Slots in the city

Slots in Atlantic City. Baltimore Sun photo by Gene Sweeney Jr., Nov 11, 2004

I leave the hard work on fighting gambling in the city to Dorothy Brizill and themail. Clearly, my listing the other day of great ANC Commissioners neglected to include some of the people in Ward 8 who are organizing against the gaming proposal that proponents aim to plop in their community, Ahmad Braxton-Jones, Anthony Muhammad, Shanta Watson, and T'Chaka Sapp.

See these Post articles:
-- Opponents Say Slots Will Hurt Anacostia
-- D.C. Slots Canvassers Deployed

It's but one other example of "environmental justice" issues, where noxious uses of one sort or another are put into areas where people tend to be less organized and less politically connected. From a page on environmental justice from the Environmental Literacy Council:

Some observers asserted that local officials had been practicing a form of environmental racism, citing studies that hazardous waste treatment, storage, and disposal facilities are disproportionately located in areas occupied predominantly by minorities. Others argued that poor communities are often ill-represented in political circles and therefore are the easiest places to locate objectionable facilities. Eventually the EPA granted the permits for this waste disposal site, which brought nationwide protests.

(Note that one of the ways that I term what I do is working on issues of "Built Environmental Justice.")

I sent an email about training for historic preservationists to a list of HP people, and I received an email back from someone in Anacostia which said in part:

[we] are currently involved in trying to keep the Casino Slots out of our historic district. This [seminar you wrote about] is something we in Anacostia would enjoy learning about, but we are constantly fighting to just keep a quiet neighborhood. This slot machine thing has all of us worried. There has been talk of taking homes and removing stores, etc. crime and other headaches.

This is something I wrote today on an e-list, in response to a comment that the people fighting the referendum aren't willing to let democracy play out:

1. It isn't democratic to write a referendum in such a manner that if the referendum passes, the business that is created out of the change in the law is awarded to the writer of the referendum.

2. It's democratic if you write a referendum that legalizes gaming, and creates a process by which interested entities could bid, in an open and transparent process, for the privilege of running the operation.

3. It's democratic if you write the referendum in a manner that offers neighborhoods the option of having a casino located in their environs, rather than imposing it on them through the language of the referendum.

Because the process, twice, has been of the "it isn't democratic" persuasion, that's why it smells, and is fundamentally anti-democratic. The people involved are "dirty." At least in my opinion.

If the backers of the referendum would have done (2) and (3), I could criticize the project on the merits--that I believe gaming to not be in the best interest of the city in terms of neighborhood and economic development. I could vote against it. But I don't think that I would be able to challenge the "fairness" of the process.

Instead the backers violate the spirit and fairness of the democratic and referendum process. And violate the laws regulating how ballot signature campaigns are to be conducted.

Hence, their actions cannot be defended in any way. And it gives all the ammunition that opponents need to challenge this referendum, to disallow it from coming onto the ballot.

Index Keywords: gaming; civic-engagement