Bellicose Bumpkin

Love that Rich
Last week, the Enterprise ran an article that gave initial local reaction to Governor Patrick’s opposition to the Mashpee Wampanoag casino being proposed for Middleboro Massachusetts. After giving the reaction by just one casino opponent, the Enterprises padded out the article with reaction from three pro-casino luminaries and applied a liberal sprinkling of anti-Indian insinuation.

That Rich Young is so smart. I feel honored to cut and paste his wisdom into this blog. Is there anything he can’t do.

Enterprise highlights alleged attacks on sovereignty
What struck me about this article, was the unusual consistency in the local pro-casino response. In addition to other arguments, they all seemed to view this as an attack on the Mashpee Wampanoag’s sovereignty. Somehow they see any opposition – even opposition that is codified into the land into trust process as an anti-Indian attack. This has been an ongoing theme in this “debate” that any opposition or discussion of impacts is immediately spun into a racist attack if possible.

If you believe the Enterprise, Deval might not only be the first black governor, he might be the first black racist governor.

Adam Bond Response

Brian P. Giovanoni

And speaking of Brian, he told me that he is neutral on the casino. I have to wonder why he is being solicited for pro-casino commentary or why in his capacity as CRAC head, he is having a public meeting in Raynham:

I would advise dropping the veneer of impartiality and just try to keep his pro-casino agenda from tainting the impact analysis he is charged with on CRAC.

Wayne Perkins

If I didn’t know any better, I would question the impartiality of this report. I will say that this article is going a bit over the top in the “attack on Indian sovereignty” department.

Rewriting the IGA with spin
There was one more thing in this article that requires comment. Lately Middleboro has been trying to rewrite history by saying that they’ve been looking out for the region all along and that surrounding towns will be taken care of in the state compact:

When I first read this I said “Where the heck does it say that”?.

I can only guess that Adam is referring to this clause in the Middleboro Mashpee IGA(that pays us less than half of a commercial facility)

I think that calling this a “seat at the table” is a wishful interpretation of the contract’s content. Does anyone for a minute think that Kerzner and Wohlman are going to let Middleboro sit in on the state compact negotiations and advocate for Lakeville or Plympton?

The sole intent of that clause was to throw us a frickin bone of hope that we could ask the state for the 2% of gaming revenues that we should have gotten in the final agreement. Did I mention that this agreement stinks?

Gimme a break!
If we do get a seat at the table – and we won’t – our first priority will be to get 2% of the net win. Running a distant second will be a perfuntary effort to get regional mitigation solely to diffuse the well-deserved criticism we are getting from area towns.