Wild Card
Casino ups ante to $600 million

by Andrea Barrist Stern Saugerties Times June 23 , 2005

Just as it appeared the Seneca Cayugas' and developer Thomas Wilmot's proposal for a Las Vegas-style casino at the 840-acre Winston Farm in Saugerties was on a losing streak in the wake of recent anti-casino votes by the Saugerties town and village boards and the Ulster County legislature, the developer has increased the stakes.
Last week Wilmot, head of the Rochester-based Wilmorite Property Management, LLC, offered Saugerties and Ulster County $600 million - to be paid in annual $30 million installments for 20 years - in exchange for hosting the casino. The developer's previous offer had been $15 million per year for seven years after which another seven-year contract would be renegotiated. In the new offer, Wilmot has proposed a breakdown of $2.8 million per year to the village, $12.2 million to the town and $15 million to the county.
In a hastily arranged visit last Thursday to the regularly scheduled Ulster County Development Corporation [UCDC] meeting - the press was not notified and the developer asked to be permitted to speak just a day or two before the session - Wilmot's representatives presented a new plan for what they have now named the "Saugerties Entertainment Resort." The proposal that Wilmot spokeswoman Gwenn Bellcourt described this week as "still a work in progress," calls for a $298 million resort that will include a Class III casino with 4,000 slot machines (almost twice the 2,523 slot machines at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas), roulette, poker tables and card games; a 900-room hotel with an indoor pool and spa; two 18-hole golf courses; a 2,000-seat theater; cross-country ski trails; tennis, racquetball and squash courts, walking trails and fishing. The facility would also feature a shopping mall, four restaurants, a show lounge and meeting and convention space as well as a museum to commemorate the 1969 and 1994 Woodstock Festivals.
The developer's informational package that was provided to the press early this week, including an economic impact study prepared for Wilmorite by Colorado gaming consultant Thomas Zitt, estimated the casino resort would create 3,052 direct jobs with annual salaries of $90 million. In addition, 2,142 indirect jobs with wages of $62 million would be generated as well as 1,243 direct construction jobs and 1,612 related construction jobs, according to the materials.
The developer further estimates the casino resort would generate $7.1 million in state sales tax and $7.5 million in local sales tax, a split based on the 8.25 percent sales tax that was reduced to 8 percent on June 1. (The county and state split the sales tax revenues with the county's share broken down based on the following formula: 85.5 percent to the county, 11.5 percent to the city of Kingston and 3 percent to the towns. That would mean Ulster County's 19 towns would share a little over $200,000.)
"We are asking [town, village and county officials] to consider this and then vote once they have the facts," said Bellcourt, an Albany attorney, who has been designated as the official spokesperson for the project. (To date, Wilmot and representatives of the Oklahoma-based Seneca-Cayuga have refused comment except for some early discussions between Saugerties Times and tribe spokesperson Scott Wood. At that time, several months ago, Wood denied the Seneca-Cayugas were interested in the Winston Farm for a casino.)
The new proposal also calls for 325,000 gallons of water use per day in place of an earlier amount of one million gallons per day that engineers for the developer had estimated at a meeting with Saugerties officials in early May. Parking has also been scaled down from 23,000 to 6,000 spaces, and plans for a 20,000-seat arena have been dropped from the current proposal. According to Bellcourt, any earlier plans for the casino resort that were announced prior to the June 16 UCDC meeting, were "preliminary and fact-finding."
The tribe is promising to abide by all village, local, state and federal laws - a key issue for communities hosting Native American gaming resorts because the so-called "trust" lands on which these casinos are built are considered sovereign. As such, they are beyond the civil and regulatory jurisdictions of the states where they are located. At the same time, the tribe is agreeing to pay property as well as state and local sales tax in the same amount any other commercial venture of similar value would pay for such an operation, another departure from normal Indian gaming practices.
"We welcome being a good corporate neighbor," said Bellcourt. "It would be no different than if a GM plant were moving in." She said the developer is waiting to learn "the town's feelings after they are fully informed." Wilmot didn't have to wait long for a response.

DISSED AND DISMISSED
Saugerties supervisor Greg Helsmoortel was disturbed that he had not been invited to the UCDC meeting to hear the presentation. Wilmot's representatives did not contact him about the new proposal until this week. He learned of the UCDC meeting on Thursday evening when a reporter from the Daily Freeman called him for comment. Daily Freeman publisher Ira Fusfeld is a member of the UCDC board and had been present at the meeting.
"I will get back to them and say the mayor [Bob Yerick] and I are not interested in sitting down and talking," said a clearly miffed Helsmoortel this week. "We made our decision and that's it."
Nor did No Saugerties Casino, Inc. waste any time in firing off an immediate response. "Apparently developers Thomas and Paul Wilmot thought if they threw a lot more money on the table, earmarked some for the cash-strapped county and some for Saugerties, and presented a slick hiker-friendly site plan that emphasizes music and entertainment and downplays the casino, the opposition that has taken hold in Saugerties and is spreading throughout the county would just fade away," attorney Lanny Walter and the Reverend Richard Rockwood, spokesmen for anti-casino group, wrote in a letter to the editors of Ulster Publishing's five newspapers. "The unanimous votes against a casino in the Saugerties town and village boards and the Ulster County legislature must have shocked the developers because they have swiftly repositioned themselves ...
"The developers would have us believe that they are going to reduce the size of the casino, while at the same time paying out millions more than initially offered to the county and thus reducing their profits. Not a chance. We believe the [developer's] original plan is very much in place, as evidenced by telling words about the project in the PR material ('As we conceive it today,' they write). Even if the smaller complex were to be built at first, what is to prevent the Seneca-Cayugas, as a sovereign nation, from enlarging it at will? Local, county, state, even federal officials would have no enforcement powers to stop it, no matter what problems it generated."

SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE
It proved to be a week full of surprises. In a display of legislative muscle, state senate majority leader Joe Bruno (R- Rensselaer County) said that he will not support governor George Pataki's recent proposal for a one-casino bill for Sullivan County that was to have settled the St. Regis Mohawks' land claim by awarding the Akwesasne Mohawks a casino at the former Kutcher's resort.
The state legislature approved a measure in 2001 calling for three casinos in Sullivan and Ulster County. Bruno said this week that he believes it makes the most sense to "get those casinos up and running so they can generate additional revenues for state and local governments and create jobs." Added Bruno in a press release, "It does not make sense to focus on only one casino and settle only the smallest of the land claims when we can address all the issues at once ... We have heard from some in Congress and other officials in Washington that the federal government wants these land claims settled all together and that the federal government may not approve a plan that only addresses one of the claims."
Bruno is expected to submit a three-casino bill within days to address the land claims of the Wisconsin Oneida and Stockbridge Munsees with gaming operations in addition to the Mohawk settlement. Bruno's son Kenneth is a lobbyist for the Wisconsin Oneidas, as is Scott Bonacic, son of state senator John Bonacic (R-C-Mt. Hope), who represents Ulster County. Bonacic has refused to support Pataki's one-casino bill because it does not include a provision for a community fund to pay for the costs of the casino's impact on the community. When he released his one-casino proposal recently, Pataki said that would come in separate legislation, a promise that did not satisfy Bonacic. Bonacic had also promised he would fight for a home rule provision requiring the approval of the host county in any casino bill that reaches the floor.
Asked whether there are any plans to submit legislation authorizing a casino for the Seneca Cayugas in exchange for settlement of their land claim, Bruno spokesman Mark Hansen said on Wednesday that the situation is "in flux" and the state senator's "bottom line" at present is approval of a three-casino bill only for the Wisconsin Oneidas, Stockbridge-Munsees and Akwesasne Mohawks.
Ulster County residents and local government officials will get a better look at the plans for the proposed casino as well as a deeper understanding of the impacts and benefits of casino gambling to a community at an informational forum on the subject to be hosted by UCDC at 9 a.m. on July 13 at Ulster Performing Arts Center in Kingston. UCDC has taken no position on gaming in Ulster County, according to the organization's executive director, Chester Straub.
Straub said the July 13 forum is "not intended to promote one side of the issue or the other." Panel members will include representatives of gaming organizations, and government officials from upstate New York, where the New York Oneidas' Turning Stone Casino is located, and Ledyard Connecticut, home of the Mashantucket Pequots' Foxwoods Casino, the largest casino in the world. Also on the panel will be representatives of anti-gambling organizations, and the forum will include a public comment period. The event is free and open to the public.

BACK TO THE GARDEN
The first page of the developer's promotional booklet states, "As we conceive it today, the heart of the resort will consist of a 2,000-seat, state-of-the-art theater and museum and cultural center that will commemorate the '69 and '94 Woodstock festivals." Is this somewhat disingenuous in view of the fact that the 2,000-seat theater in the current plan has replaced a 20,000-seat arena in the developer's earlier proposal in the wake of community opposition to the size and scope of the initial specifications? Wouldn't the casino be the "heart of the resort"?
"Ten percent of this resort is dedicated to gaming," said Bellcourt. "The rest is devoted to two championship golf courses, a 900-room hotel, four gourmet restaurants, a spa, hiking trails, the theater. It is going to be a family destination ... The Catskills are a beautiful area. It is an ideal location given our proposed site is right off the Thruway."
Bellcourt said that Woodstock-area concerns, including ecology and preservation, will be central to the project. She noted the developer will seek "Audubon Society recognition" for the resort's golf courses and added that the casino/resort building would be constructed based on the "highest ecological standards." Said Bellcourt, "We want to create a project that is in keeping with the ecology and lifestyle of the people of Ulster County." A man-made lake in front of the resort would be filled with water from the aquifer under Winston Farm, she said, noting the developer believes that a state environmental quality review will prove there is adequate water and stable soils at the site.
No Saugerties Casino's Lanny Walter pointed out that the Winston Farm is currently zoned for residential use. "It doesn't fit with our master plan or our town zoning," he said of the project. "The perception is it will change our community forever and no amount of money is worth that ... All of this is a front for a casino ... Our town is a real place with real people and real kids and we don't want to change it in this way ... If [the Seneca Cayugas] are sovereign, what is to keep them from expanding upward? It's a PR ploy ... Hopefully, they will not turn the Hudson Valley and greenway into a gambling destination.

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