Rochester Smoke Out

From Atlantic City’s Credit Rating Cut Two Steps to Junk by Moody’s:

“The downgrade reflects the city’s significantly weakened tax base, revenue-raising ability and broader economic outlook,” analysts Vito Galluccio and Julie Beglin said in the statement. “These result from ongoing casino revenue declines, expected near-term casino closures, and the impact of sizable casino tax appeals, all of which has stemmed from increased competition from casinos in neighboring states.”

Atlantic City lost its regional monopoly as states including Pennsylvania, Maryland and New York legalized casinos or expanded betting to increase tax revenue. Casino revenue in the city has dropped for seven straight years, falling to $2.86 billion last year from a high of $5.07 billion in 2006, according to Bloomberg Industries.

The city’s 11 gambling houses account for almost half its jobs: 5,883 positions in a workforce of 13,500. The Atlantic Club closed in January, putting 1,600 people out of work. The closing of Caesars Entertainment Corp.’s Showboat on Aug. 31 will wipe out 2,133 jobs. Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino said it plans to close Sept. 16, taking away another 1,009. Revel, the $2.4 billion complex that employs 3,106 people, is seeking a buyer in bankruptcy.

But rejoice! Nevele Casino is going to be the answer to Ulster County economic woes…

– Jon Dogar-Marinesco

Here is the first paragraph from Disloyalty chimes should be ringing!, posted today on the Liberty Coalition blog:

“Somebody call the GOP disloyalty police because we’ve got a real winner here. What’s that you say? Terry Bernardo, former Legislator, former Legislature Chairwoman and also a member of the Ulster County Republican Committee representing the Town of Rochester, carried a petition this year for the Independence Party on behalf of her pal and cohort Assemblyman Kevin Cahill, a Democrat. I wonder how Kevin Roberts, Ulster County Legislator and Republican candidate for the 103rd Assembly District, feels about this.”

While Liberty Coalition correctly underscores Terry Bernardo’s disloyalty to the Republican Party, I would like to stress her total lack of character.

I reported on Terry Bernardo, unhinged in March 2013:

“On the way to the pro-gun rally in Albany, the buses that started the trip at Accord Fire House made a ten minutes pick up stop at Macy’s parking lot in the Hudson Valley Mall. Ten minutes were more than enough for Terry Bernardo to give a soap box performance. Probably in the spirit of non-partisanship touted in her 2012 inaugural speech, she decided that everybody’s got to go – unless they subscribe to her borrowed views.”

Besides Governor Cuomo and Legislator Wishnick, Terry also targeted Assemblyman Kevin Cahill:

Terry Bernardo – a registered Republican and GOP Committeewoman – circulating petitions on behalf of Kevin Cahill (D) – after she vehemently called for his replacement! – is just a sample of sickening Ulster County politics.

Please read another paragraph from Terry Bernardo, unhinged:

“The most disgusting move – against Legislator Kenneth Wishnick (D-New Paltz) – started with asking the mini-crowd “Did you read Wishnick’s letter in yesterday’s Freeman?” and continued with “anyone here from New Paltz?” “find another candidate!” and “he’s got to go.” Funny, isn’t it, considering that Wishnick was her most valuable ally just a few weeks back. All legislators in cahoots with Bernardo should pay attention.”

Can you hear me now, Kevin Roberts?

– Jon Dogar-Marinesco

From Snake eyes: Fitch cuts estimate for NJ online gambling revenue:

“A Wall Street credit rating firm that was among the most pessimistic about the prospects for Internet gambling in New Jersey has cut its already-conservative estimate on the state’s first-year online winnings by more than half…

Tuesday’s move by Fitch Ratings comes a day after New Jersey reported a third straight monthly decline in the amount of money won by the state’s Internet betting operations, partnered with Atlantic City casinos.”

For all practical purposes, online gambling is nothing but a video lottery terminal (VLT) in every home.

Lotteries in the U.S. were considering VLTs as early as 1981, when a planned experiment with 20 machines by the New York State Lottery was scrapped after the Attorney General determined they would be illegal. A similar plan by the New Jersey Lottery died in 1983 after ties between state officials and VLT manufacturers raised conflict of interest concerns. Of course, this is history…

Pretty please, somebody explain to me how the VLT tourism would positively impact the local economy when even gambling in the comfort of our own homes is not living up to the expectations.

– Jon Dogar-Marinesco

A few days ago, people interested in holding a seat on the Rochester Republican Committee filed their designating petitions. Instead of voting for a party Committeeman at the polls, these designating petitions – circulated every two years – are the election.

From the current Republican Committee (below, left column), Terry Bernardo, Tom Ryan and Shane Ricks did not circulate designating petitions.

The right column shows the members of the next Rochester Republican Committee. Daniel Aversano was appointed Chair by the Ulster County GOP Chairman Roger Rascoe.

Good luck to the new Committee!

– Jon Dogar-Marinesco

From More Atlantic City Woes: Trump Plaza Hotel Casino Could Close in September:

“Atlantic City could see the Trump Plaza Hotel close as early as September if reports from The Press of Atlantic City are correct. The closure of this hotel-casino would mean the loss of another 1,000 jobs in Atlantic City which has already seen three other casinos close this year. It would also mean the seaside resort area will have lost 33% of its casinos this year. According to US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, Donald Trump owns a 10% stake through his Trump Entertainment Resorts as of last year…

…Since the beginning of the year, the Atlantic Club casino which had been in business for 33 years has shut down. The Showboat, one of the larger casinos in the city, has announced it plans to close at the end of August. Even the newest casino in Atlantic City, the Revel, could close in mid August if it can’t find a buyer. If all these casinos do close, it would leave eight remaining in the area, including another Trump branded hotel, the Trump Taj Mahal.”

From Trump Plaza owners confirm plan to close in September:

“Experts say the impact of losing an estimated 7,800 jobs since the January closing of the Atlantic Club Casino Hotel would ripple across the region and hurt the resort’s marketing efforts in an already stagnant economy.”

See who filed the candidate petitions!

– Jon Dogar-Marinesco

The Declaration of Independence

We celebrate American Independence Day on the Fourth of July every year. We think of July 4, 1776, as a day that represents the Declaration of Independence and the birth of the United States of America as an independent nation.

But July 4, 1776 wasn’t the day that the Continental Congress decided to declare independence (they did that on July 2, 1776).

It wasn’t the day we started the American Revolution either (that had happened back in April 1775).

And it wasn’t the day Thomas Jefferson wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence (that was in June 1776). Or the date on which the Declaration was delivered to Great Britain (that didn’t happen until November 1776). Or the date it was signed (that was August 2, 1776).

So what did happen on July 4, 1776?

The Continental Congress approved the final wording of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. They’d been working on it for a couple of days after the draft was submitted on July 2nd and finally agreed on all of the edits and changes.

July 4, 1776, became the date that was included on the Declaration of Independence, and the fancy handwritten copy that was signed in August (the copy now displayed at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.) It’s also the date that was printed on the Dunlap Broadsides, the original printed copies of the Declaration that were circulated throughout the new nation. So when people thought of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776 was the date they remembered.

In contrast, we celebrate Constitution Day on September 17th of each year, the anniversary of the date the Constitution was signed, not the anniversary of the date it was approved. If we’d followed this same approach for the Declaration of Independence we’d being celebrating Independence Day on August 2nd of each year, the day the Declaration of Independence was signed!

How did the Fourth of July become a national holiday?

For the first 15 or 20 years after the Declaration was written, people didn’t celebrate it much on any date. It was too new and too much else was happening in the young nation. By the 1790s, a time of bitter partisan conflicts, the Declaration had become controversial. One party, the Democratic-Republicans, admired Jefferson and the Declaration. But the other party, the Federalists, thought the Declaration was too French and too anti-British, which went against their current policies.

By 1817, John Adams complained in a letter that America seemed uninterested in its past. But that would soon change.

After the War of 1812, the Federalist party began to come apart and the new parties of the 1820s and 1830s all considered themselves inheritors of Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans. Printed copies of the Declaration began to circulate again, all with the date July 4, 1776, listed at the top. The deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams on July 4, 1826, may even have helped to promote the idea of July 4 as an important date to be celebrated.

Celebrations of the Fourth of July became more common as the years went on and in 1870, almost a hundred years after the Declaration was written, Congress first declared July 4 to be a national holiday as part of a bill to officially recognize several holidays, including Christmas. Further legislation about national holidays, including July 4, was passed in 1939 and 1941.

Reproduced from ConstitutionFacts.com

– Jon Dogar-Marinesco

I suggest you read With casinos closing, Atlantic City considers future, an article published a few days back on the philly.com website. Here is just the beginning:

ATLANTIC CITY – The blows came fast and furious for this struggling resort over the last week and a half.

Its newest and most expensive casino, Revel, declared bankruptcy for the second time June 19 and is threatening to close if it doesn’t find a buyer. Four days later, the U.S. Supreme Court shot down New Jersey’s effort to get sports betting, thus denying Atlantic City casinos an option they had long wanted to bring patrons in during the slow winters.

And on Thursday, Caesars Entertainment Inc., which owns four casinos here, announced it was closing the Mardi Gras-themed Showboat by summer’s end.
About 2,100 employees received 60-day notices the next day.

The city had already shed the Atlantic Club, a smaller, underperforming Boardwalk casino in mid-January – leaving it with 11 casinos.

If Showboat and Revel both shutter, the Boardwalk will have three large vacancies.

“Atlantic City is undergoing a massive economic transition,” Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian said at a news conference Friday at the site for Bass Pro Shop – a nongaming attraction being built. “We know it is painful for those who are losing their casino jobs.”

Inquiring minds would like to know how gambling in Ulster County will bring different results.

– Jon Dogar-Marinesco

Press Release
June 20, 2014
From the Desk of Eliot Spitzer, Owner of Hudson Valley Resort

Video Lottery Terminals (“VLTs”) for our resorts, to save and create jobs, became a hot topic this week up in Albany. VLTs offer a solution to keep The Granite at Hudson Valley Resort viable, and would be a great amenity for the property, no different than our golf course or spa, only that the VLTs will generate a profit. It would allow the few old Catskill resorts that remained open all these years through the toughest of times, to not only survive but allow us to thrive. It will be a great compliment to the large casinos that will soon come to our area. Having VLTs will allow us to invest millions of dollars to renovate and bring our properties back to the life they once had. We will become a seven-day-a-week operation, not just weekends and summers. Not only will we be able to give more hours and better pay to our 160 current employees, but we will be able to double our employment. We will be able to purchase three times the amount from our local suppliers. We will be able to contribute millions more in tax revenue to the County and State. On the other hand, without such a solution we will not be able to afford a much needed renovation in order to compete in the Tri-State area let alone surviving when the large casinos open in our backyards.

We had amazing support from our representatives in Albany; Assemblyman Cahill and Senator Seward and their amazing staffs. They understood our plight and they care for our employees who are local residents. They see this as a win-win for everyone. They want people to have better jobs with more hours, and want to give local businesses the ability to create more jobs. They want to preserve the businesses in their areas, which mean so much to their communities and have been around for so many years. They worked tirelessly to bring the issue to the forefront. Just a few weeks ago no one knew about this issue and today, with their efforts, everyone in Albany is fully aware and wants to help.

Now that we got to this point and have significant support for the idea, we are going to step back and wait for the casino location process to take its course, as that is the County’s priority at this time. We fully support bringing casinos to Ulster and Sullivan Counties as our area needs the jobs and economic growth the most. They expect to choose the casino locations this fall, after such time, in coordination with Ulster and Sullivan Counties, we will continue our efforts to complete what we started. I want to personally thank everyone who worked so hard on this issue, including our Town Supervisor Carl Chipman who gave us the support, time, and care that this warranted. I also want to thank Orest Fedash our General Manager and our awesome employees who work tirelessly to make all of our guests feel welcome at Hudson Valley Resort. I am very excited about our prospects and what we will be able to accomplish in the very near future.

Eliot Spitzer
Owner of Hudson Valley Resort

Here is some food for thought from two articles published yesterday:

New York Post – June 19, 2014
Bankrupt Revel casino warns it might close down this summer

In warning letters given to employees and obtained by The Associated Press, Atlantic City’s Revel Casino Hotel said it is seeking a buyer for the struggling $2.4 billion casino, but can’t guarantee one will be found. If not, employees could be terminated as soon as Aug. 18, Revel said in the letter.

Shortly after distributing the letters, Revel filed a Chapter 11 petition in federal bankruptcy court, its second in as many years.

The Wall Street Journal – June 19, 2014
Casino Boom Pinches Northeastern States

More casinos have opened in the Northeast over the past decade than in any other part of the country, and the expansion is causing upheaval in the region. States that adopted gambling earlier than their neighbors, such as Delaware, New Jersey and West Virginia, are watching dollars drain away, and new projects have some wondering how many facilities the area can support.

A recent Fitch Ratings report said the Northeastern market “is reaching a saturation point.“

If a Nevele Casino never happens, or fizzles out in a few years, what’s the plan B for Ulster County’s economic development?

– Jon Dogar-Marinesco