Well, it looks like there will be no legalized gambling in the city of Worcester. That is a shame because I was looking forward to losing the grocery money every week. Not that a casino was the brightest idea from the city council but it was a lot better than what we have in Kelly Square now. A Superfund site. I swear I lose hair every time I walk past that place. I think the ground is still warm from the strontium buried underneath.
For those of you not familiar, the site is the former location of one of Wyman Gordon's weapons factories. WG was part of that whole military industrial complex. They used to make bombs and stuff back when cars were really, really big and we knew who the enemy was. They would toss the waste out the window.
It doesn't surprise me that the developer of the casino packed up his tent and let out of town early. Massachusetts is just like California when it comes to new jobs and businesses.. You got it, they are all leaving. The people are leaving, companies are leaving. Some how my ex wife is still here though. Between the taxes, regulations and the political mooks with their hands in the cookie jar is it any wonder this guy took a powder and split?
I saw the drawings. They looked great!
The city and the state made a laundry list of demands which keeps changing like a laundry list in a house full of kids. Not only did this guy have to clean up the zombie sludge-( Wait a second. Wasn't this place a Superfund site? Trust the state of Massachusetts to spend billions of taxpayer dollars and have absolutely nothing to show for it.)- he had to grease the palms of the local officials with a $200,000 bond just to enter negotiations with the city. He was required to hire and train a "special unit" of the Worcester police trained in gambling crime. He had to fully fund a gambling addiction hotline and counseling center, put up a hotel somewhere else in the city, fix Kelly Square (God Almighty can't even perform that miracle), mow the Chief of Police's lawn for a year, wipe the mayor's ass and submit an "environmental impact study"... An environmental impact study?? The place is a toxic waste dump for Christ's sake! The entire population of Worcester could take a post drinking binge dump on the site and it would actually improve the place!!
Then there is the guy who is behind the Canal District. He wanted his share of the take. He has some hair-brained scheme to dig up Harding Street and re-expose the Blackstone Canal. Give the city that "old'e timey" look.
I saw the drawings. They looked great!
Now all of that sounds nice but have any of you taken a walk around the city lately? I bike it everyday. The place is a dump.
I do not mean "dump" as in shabby old buildings and broken infrastructure.... OK, I do mean that but that is beside the point. I mean the place is a trash dump. Every street is festooned with scratch tickets, recycling that never made it into the truck, old car parts, Dunkin Donut cups and McDonald's bags. All of it swirling around on a breezy day or washing down the hills in a thunderstorm.
It really is that bad. I know first hand. The people are the culprits. I work a part time job overnight. First thing I do is clean up the parking lot. A few hours later... I clean up the parking lot. Before I hand off the morning shift I... Clean up the parking lot.
Can you imagine what the poor Blackstone River would look like in a month if it was exposed in the middle of Kelly Square? Especially with lots of drunk gamblers wandering around? The only solution would be to cover it over with a huge sheet of plexi-glass. Hey, maybe we can fund it with EBT appropriations money. No body at the Statehouse tracks that money anyways.
This whole debacle reminds me of the Taunton dog track episode a few years back. The Leftie animal rights nuts got a referendum on the ballot to save the poor greyhounds. With lies, thug politics and a healthy dose of low information voters Massachusetts outlawed dog racing. A one hundred plus year old industry that supported roughly 30,000 jobs in and around Taunton vanished with a stroke of a voter's pencil. It was declared a victory for the greyhounds. That is until three semi's showed up, packed up all the dogs and shipped them to Connecticut to race at their track. Taunton and the next door neighbor Raynham are ghost towns now.
This also reminds me of my departed brother Phillip Maider. He raised, trained and fed his family on dog racing. None of the media hype was true.
It is also the same bullshit surrounding the Wamponoag Indian tribe trying to get their casino going. It is all fun and games until everyone realizes the game is rigged (yes, pun intended). After a year of political hurdles with Massachusetts, the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs shut down the whole party. God forbid Native Americans should work and get off public assistance.
But there in lies the rub. States like Massachusetts, New York and California don't actually, really WANT jobs. It might create independence... It might create opportunity. Who would vote Democrat?
A casino isn't the magic pill to cure our economic ailment. It is only an "opportunity" for others. It is an opportunity to get a job, maybe buy a car, save for something, get off of welfare finally. And we can't have a private company eating into a state run monopoly can we?
For, in a Liberal thug state like Massachusetts you have a better chance of success if you play the lottery...
....And That Is The Diatribe....
