Saugerties village trustees say 'no' to casino

By Hallie Arnold , Freeman staff Daily Freeman June 7, 2005

SAUGERTIES - Village trustees Monday, by a 5-0 vote, rejected the location of a casino in Saugerties or anywhere in Ulster County, the first of several such votes scheduled in the region this week.
Village Mayor Robert Yerick said his opposition to a casino is not based solely on the extensive research he said he's done on the issue of casino gambling and its implications for communities like Saugerties, but on the overwhelming opposition of local residents to a proposal to build a casino on the Winston Farm in Saugerties.
"I went to corporation managers, CEO's, went to religious representatives and people on the street, and that was part of the input I used to draw up the resolution," he said.
The Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma has proposed a 1.2-million-square-foot casino resort with a million square feet of retail space, a 900-room hotel, an arena, convention center, and a 27-hole golf course at the Winston Farm, the site of the Woodstock '94 concert at the intersection of state Routes 212 and 32.
Prior to the board's vote, Yerick outlined his reasons for opposing casino gambling, which he said include an upswing in crime, stress on roads and bridges, additional costs to local schools, taxing the area's water supply and irreversibly changing the community.
"If we were to put a casino in the Winston Farm area or Ulster County ... Saugerties would no longer be Saugerties. It would just lose that much of its character," he said.
Trustees Richard Moore and Bill Murphy both said the crime rate increased dramatically in communities near Indian casinos. In Mystic, Conn., near both Foxwoods and the Mohegan Sun resorts, Moore said, many single-family homes have gone on the market because of a dramatic increase in home burglaries.
All five board members present backed the resolution opposing casino gambling, while two trustees, Susan Lee and Bruce Leighton, were absent. Besides rejecting the Seneca-Cayuga proposal, the measure asks the state and county Legislatures to respect home rule resolutions opposing casinos.
The Saugerties Town Board on Wednesday is scheduled to vote on a similar anti-casino resolution.
The Ulster County Legislature will tackle the issue on Thursday. A resolution calling for home rule to dictate whether or not the county negotiates with groups looking to build an Indian casino in the county is expected to be brought up for a vote, and a second resolution specifically opposing the Seneca-Cayuga proposal will also be offered should the Town Board pass its resolution Wednesday.
It's not clear what weight local resolutions will carry on the county, state, and national levels. At present, the approval of the host community or county is not required for the state to approve an Indian casino. However, a provision in legislation being considered by Gov. George Pataki would call for a county compact to precede state authorization.
Yerick said if project does go ahead as planned, the village is studying how much of the estimated one million gallons of water a day the casino will need can come from the village water system, and if the village is required to make that water available.
Several municipal boards in Ulster County have passed or are considering resolutions opposing casino gambling. The town boards of New Paltz, Woodstock, Shandaken and Marbletown have all adopted such measures, and the Kingston Common Council is likely to be next to take on the issue.

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