Editorial: Flaw In Slots-Approval Process
“Unreasonable haste is the direct road to error.” — Moliere
The detailed process to choose host communities and developers for the single slots parlor and up to three full-service casinos looked like a well- thought-out plan with a wise number of built-in checks and balances. However, watching the process unfold, especially around the selection of a slots parlor site, it has been anything but orderly, and more like pandemonium.
Next week, Leominster voters go to the polls to decide whether the city should be one of the three finalists for the slots site. The Leominster proposal appeared out of the blue in July after the developers, the Cordish Cos. of Baltimore, had received a cold shoulder from three other communities in the previous three months.
Leominster officials struck a deal on a dime, and now has their shotgun agreement going in front of voters, barely in advance of the state's Oct. 4 submission deadline. We feel the same as we did earlier this summer — that communities have been rushed into 11th-hour agreements, seeing millions of dollars in the offing, and being unable to cut the best deal, or remotely understand the full impact of this kind of large development. The state's well-intentioned process has gone awry on the slots parlor proposal, and they ought to rip it up and start all over again, giving potential host communities the time and resources to fully vet a decision that could affect their communities for decades.
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