The Nassau County Legislature’s Democratic Minority Caucus announced Monday its opposition to a video casino that accounts for $20 million in revenue in County Executive Edward Mangano’s proposed 2016 budget.
Mangano’s plan to fund part of the county’s budget with a casino that does not exist and that residents say they do not want is “irresponsible” and “reckless,” Democratic Minority Leader Kevan Abrahams said at a press conference this afternoon.
“We have been steadfast in this position for almost a year, and we feel that, based off of what we heard and what we believe and what we understand and what we know, that casinos have no place at all in Nassau County,” he said.
The county Off Track Betting Board has committed to setting up a temporary casino with up to 1,000 video lottery terminals, or VLTs, in the county by next spring.
The state Legislature voted in 2013 to allow Nassau and Suffolk counties to each build permanent gambling parlors, and Mangano has said a casino could be a large source of revenue.
But the OTB board will not announce potential locations for the casino until the beginning of December, a month after an election in which all the seats in the county Legislature are up for a vote.
In a letter to the OTB on behalf of the minority caucus, Abrahams asks the board to release the casino locations it is considering within the next five days so voters can know where their representatives stand on the issue before going to the polls Nov. 3.
“In our view, there is every indication that OTB’s timing is a classic ploy to shield its political allies in the Legislature from accountability to the electorate,” Abrahams’ letter reads.
OTB spokesman David Chauvin said the board had no comment.
The plans for a new casino come after public opposition derailed one proposed for a former Fortunoff Jewlery store at The Source mall in Westbury.
Local officials from the towns of Hempstead and North Hempstead and several county legislators as well as Mangano spoke out against the project, saying it lacked transparency and would negatively impact the surrounding areas.
Abrahams called on the Republican Majority caucus to join the Democrats in demanding that the OTB release its list of casino locations before election day.
Republican Majority Leader Norma Gonsalves declined to comment on the Democrats’ statements, calling them “conjecture.”
Residents are still opposed to any casino making its home in the county, Abrahams said. None of the hundreds of people with whom he and other Democratic Legislators have spoken said they would want one in the area.
At the press conference, Abrahams said the county needs “creative solutions” to its financial issues, rather than tax hikes or projects residents do not want, such as the casino.
Nassau County Comptroller George Maragos told county legislators earlier this month that Nassau’s financial condition is “deteriorating” with a continued reliance on borrowing and a projected 2015 budget deficit of nearly $62 million.
But administration officials contend the county will end the year with a $1.9 million surplus, in part by borrowing $124 million for tax refunds and legal settlements and using $16 million from the county’s fund balance for operating expenses.
Mangano’s office could not be immediately reached for comment regarding the Democrats’ opposition to a video casino.
