Rev. Jesse Brown of MCA
In 2004, Pennsylvania legislated the expansion of gambling to slots parlors, without the benefit of a public debate, mandating two 3000 slots-sized casinos for Philadelphia, and appointing the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board to issue licenses.
That casinos are devastating to the communities in which they locate is pretty well known. They have brought nothing but economic stagnation to Atlantic City and Detroit, among other cities. Though roughly only 5% of the population is susceptible to gambling addiction, this group composes up to 50% of the casino customer base.
In Philadelphia, five potential locations were chosen without community input. The casinos planned for these sites are particularly worrisome for their vague designs, and the lack of answers to important questions such as traffic mitigation, the increase of crime in neighborhoods adjacent to the sites, the impact they may have on existing infrastructure, already under stress, and the fact that four out of five of the proposals place gigantic windowless buildings designed to keep customers inside them on the most beautiful stretch of real estate in the city, the Delaware Riverfront.
When Philadelphia first caught wind of what was being planned for their communities, the Multi-Community Alliance was a model for citizen organization. It was the only citizens group that was in negotiations for a community benefits agreement, while the river wards were being told by their Councilman, Frank DiCicco, to pipe down and wait to see which sites were selected before trying to work out such agreements.
The Multi-Community Alliance (MCA) is comprised of 26 civic organizations representing North Philadelphia neighborhoods impacted by the Trump casino proposal. The area within a mile of the site is 82% residential, according to Hallwatch statistics. Through MCA, Reverend Jesse Brown has tirelessly advocated for citizen engagement in the process on behalf of not just his own community, but for all Philadelphians. I asked Reverend Brown about the evolution of the Multi-Community Alliance.
How did you come to be fighting the casinos?
We had to unite on principle, because the problem is, how do you present yourself without saying a casino should be in one place or the other? You can’t. Like at the Convention Center (where the proposed casino designs- minus Trump’s- were first presented to the public at the end of May). What does DiCicco come out and say? Foxwoods is the worst site in the city, which immediately makes people think that there’s a good site. The communities didn’t have a choice. Since they’re not choosing, someone else is choosing, you have to fight for principles.
Can you give me some background on MCA? Did it come together just to fight Trump?
There were a number of groups already together looking at how what we now call the Trump site was going to be developed. There were a number of scenarios long before the casino idea. Upper Marion was parking school buses on the site. There was a deep desire on the part of all the neighborhoods involved to see that MCP Hospital remained open. So we were dealing with those issues before the casinos came along.
Michael O’Neil, who owns Preferred Realty, bought the property and started looking at how it could be developed and used. The community, particularly Ralph Wynder, who is the ward leader in that area, was working with Mr. O’Neil and looking at all the options. Some of those options included things like getting a grocery store, creating a shopping district, those kinds of things. Something that would make the neighborhood a little more attractive to somebody coming into the area. The people who lived there wanted to be part of its rise as a new neighborhood.
Well, we move down the line, and find out that Mr. O’Neil has been talking to Trump about the potential of the site for a casino. The initial reaction by a large part of the community was, well, let’s see what they’re talking about. Not yes, not no, but let’s hear the facts. Ralph Wynder held a number of meetings sponsored by the Multi-Community Alliance and we heard from Trump and the city. There were a number of town meetings, plus individual organizations that were part of the Alliance also held their own meetings and discussed the potential of the casinos and what the impact might be.
After a long series of meetings, and opportunities for all kinds of people to be heard, we surveyed our membership and asked for a vote. The overwhelming response, about 66% of our membership, was ‘no’ to a casino. At the same time, we made an unusual move in most people’s eyes. We realized that the decision-making mechanism was not us or Trump, but the Gaming Control Board, and that we needed to have control over whatever came, even if they were over our objections. So we set up two tracks: one was to create a negotiating team to talk with Trump and come up with a community benefits agreement, and the second group of us continued to reflect the sentiment of the community, which was ‘no’ to Trump. Now, some people looked at that and said, weren’t you fighting each other? No, not really. We just simply recognized reality. We were forced to deal with a dual reality. It’s not what we would choose. You simply have to play the game.
Now at this point, the Trump track has fallen apart. On the other hand, Trump is now going around group by group attempting to get them to sign an agreement individually. To date, the core groups of the Multi-Community Alliance have rejected the Trump community benefits agreement. There are two groups that went with Trump’s agreement, but most didn’t. It simple reflects what we had already discovered- that the vast majority of the community does not want the casino. So now we gear for the fight.
So basically Trump dropped all pretense of compromising with the community?
They want to dictate, to tell the community what they want. If you look at the new legislation passed by the Senate (and currently going on a roller coaster ride of revisions from the House and back to the Senate), SB862, it gives zoning rights, eminent domain rights, and acquiring properties by right to the Gaming Control Board on behalf of the casinos. All they have to say is, we want the adjacent property, and they can get it. So all our negotiating means nothing now if that bill is signed into legislation.
Because then they’ll have all kinds of protection given to them by the state.
And of course, that’s only Philadelphia. No other city in the state has to contend with this undermining of democracy. And it takes away what little authority the people have in the first place to control what happens in their own neighborhood. The whole idea of zoning is so neighborhoods can have a say. Now, we don’t have a say. In fact, they’re giving the control to somebody who doesn’t even live here.
And that’s a failure of leadership on the part of our State Senate, a failure of leadership on the part of our political appointees.That is an arrogance of power- in fact; it’s an abuse of power- to take away people’s right to help control their own neighborhoods. And then to do it only to Philadelphia is an affront to justice.
Now as communities without zoning authority we have no say about how traffic may be diverted around the casinos–
And they can abrogate the laws of the local community. For instance, now Philadelphia and Allegheny County have smoke-free ordinances. The Gaming Control Board has already written legislation that the casinos don’t have to follow the smoke-free laws.
And no doubt rewriting the liquor laws just for the casinos will follow.
We think it’s already there, for all practical purposes. They’re not going to keep them open 24 hours and not let them serve everything 24 hours. It’s playing games to say has it legally been done. We know where it’s heading. But what should gall people the most is that elected officials have decided that you’re not worth a darn. Your word means nothing. That they know best for your community and that you should keep your mouth shut. And not only that, they say, but we’re going to legally make sure that you can’t say anything and that you have no authority.
Now the last time I heard something like that, there was this little group of people and they were fighting King George.
What can people do?
Well, it’s not hopeless. The bar is raised high for us, as a community. We have to continue to organize and educate. All the groups involved have websites (MCA’s website), and we have blogs going so we can have discussion. Those things have to continue to build. You never stop inviting people to be a part, and to get educated and brought up to speed.
We need to bring everybody, not just here in Philadelphia, but all of Pennsylvania up to speed on this issue, so they understand the impact. All this revenue people think they will be getting from these things gets nullified real quickly when you start talking about the social issues casinos bring. And where you thought you were getting some money, well that money’s going to get spent, for instance, on a new division in your police force, not for the communities, but to make sure the prostitution that follows casinos doesn’t get out of hand. So we need to keep getting the message out there.
On Saturday, October 21st, starting at 11AM at the Trump site (more info), we’ll be doing a motorcade through the neighborhood to educate communities about the impact of casinos. There are hundreds of community meetings at any particular time in the city of Philadelphia. At any of these, people ought to take the opportunity to bring others up to speed on the issue. You can be certain that the casinos have hired their PR people and they’re meeting with everybody. And we need to use our community based newspapers to get the news out. They oftentimes put out better news on these issues than the biggies. So look out for the Germantown Courier, and the Sunday Sun. There are hundreds of small community newspapers.
We really need to challenge existing political authority, and we have to do it at all levels. Challenge them at election and before elections take place. Send people home that are not representing the interests of your community and neighborhoods. You’ve got to elect people who will serve the interests of your neighborhood and not simply be bought off by whatever comes down the pike. We simply have to change the political leadership and alter the political landscape.
We have not seen the undermining of democracy to a level that we’re seeing it now. Where literally it doesn’t matter what you say, it matters what the people in power say, and they maintain themselves in power by controlling the process, and we watch them, incrementally, get a stranglehold on that process. Remember when they wanted to eliminate campaign signs around town? Which of course gives a clear advantage to those already in power. But everybody else who doesn’t have access to it, how do you get access to it? Unless you go begging those already in place to let you in. But that’s not how it’s supposed to work. That kind of unchecked power proves the axiom, “absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
And we’ve seen that now with Senate bill 862. With casinos coming in at the midnight hour. With the imposition of the pay raise. Here you have legislators who already have a way in which to get pay raises, who refuse to use it because they don’t want to wait any longer. They want to enrich themselves now. And they undermine their own process that’s already in place. That’s arrogance for you. And then they don’t expect people to rebel. That’s arrogance. So we’re watching a system that’s out of control. And the only way it’s going to be back in control is if the community takes the power itself, it demands it. And when we put new people in power, we have to make sure that a critical mass gets there, so that the authority is placed back into the hands of the community. That’s going to be difficult because people who have power aren’t so willing to give it up. But there’s got to be 50 would-be Senators in the state of Pennsylvania with integrity. There’s got to be. We’ve just got to find them. We don’t even need 50, we need 26!
That’s a long-term issue, but not as long-term as people think. Since we have an election cycle every six months, every November and every spring, you have an opportunity to affect that every time. This issue is not going to go away tomorrow. It will be here. If the casinos come, it will even be here longer. We will then create an addiction for the city and the state to the money of the casinos. Getting them out will be far more difficult than it is to keep them out now.
Find out more about the Multi-Community Alliance at their website.
For further information about the impact of casinos on Philadelphia read:
Casinos, Development and the Boardwalk of Dreams
Casinos and Small Business (on GCJ)
Neighborhoods Allied for the Best Riverfront (NABR)
Hallwatch’s Casino Info
PhillyIMC’s Casino Page
