As you may or may not know, there is gambling proposed for quite nearby in Upper Merion. Quite frankly,we don't know much. We are posting this one letter received as a neighborly courtesy,and if the sender in the future would like his letters posted, we encourage him to register for a free account and post his thoughts. If this is a group, we assume they will eventually have a website? If any of you out there have thoughts on this topic, please weigh in. Please note, we have carried articles about slots in the past in the realm of "current events and regional news". Dunno...just seems there is something seedy and problematic about gambling, eh?
Here is the letter, and directly below this is what we can find on the web that is relatively current:
Please note this copy of our letter filed with the PGCB this week. Please forward to all interested parties and feel free to contact me with any questions.
SOUTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA
CITIZENS AGAINST GAMING
Att: Jim Schneller
500 East Lancaster Avenue #111d Radnor, PA 19087
610-688-9471
July 8, 2008
Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board
PO Box 69060
Harrisburg, PA 17106
To the Board:
We, the above named citizens and all relevant citizens of the Valley Forge region, oppose the application for a license for a gaming facility in the Valley Forge Convention Center in Upper Merion Township, Montgomery County, and we oppose any further efforts to place gaming facilities of any sort anywhere in Southeastern Pennsylvania.
The proposed facility for Upper Merion Township would negatively affect a highly populated region including an inner ring composed of Upper Merion, Conshohocken, Norristown, Audubon, Oaks, Wayne, Bridgeport, Chesterbrook, Paoli, Berwyn, Villanova, Bryn Mawr, Ardmore, Malvern, Exton, Lionville, Kimberton, and Phoenixville.
Our request is based on the opinions of the majority of residents, and a consensus of church, ministry, and congregation leaders, in these and in the next concentric layer of townships and communities of the area. Residents are concerned about the bad effects of an adjacent gambling facility, and deny any recent acclamation towards localized gambling, nor acclamation towards gambling in our region and State. The reasons for this concern are clear: There are proven negative effects of any regional gambling facility, on family life, and on the integrity of young adults, and there is a strong, unwholesome message implicity sent to citizens through the installation of such a facility, that gambling is correct, and worthy of standing as legitimate neighborhood entertainment, no matter the effects. These and related harms to the community are an affront to all Pennsylvania children, and their parents. Gambling is being routinely recharacterized in the United States as legitimate activity, and the internet gambling industry is the silent co-partner which seeks to infuse this into every home, and into every youthful, impressionable mind. This does not make local and regional gambling acceptable.
We are further concerned because gambling is being promoted as acceptable entertainment and even an everyday escape, despite it's ill effects on principles of responsible and moral spending, especially as harmful to young adults, and to the children who will form our next generation. Family values and responsible community planning are the norms to which we are accustomed, and are the objective of those who founded this State and Nation.
Beyond the known illnesses and ripple effect of them on family members, associates, and the community, gambling is also known to work against general community principles of frugality and responsible and moral spending. Youth is, by way of an irresponsible media, now encouraged to live on credit, and to spend on frivolity, causing indebtedness and materialism to stand directly in the way of family-positive goals. This purported lifestyle that is purportedly a worthwhile choice is being enormously upgraded by the efforts of online purveyors of gambling. The entire populace is inundated with this category of entertainment while family-positive goals, and religion, fall victim to such new lifestyles. The coexistence of decency, religion and fruitfulness is, including up to present, the norm to which we are accustomed, and was the objective of those who founded this State and Nation. Thus the efforts to introduce gaming have a strong connotation of outside forces seeking intrusion, far beyond the out of state applicants for gaming licenses. We object to this intrusion and do not find it to be the welcome addition that some are attempting to portray it. We agree with and incorporate herein the abundance of evidence presented in hearings before the Board to date regarding gambling ill effects on the community and gambling disorders that destroy lives, and ripple effect and demoralize.
The next set of effects to which we object, are being falsely portrayed as workable, worthy, and/or unavoidable side effects, of what we believe is gambling intrusion. These are : traffic, crime, parking woes, a new level of commuters, increased pollution, and decreased comfort level for all of us residents. We agree with the overwhelming facts that have been submitted to the Board in this regard in the hearings on applications to date in this Commonwealth. For instance, the fact that the Convention Center is near cloverleaf interchanges and is thus assumed to create negligible effects on residents' driving comfort, is unfathomable. Traffic in this region is near saturation. Residents will be subjected to volume of great proportions at numerous crowded times of day solely for the benefit of the casino. The revenues generated will quickly be eaten into by needs to remedy congestion, crime, and overuse of roads. The new mega-center now being built looms as stultifying and possibly catastrophic to this scenario. The real estate agents will be instructed to tout the gambling as a feature of the region, which will attract a less desirable population overall to the new complex and to the region. We cannot turn away from prostitution that is likely, and we plead with you not to victimize our region with this and the recent surge in underage prostitution, that disgraces the metropolitan areas of our Country.
The short term financial gain for the township and nearby businesses will not be permanent. Gain, in fact, will not even exist for the next door communities of Norristown, and Radnor, Tredyffrin, and Lower Providence Townships, and loss from traffic and environmental issues will occur. We object to the acceptance of applicant's proposal and presentation as being wholly financial in scope, leaving the entire defense of family values, community decency and way of life, and comfort of drivers, to those residents having time to attend the hearing, which in fact was scheduled in the daytime. We object that the procedure requiring filing an application to speak, and being limited to comments of short duration, is a denial of due process. Attendees opposing the application were not given any opportunity to hear responses to their objections nor to cross examine. This is heightened by the failure of the statutes to provide for counter-experts, organized perhaps by a master or township czar on the matter. This milieu has inflicted an unequal protection to the applicants at the expense of the rights of the residents.
We object to the presence of gambling, and the unwholesome message implicity sent to citizens through the installation of a gambling facility, and the promotion of gambling as worthy community entertainment. These and the related harms to the community are an affront to the community and to the churchgoing populace. We implore your adherence to the law of the Commonwealth in all pertinent sections including the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code as is apparently required of you to a considerable extent, and deny the application, so as to allow this region our pride in family values and stablity rather than increased crime and corruption, and deny any applications for this unnecessary addition to our region.
Leaps into everpresent gambling may create financial windfalls for the Commonwealth and Upper Merion township, and Philadelphia, but such revenues will quickly become accustomed to and budget problems again loom in the short or medium term, due to the nature of our democracy. In the process, the gambling business will have attached itself to the Commonwealth, and will stand little chance of being removed, due to dependance on the additional cash flow. The casino operators are well aware of this fact and, to our knowledge, were instrumental in attaining the expediting aspect of the Act, so that once the licenses are issued, the licensees' irreversible profit would be insured endless approval. Like the real story behind the fantastical field of dreams, the dream factory didn’t mention that the dream is impossible, carrying with it in reality traffic and worry, distress, breakdown of community bonds, encouragement of less favorable lifestyles, and comprimising of values, right in the neighborhood.
We claim that the circumstances of Atlantic City, New Jersey, are a valuable scenario which has made sense and prevented addiction and teen abuse. The casinos are 150 miles or more from the metropoli. This has lent an appealing resort feel to the attractions. Casino operators and now our legislators have now molded the word "resort" into a restaurant with a casino. The allure of this arrangement is negligible, and will be supplanted with efforts at advertising which will drive an additional, irresponsible nail into the traditional and timeless family life and means of raising offspring, which we seek to continue.
In the same urgent manner, we claim that the Act in legalizing gambling and, in transgressing the intent of the founders, and the Pennsylvania Constitution, specifically Article I Sections 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 25, 26, and 27, Article II Sections 31, and Article V Section 2, that the Act be suspended pending amendment of the Constitution by addition of an Amendment which formally legalizes gambling into the Commonwealth and sets forth the foundational tenets and limits of said legalization. We claim additional reasons for unconstitutionality of the Act and of the Regulations promulgated thereunder.
Because of the time of year and the expedited and quiet manner in which the application was handled, we request an extension of time to submit additional letters and petitions regarding our opposition. We request leave to file a brief in this matter within a short time of this letter.
James D. Schneller, Partner
Southeastern Pennsylvania Citizens Against Gaming
cc: American Family Association, Boy Scouts of America, Cradle of Liberty Council, Girl Scouts of Southeastern Pennsylvania, Boy Scouts of America, Chester County Council, Representative Connie Williams, Representative William Adolph, Montgomery County Commissioners' Office, Chester County Commissioners' Office, Delaware County Commissioners' Office, Norristown City Council, Radnor Township Board of Commissioners, Tredyffrin Township Board of Commissioners, Lower Providence Board of Commissioners, Schuylkill Township Board of Commissioners, Conshohocken Borough Council, Casino Free Lancaster County, Casino Free Philadelphia, Delaware River Neighborhood Alliance (DRNA), Fishtown Against Sugarhouse Takeover, Concerned Neighbors of Greater Germantown Inc., Strawberry Mansion CDC, Hollow Community Center, Neighbors Allied for the Best Riverfront, Riverfront Communities United, Pennsport Civic Association/Riverfront Communities United, Whitman Council, Mothers Against Sugarhill, Pennsport Civic Association, Queen Village Neighbors Association , Society Hill Civic Association, Passyunk Square Civic Association, Bella Vista United Civic Association, Hawthorne Empowerment Coalition, Save-The-Hill, Somerset County Conservancy
Oppose gaming license for Valley Forge Convention Center
Upper Merion residents are being asked if they are agreeable to the Valley Forge Convention Center being issued a license to operate a 500 slot-machine parlor in their facility. Proposals and presentations carefully use this scenario. However, what is really being proposed is that the Valley Forge Convention Center be granted a PA Resort Casino Category 2 license.
The Harrisburg representative at the special morning meeting (May 3) of the Upper Merion supervisors indicated that the state has done a market research on locating gaming sites and that the premier site in the entire state for gambling is King of Prussia.
When asked by Supervisor Bartlett if there was any guarantee that the Category 2 license would not be changed, the representative indicated that the legislators can add more slot machines, add gaming tables and do whatever they want. The license will not limit future expansion of the gambling operation to just a 500 slot-machine parlor. As evidence (Inquirer, June 8, 2008): “Pennsylvania hasn’t opened all of the 14 slots parlors it has authorized, but House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese is promoting a bill to also allow poker, blackjack, roulette and dice games. It’s all for the good of the state, he says…”
Upper Merion is both strategically located and historically unique such that companies wish to locate in the township. As a result, it has one of the lowest residential tax rates. Traffic congestion is its one major problem. Residents and companies maintain their properties making the township a “good place to live, work and worship” as the township sign indicates to entering motorists. Let’s not let it become the “Casino Capital of Pennsylvania.”
Traffic on North Gulph Road, 202, 422 and connecting roads is already overloaded during peak periods and the impact of the high-density commercial golf-course development across from the Convention Center has yet to be felt. When completed, this 125-acre site is to include a mega-lifestyle center, two new hotels, high-end retail, signature restaurants, entertainment, residential housing and office space. Upper Merion Township contended in its legal opposition to the golf-course development that its traffic could not be adequately accommodated on these primary roads and their connecting roadways.
Upper Merion residents, you have the opportunity to complete a comment sheet (available at the Upper Merion Library) objecting to the issuance of the proposed licensing of a slot-machine parlor in the Valley Forge Convention Center.
Residents of adjoining Tredyffrin and Radnor townships, you will experience the traffic problems and casino environmental effects without the economic benefits promised to Upper Merion.
Call and inform your township supervisor/commissioner and express your objection to the license.
George Haverly
Gulph Mills
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