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Citizens for Common Sense advocates sustainable economic development and "smart growth" in downtown Buffalo, to create a vibrant, healthy, 24-hour regional center. A revitalized downtown must include repopulating our streets and enhancing their urban character through building on our tremendous existing assets. We are concerned that the Governor's proposal may impede rather than promote these goals. The proposal raises many unanswered questions that must be addressed before anyone can justifiably assert tha t a casino would in fact benefit downtown Buffalo. Our concerns include:
- ECONOMICS: Cities like Detroit and Atlantic City seem to have garnered little benefit from casinos in their midst. To gauge the potential benefit here, if any, we need to understand where the money comes from and where it goes: who gains and how much, who loses and how much? That means comparing the revenue from construction contracts, casino staff wages, and indirect business activity to the losses suffered by other local businesses due to money being spent at a casino instead of at those entertain enues; it means examining how much of what is spent would come from visitors and how much would come from our own residents; it means knowing how much of that money would stay in the area and how much would leave; it means identifying the cost of additional municipal services, and the impact of the deal on local and state tax revenues. Glib assumptions of widespread benefit just because large sums of cash would change hands do not constitute an economic analysis, and to claim a casino would help Buffalo, wi thout specific information on where that cash is coming from and where it's going, is merely to traffic in empty illusions; it is not leadership but demagoguery. Atlantic City, Detroit, and other regions in New York have seen gambling produce little economic benefit for the immediate area; likewise Buffalo's own experience with downtown sporting arenas. If we're to believe a casino here would be different, we need to be shown why.
- DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY: A casino is another "silver bullet" megaproject proposal, touted as the key to downtown revitalization (much like the proposal for a new convention center, in response to which Citizens for Common Sense was formed). Unfortunately, no single project can solve our problems. Reviving downtown requires measures that are much more complex, incremental, and long-term: expanding residential options to get more people living there; improving traffic patterns and public transit access; ing a healthy urban streetscape by replacing surface parking lots with in-fill construction. It's slow, hard work, with little glamour and only a gradual payoff, but there are no shortcuts. We're absolutely in favor of growth and economic development, but quick-fix efforts to boost the local economy through infusions of cash from short-term visitors simply won't get us there. If downtown is to become economically viable again, it must be through repairing and building incrementally on our existing assets, n ot tearing them down to make room for get-rich-quick schemes.
- PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT: The public has thus far been shut out of the decision-making process. That's inexcusable on a project of this magnitude and significance. For many decades now, the record of our municipal leadership with managing large projects has been miserable. The planning process in WNY is seriously broken and needs to be fixed-good decisions cannot be made without public involvement. What we have now amounts to "planning by protest": insiders develop and attempt to impose shortsighted schem the rest of us, and resist public participation until a federal lawsuit or grassroots rebellion compel it. The rancor, delay, and expense this route inevitably entails would be rendered unnecessary if the public were incorporated from the outset. Springing the casino proposal on us, demanding immediate action, and labeling those who urge due consideration "obstructionists" is just another example of this counterproductive approach.
- REGIONALISM: We keep hearing that regional thinking is the future of Buffalo-Niagara; why, then, are we planning to build casinos in both Buffalo and Niagara Falls, with a third elsewhere in WNY? If the potential of a single casino to bring more money to the area than it sucks out is questionable, three local casinos all competing for the same outside dollars would seem hopeless.
Given the serious questions raised by the casino proposal, and the impact such a project would have on all of us in Buffalo, we find it irresponsible and thoroughly ill-advised for elected officials to commit us to this path without a candid, open airing of the issues. They should instead be leading a vigorous examination of the proposal's underlying assumptions and its implications. Attempting to proceed without public involvement and consent will only add yet another unnecessary imbroglio to the sordid history of public planning in Buffalo.
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Citizens for Common Sense was formed in 1999 by community leaders concerned that ill-considered plans for a new convention center posed a grave threat to the revitalization of downtown Buffalo. It is a not-for-profit corporation led by a diverse and all-volunteer board of citizen-activists from the professions of urban planning, architecture, business, law, entrepreneurial community development, project management, media production, and academia.
For further information on this statement, contact Hank Bromley at 884-6897 or 645-2471 x1085; for further information on the organization in general and its other activities, contact the chair, John Nussbaumer, at 884-3205 or 479-5556.
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