Truth to Brian Lees

Dear Brian,

I miss the days when it was rumored that you used to ask "how much will it cost the taxpayers?" on the floor of the State Senate.

Slots/casinos are long-term economic drain. In your OpEd in the Globe you failed to mention the other side of the balance sheet...the costs.

Please see the lists of municipal impacts developed by the Western MA Casino Task Force. It is unfortunate that so many Springfield pols are not doing due diligence on this matter and have signed onto the big PAC campaign bandwagon without regard to the potential impacts. Have you considered the impacts on the courts? Where will the funds come from to mitigate additional problems?

Your OpEd also failed to articulate that the previously estimated billion dollars in gambling revenues that goes out of state has greatly diminished with the recession. Even if $700 million in gambling revenues left the Commonwealth only the Adjusted Net Gambling Revenues (ANGR) are taxed and "recaptured". Less than $90 million could be recaptured, the hit to the lottery is estimated at $80 million and we haven't even begun to disuss mitigation and the development of an additional government bureaucracy, The Gambling Regulatory Control Commission.

I hope you re-evaluate your position and math on these one-sided proposals. No one can validly state these proposals are good for the taxpayers. Only special interests groups, developers, owners and the pols that serve them benefit.

Small businesses, environment, public safety, infrastructure, education budgets and families suffer.

Regards,

Kathleen