Milford Selectmen Vote To Begin Casino Negotiations

Milford Selectmen voted 2-1 Monday to begin negotiation of an agreement with the developer of the Foxwoods Massachusetts resort casino, which could be put before town voters by late October.

Voting in favor were Selectmen Brian Murray and Dino DeBartolomeis. Voting against was Bill Buckley, the current chairman.

The agreement will be negotiated over the next several weeks, by the town's casino counsel Shefsky & Froelich of Chicago, with input from the town's department heads, said selectmen. It then will come back to selectmen for review and approval.

If Milford selectmen ultimately vote to adopt what is called a "host community agreement," a town-wide referendum will be scheduled, no sooner than 60 days later, potentially putting the issue before voters by late October to early November.

Only Milford voters will have a say in a referendum. Voters in towns that are near the proposed site, including Holliston and Hopkinton, will not get a similar vote, under the expanded gaming legislation approved by state legislators in 2011.

The host agreement will spell out what mitigation steps will be taken by Foxwoods Massachusetts to ease impacts of the nearly $1 billion development, including on traffic, water demands and public safety. The developer, in a series of informational meetings in July, outlined steps it plans to make, including creating a three-mile long collector-distributor road along I-495 that would provide an access off the highway to the nearly 200-acre development site.

The developer has also agreed to provide $2 million for additional police and firefighters, up front, and then $2.9 million a year to cover salaries and equipment.

Now, selectmen say, the process will turn to negotiation over what the town wants.

The host agreement will specify what improvements and payments the town will receive from Foxwoods — including the amount of taxes paid to the town. According to DeBartolomeis, public safety will be a priority, as will mitigation for traffic.

"Police and fire, whatever they need, that has to be in there," he said, following the vote.

Murray, outside the meeting, said to him, the decision whether to pursue a host agreement with Foxwoods was "always a question of potential viability."
He and other selectmen said they were dissatisfied in early April, when the developer first unveiled what was then a conceptual plan to develop the acreage off I-495 and Route 16 into a resort casino. By early June, Murray and DeBartolomeis said, the plan had definition and the consultants were working to evaluate the impacts and the constraints.

Murray said he's satisfied that there's enough viability to the plan that it should be presented to voters. "We're taking another step in that process," he said. For him, he said, traffic mitigation is the priority.

Buckley, who voted against the motion made by DeBartolomeis, said he respected his colleagues' opinions, but felt the project had not passed the threshold of being an overall benefit to the community. He said he was disappointed in the reports presented by many of the town's consultants, and said of the developer's analysis of traffic: "I don't buy for a second."

The state's timeline — and the developer's last-minute submission of an application for a resort casino license — have compressed the town's review of the proposal. Unlike in some communities, including in East Boston, Milford officials were taken by surprise when developer David Nunes filed the casino proposal, making the state's deadline in the final hour.

Following the deadline, he was joined in the partnership by Foxwoods Resort Casino, in Connecticut.

"The timetable is why we are here," Buckley said. "The community can move forward with as little or as much information as they need."

The resort casino is expected to draw as many as 20,000 people a day, and could generate $19 million in property taxes, according to consultants.

Milford is one of three communities in the greater Boston region considering developments of resort casinos. Only one license for the region will be awarded by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission.

Everett voters have already approved a public referendum endorsing a casino bid in that city, put together by Wynn Resorts of Las Vegas. Suffolk Downs racetrack in East Boston is the other competitor, but the city of Boston has not yet negotiated a host community agreement with Ceasar's Entertainment, also of Las Vegas.

After the Milford meeting, Nunes said that town residents who feel as Buckley does — that the casino does not yet cross a threshold for them in being advantageous — should "pay attention to the host community discussions." The matter, when brought to a vote, could pass or fail, depending on what the host community agreement contains, Nunes said.

Even without a signed agreement, the casino organization has conducted polling of Milford voters. But he would not disclose the results Monday.