I received the following recording tonight while on the phone with a friend. Automated Recorded message stated:
There are 23 Indian Owned Casino’s in Michigan and now they are trying to get an OFF RESERVATION one built….ETC……..
Only wish I had listened to the rest of message. Was talking to a fellow Horse Women when this call came in. Very ironic considering we were talking about Pinnacle Race Course at that Precise moment. And the fact that the HBPA site had to remove information about selling portion of Pinnacle’s land to the Indians.
JERRY CAMPBELL SPEAKS TO HBPA BOARD: Comments removed, per request by Lisa Campbell, additional information will come in a “press release”. 5/17
And we wondered?????
But I came across this article, so I believe the automated message I received had something to do with Fruitport, Mi.
If only I could of responded to the recording and had it been heard. It would of said F**K YOU!!!!
So I anticipate everybody in Michigan will be attempted to be contacted with this bull.
Casino opponents says proposals to expand gambling are bad policy
By Dave Alexander | Muskegon Chronicle
May 18, 2010, 9:31PM
A diverse group of opponents are asking Michigan citizens not to sign petitions that would put casino expansion proposals on the November ballot. One of those proposals specifically names Muskegon.
The Protect MI Vote coalition of casino opponents and current casino operators say the proposal to allow casinos at the state’s five horse racing tracks, and another proposal to allow casinos in seven communities including Muskegon are bad public policies.
The ballot language approved for the Racing to Save Michigan and Michigan Is Yours organizations have nothing to do with the attempts by the Little River Band Ottawa Indians in Manistee to get an off-reservation casino in Fruitport Township on the former Great Lakes Downs property.
The Little River Band plans are for an Indian casino, which in Fruitport’s case needs the approval of the Michigan Legislature and secretary of the U.S. Interior Department. The two ballot proposals to change the Michigan constitution would be for corporate casinos like the three operating in Detroit.
Already receiving approval for their ballot language, the casino expansion proposal groups have until July 5 to secure more than 380,000 valid state voter signatures to be on the Nov. 2 general election ballot.
The Michigan Is Yours ballot proposal would put in the state constitution the ability of a company called My-Casino Inc. to establish casinos in each of seven cities — Muskegon, Lansing, Detroit, Benton Harbor, Flint, Port Huron and at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
The state’s five remaining horse racetrack interests have a similar ballot proposal to establish a casino at their venues and in three other unnamed communities.
Both ballot proposals overturn the Michigan voters wishes in 2004 when the state constitution was amended to mandate a statewide and local community vote if new corporate casinos were to be established. The two new proposals do not require voter approval at the local level where casinos would be built.
“Any responsible voter should look at the two ballot proposals’ language and be concerned if not outraged,” said Jim Nye, spokesman for the Protect MI Vote opposition group.
Nye said Protect MI Vote is a coalition of anti-gambling social conservatives, local chambers of commerce, the Michigan Deputy Sheriff’s Association, several state Indian tribes with casinos in operation and the MGM Casino in Detroit.
“Our interest is primarily economic,” Nye said of Protect MI Vote’s inclusion of Indian and corporate casino interests. “But that doesn’t take away from the fact that these ballot petitions are flawed and should not be supported. Michigan cannot absorb (13) more casinos and have it benefit the state.”
Specifically, the ballot proposals do not require local voter approval for a new casino and do not specify how the tax revenues the casinos would generate would be spent. Each casino’s public revenues must support local law enforcement and public infrastructure, according to Larry Orlowski, head of the 4,500-member Deputy Sheriff’s Association of Michigan.
In the case of the Michigan Is Yours proposal, the state would be forced to provide an unknown corporation with seven casino licenses without background checks, Nye said. C-My Casino Inc. of Warren, Mich. was established by a Southeast Michigan attorney and has been associated with former Detroit Lions football star Billy Sims.
E-mail Dave Alexander at dalexander@muskegonchronicle.com
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