1. No one ever gives alternative on purpose. As they either cost the city millions to implement or cause the same issue.

2. People are expensive to a city. Business make money for a city. Certain businesses produce much more income for a city than others.

http://pubs.cas.psu.edu/FreePubs/pdfs/ua327.pdf

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But the state is pretty well suited to make laws concerning the borders of the state.

http://www.planphilly.com/node/1013

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Here's an interesting precident I found a few months ago.

In Board of Supervisors v. Washington, D.C., 522 S.E. 2d 876 (1999), the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) entered into leases with two wireless companies permitting them to build and operate certain facilities – including monopole towers, nine panel antennae, and related equipment cabinets and buildings – on VDOT rights-of-way along state highways in Fairfax County. The facilities were to be used not only for use in their wireless communications businesses, but also to provide infrastructure for VDOT’s proposed ITS. Specifically, the telecommunications companies were required to install a closed-circuit television system, a highway advisory radio system and emergency call boxes, with the goal of improving traffic flow, safety and emergency response along the highway. The equipment was to remain property of the private companies, who were also responsible for all maintenance.

The companies did not seek zoning approval before building the facilities -- including towers of between 80 and 164 feet in height -- in a residential area. Not surprisingly, the height of the towers violated county zoning requirements for a residential area. Fairfax county (reportedly encouraged by resident Ed Meese) then filed a lawsuit seeking declaratory judgment that the companies were subject to county zoning requirements. VDOT intervened as a defendant. VDOT and the telecommunications companies argued that since the towers were shared communications facilities to be used partially for state purposes, they were exempt from local zoning regulations. The lower court ruled in favor of the telecommunications companies and VDOT, and held that the telecommunications facilities were not subject to local zoning requirements.

The Virginia Supreme Court reversed. The court held that because the towers were owned by the telecommunications companies and because the leases placed primary use and control of the land in the hands of the private companies for their own private purposes, the land was properly subject to local zoning requirements. In a sense, the land was taken out of the realm of VDOT’s sovereign rights and passed into the realm of a private citizen under the terms of the lease. The court noted that while VDOT may have benefited by being able to place its equipment on the towers, ultimately, the ownership and operation of the towers was still in private hands, which made them subject to local zoning requirements.

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Peter Cetera:
Sometimes I just forget
Say things I might regret
It breaks my heart to see you crying

ah..

but are the towers going to generate Billions in taxes?

Would they help the aid package Fairfax county gets from VA?

Would they produce thousands of jobs?

It was decided on impact on the area and the state and I agree with Fairfax Co's winning of that case.

The benefits of the casinos from a financial perspective outweighs any detriment (that can't actually be proved) to communities that are 3-5 blocks from the sites.


Again, 95 cuts of South Philadelphia from the river.....now all of a sudden it's not.


This was also passed by the state as a law. Not just a lease by a DOT to a private interest.

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Yeah, but if you're going to call yourselves Nimby's United For A Better Waterfront, or something similar, you ought to at least have an idea of what that is besides "not that".

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that. -George Carlin

Its not the nuances, but the gist of the ruling that matters(gist is, of course, a legal term).
The state granted certain land rights to a piece of land.
The private company thought it didn't have to adhere to local zoning code since the state gave them certain rights.
The court determined that the private entity did have to adhere to local zoning law.

If I were the casinos, I'd argue that the city's 1500ft. casino zoning law was made after the state's decision-i.e., you may not make zoning laws retroactive to disallow rights already granted to persons or groups. Of course, this argument is inapplicable for Sugarhouse, but would probably stand for foxwoods.

If I was a neighborhood group, I'd argue that the state is not allowed to a special law that regulates the affairs of counties, cities, townships, wards, boroughs, or school districts, as outlined in the PA constitution.

Like I said-its a flip of the coin.

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Peter Cetera:
Sometimes I just forget
Say things I might regret
It breaks my heart to see you crying

It's strange..

we need them to succeed so they need to be somewhere accessible.

Philadelphia is a city of neighborhoods...literally... there's few areas of the city with housing not within 1500 feet of something.


So I think the referendum is more a ploy.




Because 1000 would have allowed them.

"Drug-free school zone is a term used in the United States to denote an area within a certain distance, most commonly 1,000 feet, of the nearest school, park, or other public area. Signs to this effect are generally posted along all public streets at the entrances to such an area. Weapons, tobacco and alcohol are also prohibited in these areas as well as any DEA schedule 1 or 2 substances[1]."



95's pretty wide.

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Remember that Casinos are a way of taking in more money than they pay out. Like the lottery, they are a tax for those who are bad at math.

If you think they will make Philadelphia's problems go away, think again. With Casinos you will get more.

More crime, more congestion, more pollution. You will not get the following:

Meaningful reduction in any tax (wage tax, property tax, or any other tax)

These project will line th pockets of the rich and connected and be an endless source of patronage for those who run the city (behind the scenes)

There is a good reason this was done in the dark of night; it can't come close to passing the sniff test or any real scrutiny

I'd argue that reducing or eliminating unnecessary spending through corruption and inefficiency would be a much more popular "source" of revenue.

What time was the vote again?

Sounds like a great precedent; we could apply this more often and really get around that whole rule of law thing.


No Zur, that is the smoke screen. The real impact are the hidden cost to the municipality and citizens to maintain these things.

Perceived fear is just that--perception. The per gallon price of gas at the pump changes more drastically more often because of perception rather than any real event. Iran barks and gas goes up another 25 cents/gallon--yet Iran is still exporting the same amount of oil. If people decide en masse they don't want to live 1/2 mile from a slots barn it does not matter how many studies say what, there is a real decline in property value.

Ipse dixit? You can say it as many times as you like--it doesn't make it true.

Are you implying a false dichotemy--because the state officials did this it is not backroom antics? The elected state officials created an unaccountable agency that selected and approved sites without input from communities. The elected state officials have made Pennsylvania the only state in the Union to legalize gambling without citizen input.

And?

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Free hat

It wasn't backroom,then what do you call this?
Background on Act 71, the Pennsylvania Gaming Act


On July 4 Weekend 2004, HB 2330, a 33 line bill on background checks for people who work at the tracks was on its third consideration. This bill was in the House for 47 days with NO amendments. It was in the Senate for 100 days with NO amendments.
Those 33 lines were crossed off and the bill was amended with 144 PAGES and PASSED that weekend with NO PUBLIC SCRUTINY, NO PUBLIC HEARINGS, NO PUBLIC INPUT.
PA's very seriously flawed, slots law, Act 71, allows14 slots venues with a total of 61,000 slot machines. (The licenses for 5000 slots are as follows: 7 at tracks, 2 in Philadelphia, Birthplace of our Nation, 1 in Pittsburgh and 2 other locations. There are to be 2 "resort" licenses with 500 slots.)
PAGE Fund lawsuit was filed challenging the constitutionality of this law.
For months the rumors flew around Harrisburg that the Court would have a favorable ruling if they got a pay raise. Even the most skeptical could not believe that even our courts were corrupt .
On June 22, 2005, the PA Supreme Court ruled that the slots law except for three parts was constitutional. (The preemption of zoning was one of those.)
On July 7, 2005, the PA legislature passed a pay raise for the Governor, his cabinet, legislators AND the judiciary! After much public pressure, those pay raises were repealed but lawsuits have been filed to allow the judiciary to keep theirs. By the way it passed at 2 am on the 4th of July weekend!