I wrote this post on December 5, 2006 when a series of bad decisions on the part of our Mayor and Council had reinforced the even worse decisions of our Governor and General Assembly and created a steamroller bringing casinos to our waterfront. Now, almost two years later, we have a steamroller bringing one of those casinos to the Gallery. I could analyze this shift more thorougly. But it seems much simpler now to just repost this. For the new day, new way has not brought anything very much new in the casino siting process.
I will be posting more with details about the casino siting process in 2008 is just as bad as the one in 20006. But many of you can probably fill in the updated details as well as I can. . For the last few months, I’ve been running around the city, giving a speech to any group of three or more people who will listen that begins with the following words: Politics in Philadelphia is Broken. I have another five and a half months to go on giving that speech…and maybe it won’t stop then because fixing politics in Philadelphia is probably going to take the progressive movement the better part of the next ten or fifteen years.
It is, of course, an easy case to make. Sometimes, people shout out examples of our broken politics before I get three minutes into my speech. And no example comes up more than the ridiculous path by which our political system has taken us to the verge of bringing casinos to Philadelphia. How does this process exemplify the broken character of our politics? Let us count the ways.
1. Last Minute, Haphazard Decision-making: Act 71, which gave us the casinos, was put together at the last moment in the most slapdash fashion. It has had to be substantially revised two times already and it still needs further revision revisions.
2. Get Rich Quick: Rather than focus on investing in economic development strategies that would restore our commercial corridors or in the tax reforms that will spur the growth of new high technology business, we in Philadelphia are going for a get rich quick scheme that is more likely to redistribute money in the city—in the wrong direction—than it is to dramatically add to the sum of what is produced here.
3. Pay to play: The casino gambit reeks of pay to play, from the hundreds of thousands of dollars that the gambling interests contributed to Governor Rendell and the legislative leaders to the list of power brokers and their retainers who have invested in the casinos.
4. Lack of Planning: We are rushing to put casinos—which have no windows and are designed to lure people in and keep them there—on our waterfront, perhaps the silliest place we can imagine placing them. We have no serious plans for getting people to and from the casinos without creating massive traffic jams. And we have no plans for the residential development, parks, recreation places, bike and walkways, shops, and possibly museums and schools that actually do belong on the waterfront.
5. Counter-Productive Development: Not only have we not planned for the casinos, but they will stand in the way of and expansion of the port and other new developments on the waterfront, and at the Budd site, that would not only be friendlier to nearby residents, but also far more lucrative for many industries and the city as a whole. The Philadelphia port now provides thousands of very well paid jobs. And, with imports likely to double in ten years–and the New York port overcrowded–we could bring thousands more jobs to Philadelphia for longshoremen, teamsters, and other people who work in businesses that service the port. We need to dredge the Delaware and provide better road access to make this happen. Instead, casinos will clog the roads and drive away the business we have at the port now. Just when the possibility of new residential development on parts of the the waterfront not needed for the port—and the public amenities they might make possible—appears on the horizon, we plan to undercut that possibility with casinos no one wants to live near and with traffic that will make life on the waterfront hellish. And just as the potential of the Budd site for family friendly commerce and entertainment is being recognized, it is proposed as a site for the most family unfriendly kind of business.
6. Lack of Transparency: As Operation Transparency has pointed out, vital documents and other information that is critical to a reasoned assessment of the various sites are being withheld from the public. 7. Lack of Democracy. The decisions about where to put the casinos are not being made by political officials who have to face the voters. Instead, they are being made by an “independent” board whose main role is to deflect responsibility from elected officials and which has been given no serious criteria to follow (which, by the way, is why Act 71 is unconstitutional.)
8. Lack of Local Control: Not only is the gaming control board undemocratic, but it violates a fundamental principle of good government, that decisions about local matters should be made by local representatives. The very idea that Philadelphians cannot decide where the casinos should be located in our city—or whether they should be located here at all—is preposterous.
9. The Politics of Fear: There are a lot of interest groups that should oppose casinos, especially on the waterfront. Real estate developers have an opportunity to make a lot of money developing new housing on both sides of Delaware Avenue / Columbus boulevard. Casinos, prostitutes, and drunks are not attractive neighbors for the people who pay $500,000 and up for condos. Restaurants in Center City are certainly going to lose business to the restaurants in the casinos. Longshoremen should be concerned about how all the traffic generated by the casinos is going to make it much harder to get goods too and from our port. Parks and recreation advocates should look at the waterfront as the prime location in the city for expansion and worry about the casinos and parking garages taking up large chunks of land. Yet none of these groups are avid opponents of the casinos. Why not? The answer is the pervasive politics of fear that grips this city. All these interest groups are afraid to stand up to the powerful politicians who are pushing the casinos. Like most Philadelphians, they are more afraid of losing what they have then they are about gaining something new and important, even when their gain is also the city’s.
10. The Lack of Hope: Some of these groups might actually oppose the casinos if they had any hope of success. But they don’t. And the lack of political hope in our city once again, feeds on itself and grows. The lack of hope has also gripped the editorial boards of our newspapers who, instead of leading a crusade against these ill-designed and sited monstrosities, keep telling us that it is too late to reverse course.
11. Lack of Political Leadership: Not only are documents in hiding, so are our local politicians. Most of our state representatives supported the casino gambit. And with the sometime exception of Councilman DiCicco and Kenney, the members of City Council have had their head in the sand for the last two years on this issue. No one has focused on the planning and development issues at all the sites. No one has been willing to fight for the transit solution I proposed weeks ago. No one has been willing to use the local zoning control we all fought for to influence site selection. No one has even weighed in about the advantages and disadvantages of the different sites.
I don’t much care for the whole idea of casinos. But one could imagine how a reformed political system could have brought them to Philadelphia in a way that imposed very little on our residential communities. But that would not be the Philadelphia way, would it? That is not what broken politics gives us. If this isn’t a time for a radical change in how we do politics, I don’t know what would be.