The last time a casino deal blew up on Fall River Mayor Will Flanagan, he shrugged it off as the cost of rolling the dice. Flanagan’s gambling had nearly blown up a large biotech deal in town and angered the governor’s office, and Flanagan had no casino to show for his efforts, but none of it mattered, he said. Flanagan told CommonWealth that the casino sweepstakes couldn’t be won from the sidelines, and that his failed bid to land a tribal casino for the city didn’t mean Fall River’s casino pursuit was over. Tuesday, Flanagan will sidle up to the table again, and again try to land a casino for his city. And this time, he’ll be competing against his last would-be casino partner.
The State House News Service reported Monday that Flanagan and Foxwoods had sealed an agreement to try developing a $750 million gambling facility in the city. The partnership will be unveiled at a City Hall press conference today.
Flanagan and the casino operator have agreed on the outlines of a casino development, which would include a 140,000-square-foot gambling floor, a 350-room hotel, several shops and restaurants, and convention space. “We are ready to go,” Flanagan told the Herald News. There’s only one wrinkle in the city’s readiness, Flanagan added: “We just need a site.” According to the Globe’s Mark Arsenault, Flanagan and Foxwoods have given themselves one month to find between 30 and 70 acres capable of hosting their proposed casino.
This is a rebound relationship for both parties.
Foxwoods lost a November referendum in Milford on a $1 billion casino proposal, and then saw its Connecticut rival Mohegan Sun swoop in and take control of the bid to develop Suffolk Downs in Revere. Foxwoods is still eligible to bid on another casino license because it passed its state background check late last year.
Fall River, meanwhile, launched a failed bid three years ago to host a tribal casino. Flanagan brought the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe to town from Middleborough, where the tribe had been trying to build a federally sanctioned tribal casino. Fall River’s dance with the Mashpee ended amid a flurry of legal challenges, and Flanagan fell back on the original plan for the land he’d tried to sell the Mashpee — a biotech park anchored by UMass Dartmouth.
With his new Foxwoods partnership, Flanagan now finds himself maneuvering against his onetime Mashpee partners. The tribe settled on a Taunton site for its proposed casino after its Fall River deal fell apart. The Mashpee are currently trying to have their Taunton property recognized as a federal casino reservation, but face several legal hurdles. Southeastern Massachusetts is on a slower permitting track than the state’s other two casino regions, as the Massachusetts Gaming Commission weighs whether to award a commercial license in the region, or throw in with the Mashpee tribe’s Taunton bid.
–PAUL MCMORROW
BEACON HILL
Gov. Deval Patrick says the problems facing the Department of Children and Families in the wake of the Jeremiah Oliver case are “not systemic,” CommonWealth reports.
The sordid saga of Suffolk County’s register of probate continues.
Alarmed by a spate of fires destroying historic landmarks in New Bedford, a preservation group has teamed up with area legislators to push a bill that would give a 50 percent tax credit to organizations that install fire suppression systems in historic buildings.
A federal judge throws cold water on former Probation Department chief John O’Brien’s main line of defense, saying, “It’s not a defense to say all state government is corrupt. We’re not going to put the entire state’s hiring process on trial… There’s a culture of violence in the city, but that doesn’t give you a license to shoot someone.”
A Herald editorial calls embattled state Rep. Carlos Henriquez “stupid and arrogant.”
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
A spate of January murders has Boston on edge about a surge in gang-fueled gun violence. Mayor Marty Walsh vows action, but CommonWealth asked last week whether the city and its new police commissioner really have a real strategy for addressing gun violence.
A grassroots effort has sprouted to keep the USS Salem in Quincy, after the MBTA announced it will not fix the damaged commuter boat wharfit owns where the former Navy ship is docked because the costs are too high.
The Tyngsboro Board of Selectmen vote 3-2 to allow a pub to hire performers dressed in bikinis and Speedos, the Sun reports.
A movement is underway to allow towns on the Cape to vote on whether they want to continue working with the Cape Cod Commission regional planning agency.
Dartmouth residents turned out at a public hearing to oppose a move to change to a mayor-town council system of government, with many saying the current structure of selectmen-Town Meeting would work fine with a few tweaks.
NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON
State of the Union ? Not, in fact, so horribly, awfully bad, says a Globe editorial. Still, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds widespread unease.
The Senate overwhelmingly approved a bipartisan measure to delay the implementation of new flood insurance maps and rates that caused sticker shock for homeowners in coastal communities but House Speaker John Boehner remains opposed to the bill.
House Republican leaders agree on the outlines of an immigration reform package that could lead to legal status — but not citizenship — for 11 million.
ELECTIONS
Street repaving was seen by many as the key to former Lawrence mayor William Lantigua’sreelection strategy. Now it appears that he authorized a New York company to do nearly $300,000 of paving work beyond the $85,000 in its contract. Daniel Rivera, who defeated Lantigua in the race for mayor, is refusing to pay the overrun, the Eagle-Tribune reports.
A Republican businessman from Wellesley is jumping into the race for treasurer, the Associated Press reports.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
Venture capitalist Tom Perkins retracted his use of the term kristallnacht to describe what’s happening to the 1 percent in America, but he stands by the point he was trying to make that there are parallels between the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany and the way rich people are being treated in the United States. Paul Krugman thinks Perkins is missing the correct historical parallel — the backlash of “organized money” against FDR.
Back to the future: Shoemaking start-ups are sprouting in the Boston area, once a center of the shoe industry.
San Francisco tries to ease its longstanding housing supply crunch.
EDUCATION
The dropout rate at public high schools across the state falls to its lowest level in three decades, but it went up at English High School in Lynn, the Item reports. Boston, Lawrence, and Springfield saw sharp decreases in dropouts, the Globe reports.
HEALTH CARE
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health plans to award $40 million in grants for community programs to prevent chronic illnesses, the Associated Press reports.
To deal with obesity, Lima, Ohio, outfitted an old bus as a traveling supermarket bringing fresh vegetables to areas where it’s easier to buy alcohol than it is to buy an apple, Governing reports.
TRANSPORTATION
Keller@Large thinks political leaders who get chauffeured around lose touch with the real world and should think about taking the wheel themselves on occasion.
Garrett Quinn argues that using the Olympics as an excuse to fix the MBTA is a monumentally stupid idea, and that the only dumber idea is not fixing the T at all.
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
The Brayton Point coal plant will close in 2017, after all, despite the request from ISO-New England that the owners delay their plans to shutter the facility. CommonWealth previously detailed the plant’s rapid fall, and the uncertainty surrounding what happens next at the plant.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Court documents indicate high school student Philip Chism admitted killing Colleen Ritzer, his teacher in Danvers, NECN reports.
The Marine Corps announced it will seek to retry Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins of Plymouthfor the murder of a retired Iraqi police officer even though Hutchins’s conviction has been overturned twice on appeals.
Barnstable police solve an oyster poaching case.
MEDIA
Jerry Remy says he will return to broadcast Red Sox games this coming season; he had stepped down last season after his son was charged with the murder of his girlfriend, the Associated Press reports. The RemDog joined WEEI’s Dennis & Callahan to discuss his decision and listening to him is far different than reading about it.
Hundreds gather for Chet Curtis’s funeral, NECN reports.
The Wall Street Journal wonders aloud about the economics behind the online news boom.
PASSINGS
Pete Seeger , an icon of American song and social change, has died at 94. The Atlantic argues that Seeger should be remembered less for his political beliefs than for “the countless selfless acts he took in honor of those beliefs.”