Opinion

Editorial

And Then, There Were Two

Voters in West Springfield sent a loud, clear message on Sept. 10.
Not only did they become the first residents of a community to defeat a casino at a public referendum under the state’s casino law, they did so convincingly, with 55% of those who went to the polls saying ‘no’ to Hard Rock’s proposal to create a casino at the site of the Big E.
This outcome, and especially the margin of the defeat, was a surprise to many, but in hindsight, perhaps it should not have been. While West Springfield is not an affluent community, it does have more affluent neighborhoods than Springfield — and they are, by and large, less prone to support gaming facilities. Meanwhile, this community has displayed its resistance to change before, especially when it comes to traffic and convenience issues; it took several attempts to win support for a proposal to extend the Big E to its current 17 days.
Perhaps the defeat can be summed up best by one of the leaders of the opposition — Nathan Beech — who told the press that he believed the vote showed that the city simply never believed that it needed Hard Rock, the $18 million it pledged to give the community annually, and the thousands of jobs it would create.
Time will probably tell if the voters were right — those jobs will go somewhere in Western Mass., and perhaps just over the Memorial Bridge — but the West Springfield vote showed the merits of the casino legislation passed nearly two years ago. That measure gave individual communities the right to control what goes on within their borders, at least, and the voters in West Springfield took full advantage of that caveat.
And while we won’t back off our general philosophy when it comes to casinos — that, if someone wants to spend $800 million in your community, you let them — we’re inclined to think that the voters in West Side made the right decision.
Their vote means that the race for the Western Mass. casino license, which once featured four players and the possibility of others, is now down to two. Springfield endorsed MGM’s proposal to build a casino in the city’s South End early this past summer, and Palmer is set to vote on Nov. 5 on Mohegan’s Sun’s plans to build on a tract just off exit 8 of the Mass Pike; passage there is expected, and by a wide margin.
These are two communities where most residents do see a need for the dollars and jobs a casino would bring, and if Palmer votes as expected, it will set up an intriguing final chapter in the contest for the Western Mass. license.
Indeed, this will be a classic urban-versus-rural casino tussle that will give the members of the state’s Gaming Commission plenty to think about. Both proposals have merit, and, assuming all other things are equal, the commission will have to decide whether the best option for the Commonwealth is a casino in the middle of the state’s second-largest city — one that certainly needs an economic stimulus of some sort — or a more remote outpost that might better fit the term ‘resort casino.’
In the meantime, the West Springfield vote creates a stern challenge for the Big E, which considered a casino within its borders not only a tremendous revenue source that would ensure long-time economic survival, but a business partner of sorts, rather than a competitor potentially threatening its existence.
A casino in Palmer or, especially, one across the Connecticut River in Springfield, would certainly be considered the latter. So the focus must shift at the Big E, from being a landlord for a casino to somehow forging partnerships with the entity that wins the casino license to ensure the long-term viability of the Western Mass. landmark.
We hope they succeed in that mission because, while the Big E probably would not have been an effective location for a casino, in the minds of many, it remains a potent economic force in the region, and not just for those 17 days each fall when the fair dominates the landscape.