charitable gambling goes back into the communities so it makes sense to allow them to participate in the resort hotel (this is without cost to them).
· Revenue is a big piece.
o Built into the legislation is a percentage of gross revenues that will be divided among ALL New Hampshire counties --- you pay county tax as part of your property taxes. This will reduce that burden.
o Litchfield, Pelham, Nashua, and Londonderry, will also get a percentage of gross revenues from the Hudson project. The towns contiguous to the other five projects will also enjoy revenue sharing. Each town may use these revenues as they see fit --- pay part of current budgets, hire another police officer, do something at the schools. There are no strings attached to this revenue and each town will decide how to spend.
o Hudson, too, will get a piece of the gross revenues to spend on their town and school budgets.
o The state, which has its own set of financial difficulties, will also get revenue. The first $50 million will go directly into HHS to offset some of the cuts that the Governor is currently making. This $50 million must be paid with the first application as it is the license fee that each of this projects will pay (for a total of $300 million in revenue to the state)
§ These 2 years the Governor used one-time stimulus money to pay for adequate education. He has no idea where he will get the revenue to cover that in the future and, as such, there is talk of cutting all aid for school construction in order to move those dollars into adequate education funding. License fees would help close that gap, which will benefit our educational systems.
o There will be increased Rooms and Meals tax collections. Every town in NH benefits from that as they all share in those collections. This will increase those collections.
So, I am sponsoring this bill because it provides jobs, and not just minimum wage jobs. It increases funding for our communities counties and state, thus lowering each of our tax bills. It is a better option that instituting an income or sales tax on our residents who are already struggling to pay their bills.
Russ was stationed at Nellis Air Force Base in North Las Vegas, Nevada. While we lived there, we bought a home. Crime was very low. Safety was not a concern. The school system and town benefited from the same type of revenue sharing and our son attended elementary school in Vegas --- probably the best school he ever attended. So when I hear some of the scare tactics about crime in the neighborhoods, I know that it is just that scare tactics.
Our taxes were low and jobs were plentiful.
Many of our friends retired in Vegas. If a mountain similar to Loon or Cannon had been close to Vegas, we would have too …. But we retired here because of the excellent skiing and close proximity to a municipal area (I grew up in Kansas City, Mo. A city that had more than 1 million people at the time I went to high school there. Today NH has that same population. J )
If I can answer any questions for you, please let me know.
Also, if you know others who are interested in what is being proposed, please feel free to forward my e-mail to them.
Lynne
|
_________________
Frank |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
User: KBD
|
|
Posted: 2010/03/10 12:15pm |
|
That's all fine and good but how does the plan address the additional congestion that people who commute to MA to work to pay our ever increasing taxes will face?
The plan I saw showed an off ramp that would go directly into the compound but I didn't see a ramp that would help traffic return to RT 3. So...that means that the light at the end of the bridge will get backed up nicely as people leave the casino. Lovely.
Any chance we could get them to build that bridge so we can bypass the congestion?
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group
|
Calendar
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
Chat Room
Calendar 
