The "Stockbridge-Munsee Mohicans" ?
Just who are they ? Well, they are somebody Governor David Paterson cooked up to make a deal with to set up an Indian casino in the Catskills. It's an end of term deal designed to top Aqueduct for shady dealing.
Let me say it in the clearest of terms. If gaming is to be OK, the way to accomplish that is to amend the State Constitution to allow it. That means passing a measure in two consecutive terms of the Legislature and then submitting it to public referendum. Little too much democracy there, huh ?
Out attitude towards gaming is like so much else. Moral pangs of guilt, yet we carve out little exemptions if the government or its friends can profit.
Then we fund some advocacy and counseling groups to campaign against what the government is cashing in on. (Note the recent anti-smoking ads aimed at vendors who are being hosed by a license fee up to 50 times greater than it was three years ago.)
A few years ago, Jefferson County businessman Don Cole tried to gin up an Indian reservation near Alexandria Bay. It didn't fly, but the Catskills scheme is no less contrived.
Creating a massive casino in the Catskills run in conjunction with the government is another knife in the back of the privately run hospitality industry.
This crazy plan should be dropped by the new governor.
Catskills casino deal a bad bet - Times Union
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