By Michael Kaufman

As local government officials throughout our region slobber, beg, and otherwise outdo themselves groveling in hope of landing a casino in their midst, area residents have few objective sources for information. Competition among the various bidders has been an advertising bonanza for local media outlets, which have tended to extol the benefits (even the “indirect benefits” to neighboring communities such as, say, Greenwood Lake and Warwick) and pay little, if any, attention to the potential negative effects. Too bad the developers are not required to include in their advertisements the same sort of warnings required of pharmaceutical companies when advertising their wares. At least a fellow with “low-T” or a flaccid penis, for example, can weigh the pros and cons of seeking a prescription if he listens closely to the staccato recitation of potential side effects at the end of the commercial or reads the fine print below the newspaper ad.

Negative publicity about any of the casino proposals thus far seems mainly to have been generated by the competitors themselves. Witness Orange County’s current legal counsel Langdon Chapman’s hatchet job on his former employer, Ulster County. (Chapman was at his sleazy best again this week as he joined Orange County Executive Steve “Pinocchio” Neuhaus in an ill-advised attempt to smear Judge Elaine Slobod because of her ruling about Valley View. But that’s a whole ‘nother story.)  

Earlier this week Town of Tuxedo officials gave their approval to one of the most odious of the casino proposals—Genting’s plan to erect a Las Vegas style luxury resort casino hotel in Sterling Forest. Genting has outspent the competition in advertising as well as in goodwill gestures designed to generate local popular support. It’s “no strings attached” donation of hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Tuxedo public schools was a public relations coup.  

Brushed aside were objections such as those made by James Hall, Executive Director of the Palisades Interstate Parks Commission (PIPC), whose letter to Tuxedo Town Supervisor Mike Rost was posted online by the Tuxedo Park FYI website June 16. Hall said he has “significant concerns regarding this proposal and potential impacts on our park land and critical natural resources we are charged to protect.

“Of most critical concern are the potential impacts on the water resources which were among the primary purposes that Sterling Forest was preserved under the unique partnership of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, the National Park Service, the State of New York, the State of New Jersey and many not for profit organizations. I am specifically concerned about how such a development will obtain its water supply and depose of wastewater and how such actions may impact park property, its water and other significant ecological resources.”

Although the plans include a promise to develop a new exit (15b) off the New York State Thruway, Hall noted that “such a plan would require the acquisition of park property. No one has approached the Commission regarding this issue and the Commission does not support such an acquisition and such a conveyance is not authorized under our Federal Congressional Compact.” (Genting has since responded, saying it is willing to work with all interested parties and will pay for everything so there is no need to worry.)           

“Given the extremely limited information and preliminary nature of the proposal,” Hall continued, “I do not support the proposed plan and likewise feel it is inappropriate and premature for the Town to endorse such a massive project without a better understanding of the associated impacts and whether critical components such as exit 15b are even legally practical considerations underpinning the proposal, not to mention completely unknown impacts of the critical water resources of the area….

“The Commission’s properties are a significant asset of the Town,” concluded Hall, “providing significant tax payment in exchange for few services. I hope that the Town will take these concerns seriously as you make this critical decision regarding community support of the project.”

But last week, consultants hired by the town (with money generously donated by Genting) presented a rosy report citing the many positive impacts they predict will be forthcoming. The “significant tax payment” by the PIPC seems a mere pittance compared to all the goodies promised by Genting, along with some fine print that has yet to be revealed.

For more on the subject, including the full text of Hall’s letter, visit the Tuxedo Park FYI website.

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Patrick Gallagher

Twenty years ago, local heroes “saved Sterling Forest” from imminent death by development. A coalition of local individuals, multi- state agencies and a community of environmentalists at large fought off development of one of the last bits of wilderness this far south in the state of New York.

Among the convincing facts that turned heads and made sense were studies showing that not just the site of the commercial, residential, or industrial development would be affected, but that the access roads and fringes of developed parts of forests created impacts deep into the woods from the edges of the development.

The larger the development, the deeper the impact on species, flora, fauna, etc., because air, water and noise and light pollution levels are all pushed beyond their new surfaces and platforms as you introduce asphalt, diesel fuel, auto emissions, lights, sewage and other previously absent effluents to an eco system.

This is all pretty straightforward and commonly accepted.

Environmental impact statements were introduced years ago in an effort to model and measure what happens when you bring these man made elements and dubious efficiencies where they have not been before.

Certainly an E.I.S. can be helpful to one degree or another and they are absolutely essential given the reality that development will occur sometimes in some places, but there are places where it should not occur. And one is in our local forest.

Short term with enough public relations and subtle interpretation of scientific nuance, you may be able to present a somewhat favorable case that 5 million visitors a year to a former forest would be OK, but just a few miles away we have lots of sites and cities that say otherwise. Right down the road in the same town there are vents sticking out of a former dump that was poorly managed.

Right up the road is the old Nepera site.

Penaluna Road may ring a bell for Superfund watchers. The Orange County Landfill comes to mind. Chances are you could see them all on a clear day from the hills above the hideous ozone sink at exit 16 onthe Thruway..

Granted, these were allowed to grow and fester in days gone by with less regulation than we have now (or maybe not), but does anyone really think that we have come so far in our conservation and waste management techniques that the impact of 5 million visitors can be effectively managed in the midst of a rush to short-term and questionable community benefits?

Do we really want to invite Gentinstein to fund and build a new exit off the Thruway right into the heart of the area’s biggest self-sustaining clean air and water factory?

Do they need to be lurching around in Sterling Forest howling about building parks and easing local tax burdens supported by a giant pack of barking PR hacks tossing cash out of sacks of money?

This may be one of those rare moments when noisy geese and slippery droppings would be more desirable neighbors.

There is no waste in nature. Everything gets recycled in natural systems. The house (read Earth) always wins in this regard. Everything returns to the earth and is reused.

Since we are considering a casino in a forest, let us just briefly consider containing it as if could be a very clean capsule with minimal impact — which is what most people would want anyhow — and since it would sound great for public relations put the whole thing into a biosphere. Make it out of glass so we can count on transparency. and people outside the operation can see and quantify conditions inside.

Allow for a certain amount of water, a certain amount of air, the opportunity to grow the necessary food and whatever they think they need to manufacture and survive as fully functioning competitor for Foxwoods or Atlantic City. Every system has limits, but give them what they need to do the job if they are careful.

Let in the good elements, let in the less desirable, let in some drug, alcohol and gambling counselors, get the stockholders and short-term beneficiaries in there and close the door for a few years. They can have as many visitors as they want, but it has to function as a biosphere and an ecosystem to stay in business and the promoters and stakeholders gotta stay inside. It’ll be just like the real environment or the real spaceship earth but smaller, and when you run out of clean air and water and society breaks down there would be actual witnesses to the deterioration of the endangered species in the rapidly degrading environment.

Reality show possibilities abound.

Like the Irish might say. UP THE ANTE!

Patrick Gallagher lives in Warwick

By Michael Kaufman

By the time anyone is finished trying to unravel the seemingly endless tangled web of deceit involved, it seems nearly certain that Orange County will soon be home to a lavish, world-class casino resort hotel.  The only question is where it will be built, and some of the options are frightening. Meanwhile, the folks in Sullivan County, who had high hopes that construction of one—or even two—casinos would revitalize that county’s flagging tourism business, are still scratching their heads like someone who’s been sucker punched and is just starting to wonder what the heck happened.

Ulster County officials, who support a proposal for a casino at the Nevele Hotel site in Ellenville, are still reeling from what they regard as a betrayal by Langdon Chapman, who was legislative attorney for the county in 2012 and 2013. In that role he helped draft at least one resolution adopted by the county legislature in support of the Nevele casino bid. Chapman has been singing a different tune, however, since January when he was appointed Orange County Attorney by County Executive Steve Neuhaus (who knows a thing or two about betrayal of the public trust). Chapman recently told the Woodstock Times there is “not a chance” the Nevele proposal will be successful:  “Look at it from a businessman’s point of view.” This led Ulster’s current legislative attorney, the interestingly named Cappy Weiner, to fire off a letter to Chapman saying his comments were “inappropriate and a violation of your duty to a former client.”  Weiner also insisted that “no further comments be made contrary to the interest of the Ulster County Legislature.”

Chances of the Nevele getting a casino have also been undercut in recent weeks by a sensational report in the May 1 edition of Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post that Michael Treanor, head of the Nevele investors’ group, had been accused in a lawsuit of sexually assaulting his sister. (The report would have been even more sensational if the alleged assault had not occurred in 2008 and the lawsuit had not been settled in 2009.) Treanor told the Woodstock Times he believes Chapman is responsible for leaking the sex abuse allegations to the Post because of Treanor’s longtime opposition to Orange County being considered as a potential site for casinos. Chapman denies he was the source. (Personally, I wouldn’t buy a used car from either Treanor or Chapman.)

Chapman has long had a close working relationship with the power-wielding (and constantly sending self-serving junk mail about himself) Republican State Senator John Bonacic, whose district includes all or parts of Delaware, Sullivan, Orange, and Ulster Counties. Bonacic had been an outspoken supporter of Sullivan County as a casino site but his more recent statements on the subject have been equivocal.

Chapman is also a partner in the Warwick-based law practice headed by Bonacic’s son Scott and Robert Krahulik, who was recently forced to resign from his post as chair of the Orange County Republican Committee because of some alleged Weiner-like (Anthony not Cappy) internet behavior.  And Chapman plays a major role in determining who gets to run for office on the Independence Party line in the Hudson Valley (another topic that warrants further discussion). He is also likely to have been involved in the stealth campaign that subverted Democrat Roxanne Donnery’s bid to obtain the Working Families Party line on the ballot in last year’s election for Orange County Executive, which Republican Neuhaus won handily with the endorsement of the Independence Party. (Bonacic, Krahulik and Associates, LLP, is no stranger to successful stealth campaigns, as former Warwick Village Justice Richard Farina can attest.)

Meanwhile, the potential casino developers are tripping over themselves to show how civic minded they are and how wonderful it will be if we are fortunate enough to have them build near us. Genting, the Malaysian-based gambling giant that hopes to befoul Sterling Forest, just made a “no-strings attached” donation of $340,000 to the Tuxedo public schools to prevent substantial cuts in programs that would have been necessary as a result of the outcome of the May 20 school budget vote. As reported by Gittel Evangelist in the Times Herald-Record, “District officials stressed their acceptance of the ‘gift toward education’ was not an approval of the proposed casino.” Does this sound too good to be true?

The Record also reports that both the Town and City of Newburgh have endorsed the Hudson Valley Casino Resort proposal made by Saratoga Casino and Raceway. The town hopes to receive an annual host community fee of $6.8 million, of which $1.02 million (15 percent) would  go to the city to use as it pleases. “I don’t think it’s enough,” said City Councilwoman Genie Abrams. “But we’ll take the $1 million per year.” Of course it is not enough. And it is they who are being taken. The proposed developer is the group that already operates a quasi-casino with slot machines at the Saratoga harness track. Voters in Saratoga County and the Village of Saratoga Springs voted overwhelmingly against having them put a Las Vegas-style casino in their midst. The news doesn’t seem to have reached Newburgh, however. That reminds me: Empire Resorts, which has already established an abysmal track record at Monticello Raceway, is one of the bidders for a casino to be built on the grounds of the old Concord Hotel. Theirs has to be considered one of the longest shots on the board, in a dead heat with Louis Cappelli, who has been promising to build on another piece of the Concord property for so long that few continue to take him seriously.

Sullivan County has indeed been sucker punched. And we in Orange are being played for suckers, and not just by the would-be casino developers. As Neuhaus and his cronies continue to rush privatization of the Valley View Center for Nursing Care and Rehabilitation, news comes that Valley View is scheduled to receive more than $4 million in federal aid than it received last year….but only if it remains publicly owned. The argument for privatization gets weaker by the day. Citizens for Valley View will hold a rally on Sunday, June 8, at 2 p.m. at Goshen Green. For more information visit Facebook.com/CFVVC.  Be there if you can.

And isn’t it time for those of us who live in Tuxedo, Greenwood Lake, and Warwick, to  raise our voices to save Sterling Forest?

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Jeffrey Page

— A gaming corporation says that part of its proposal for a casino in Sterling Forest would be the construction – at its own expense – of Thruway Exit 15B about halfway between the New Jersey state line and Harriman, the Times Herald-Record reported this week.

— The impact of such construction on Harriman State Park would be significant. In fact, Exit 15B arose as an issue about 20 years ago and most people understood that such a project would probably force the state to widen Route 17A, whose hilliness and narrowness just west of the Thruway are what keeps Warwick and some other towns as rural as they’ve remained. Expand Route 17A and kiss Warwick’s charm goodbye.

— The Times Herald-Record said that such a casino would create 2,000 jobs. But the paper didn’t differentiate between construction jobs and permanent staff positions. On the matter of permanent jobs, the paper says nothing about the number of croupiers and chambermaids – never known to be career-starting positions – who are included in that group of 2,000.

— Something else I haven’t seen – maybe I missed it – is a serious investigation into what casino gambling has cost other host municipalities. Supporters frequently talk up gaming’s positive effect on property taxes. But I wonder how much in new expenses is added to municipal budgets – and, of course, to local taxes – as a result of casino gambling. This would include such costs as additional police officers, more assistant prosecutors, and more social services and public assistance caseworkers.

— Have there been any studies on the possible increase in prostitution and drug use?

— It is not unreasonable to assume that local traffic would be nightmarish.

— Does the value of your home go up because more people want to move close to the casino for fun and/or jobs? Or does it decrease because of the very existence of a casino just minutes away?

— I can’t be the only one to understand that there’s no quiet time when it comes to casinos. The longer the house stays open, the more of your money it can squeeze out of you. The roulette wheels never stop turning, the dice never stop being tossed, the blackjack decks never stop being shuffled.

— Sure, placing a pile of chips on No. 9 at the roulette wheel is a lot of fun and might even give you a snazzy return. But who was the last person you know personally who played at the blackjack table and went home significantly richer?

— Question: Does anyone living in southern Orange County really wish to have a casino just down the road?

— Finally, we should remember that Sterling Forest is both a water source for 2 million people in northern New Jersey as well as a pristine New York state park of 22,000 acres. When Sterling Forest was saved from large scale development nearly 20 years ago, when it was in private hands, it was the complicated result of two states working together even including New Jersey’s buying a small tract in New York’s forest. It was understood that New Jersey needed its water and we needed our park.