East Boston, Palmer Voters Reject Casinos
Voters in East Boston and Palmer rejected casino proposals pushed by developers who hoped to build resorts at Suffolk Downs and in a wooded area off the Massachusetts Turnpike.
The vote put the brakes on a project at a racetrack near Revere Beach that enjoyed support from many elected officials, and leaves MGM Grand as the last developer standing in the western part of the state, where it hopes to build a casino in Springfield.
Mayor Dan Rizzo of Revere - where voters supported the Suffolk Downs proposal - said he would seek to salvage the casino plans, leaving out the parts that are on land in East Boston.
"Tonight I called Suffolk Downs and I have asked them to reshape their project and to build it only on their 52 acres in Revere," Rizzo said in a statement. "I will work with the Gaming Commission so that Revere's affirmative land-use vote on this issue can stand."
Chip Tuttle, chief operating officer of Suffolk Downs, did not concede defeat speaking to supporters at the racetrack. "We are reassessing based on tonight's results what we can do to move forward," Tuttle said.
Tuttle said he had just hung up the phone with Rizzo and said, "He's interested in trying to see how he can affirm Revere's positive statement on this. We're going to look at that. We're going to talk about how we may be able to move forward here."
Should that not work out, it would leave just two proposals – the Foxwoods plan for Milford and the Wynn Resorts proposal in Everett – as the two remaining applicants for the “eastern” zone casino, covering Essex, Middlesex, Suffolk, Norfolk and Worcester counties. Voters in Milford will go to the polls Nov. 19 to decide whether to push ahead with the plan in that town. The Everett plans have already won voter approval.
The verdict of voters in East Boston coincided with Tuesday's elections results, as Rep. Martin Walsh of Dorchester won the Boston mayoralty. He will succeed Thomas M. Menino, the city’s longest-serving mayor, first elected in 1993.
In Palmer, 2,564 votes were cast for the Mohegan Sun proposal to 2,657 against, with 66 percent turnout, according to the town clerk's office. Mohegan will ask town officials for a hand recount. Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority CEO Mitchell Etess said there had been some problems during the voting and a recount would ensure the outcome.
A horse track dating to the 1930s, Suffolk headed into the polls in Revere and East Boston without a casino partner. Track owners have pinned their hopes for expansion on expanded gambling for years.
The horse track's defeat boosts the prospects of Wynn Resorts, which hopes to develop the polluted site of a former Monsanto Chemical factory along the Mystic River in Everett.
Neither Wynn nor Foxwoods nor MGM has received a suitability determination from the gaming commission, a step they will need to clear to become finalists. After Caesars withdrew, Suffolk received a positive suitability determination, as had Mohegan Sun.
(Matt Murphy of the State House News Service contributed reporting.)
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