Flying – or fleeing – from Boston Wednesday, on my way from a nascent gambling paradise to a burgeoning one, three articles in The Boston Globe struck me.
***
On the front page, the lead story is headlined, ‘Wynn Drops Casino Proposal’. On Tuesday, voters in Foxboro added two gambling opponents to its Selectmen. This killed the last minute entry in the eastern Massachusetts casino derby by gambling mogul Steve Wynn and New England Patriots owner and real estate developer Bob Kraft.
Foxboro has had generally a good relationship with the ever-expanding Patriot world. But the casino resort proposal was too much to absorb, especially in just a few months.
The vote also reveals how unpopular privatised gambling is in Massachusetts. By limiting the neighborhoods in Boston and the towns that can vote on a casino, the legislature and the Deval Patrick administration anticipated the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) reaction. Due to these limitations, many online casinos have opened up in the country and the gambling lovers have found new
Flying – or fleeing – from Boston Wednesday, on my way from a nascent gambling paradise to a burgeoning one, three articles in The Boston Globe struck me.
***
On the front page, the lead story is headlined, ‘Wynn Drops Casino Proposal’. On Tuesday, voters in Foxboro added two gambling opponents to its Selectmen. This killed the last minute entry in the eastern Massachusetts casino derby by gambling mogul Steve Wynn and New England Patriots owner and real estate developer Bob Kraft.
Foxboro has had generally a good relationship with the ever-expanding Patriot world. But the casino resort proposal was too much to absorb, especially in just a few months.
The vote also reveals how unpopular privatised gambling is in Massachusetts. By limiting the neighborhoods in Boston and the towns that can vote on a casino, the legislature and the Deval Patrick administration anticipated the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) reaction. Due to these limitations, many online casinos have opened up in the country and the gambling lovers have found new
Flying – or fleeing – from Boston Wednesday, on my way from a nascent gambling paradise to a burgeoning one, three articles in The Boston Globe struck me.
***
On the front page, the lead story is headlined, ‘Wynn Drops Casino Proposal’. On Tuesday, voters in Foxboro added two gambling opponents to its Selectmen. This killed the last minute entry in the eastern Massachusetts casino derby by gambling mogul Steve Wynn and New England Patriots owner and real estate developer Bob Kraft.
Foxboro has had generally a good relationship with the ever-expanding Patriot world. But the casino resort proposal was too much to absorb, especially in just a few months.
The vote also reveals how unpopular privatised gambling is in Massachusetts. By limiting the neighborhoods in Boston and the towns that can vote on a casino, the legislature and the Deval Patrick administration anticipated the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) reaction. Due to these limitations, many online casinos have opened up in the country and the gambling lovers have found where to play online slots in USA, which is a big turning point to the online gambling industry.
‘Boardwalk Empire’ may be set in the 1920s, but it is a telling metaphor for New Jersey today. And voters know it.
***
On page B3 in the Metro section, a headline reads, ‘Gaming Panel Head is Pressed to Reveal Terms of Settlememt’. The just formed Massachusetts gaming commission already has a scandal on its hands.
Its choice for its acting executive director settled a civil suit alleging sexual abuse of a child in 2007. The commission did not reveal this when it announced Carl Stanley McGee’s appointment. Nor did it leap to disclose details of the settlement when word of it spread. In fact,
The gambling commission has defended the decision to hire McGee, saying the allegations were unproven, but the panel’s chairman acknowledged that the board did not conduct its own investigation. On Monday, chairman Stephen Crosby stated that McGee deserved “the presumption of innocence’’ and that the settlement did not change that.
McGee, who resigned the day this story ran, ‘helped craft the state’s casino law’. The follow-up story on May 10 said:
Board chairman Stephen Crosby … had staunchly defended McGee’s appointment and had called the 2007 abuse allegations meritless and warrantless….
He cited McGee’s “substantial knowledge and expertise’’ in gaming and policy making and his reputation among his peers, but concluded that “his serving in this role would impede the commission’s ability to accomplish its mission.’’
McGee is expected to return to his job as assistant secretary for policy and planning in the Patrick administration.
The question of the Patrick Administration’s knowledge of the sexual abuse settlement hasn’t, apparently, arisen. But suffice it to say that the McGee scandal hardly signals that a fine attention to transparency will characterise the Commission’s – or the Administration’s – deliberations or dealings.
***
On to the Business Section on p. B8 where the story at the top of the page is headlined, ‘Yahoo director to leave board amid CEO flap’. Here are its first two ‘graphs:
The flap over a bogus college degree on Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson’s official biography has claimed its first casualty – the director who led the committee that hired him four months ago.
Patti Hart will surrender her Yahoo board seat at the company’s still-unscheduled annual meeting. She framed her decision as a commitment to focus on her job as CEO of gambling-machine maker International Game Technology, while allowing Yahoo’s board to deal with the fallout from the recent revelations about Thompson’s inaccurate academic credentials.
***
Neither I nor The Globe connected these stories. But they are pieces in a mosaic whose figures are all too clear.
‘Boardwalk Empire’ may be set in the 1920s, but it is a telling metaphor for New Jersey today. And voters know it.
***
On page B3 in the Metro section, a headline reads, ‘Gaming Panel Head is Pressed to Reveal Terms of Settlememt’. The just formed Massachusetts gaming commission already has a scandal on its hands.
Its choice for its acting executive director settled a civil suit alleging sexual abuse of a child in 2007. The commission did not reveal this when it announced Carl Stanley McGee’s appointment. Nor did it leap to disclose details of the settlement when word of it spread. In fact,
The gambling commission has defended the decision to hire McGee, saying the allegations were unproven, but the panel’s chairman acknowledged that the board did not conduct its own investigation. On Monday, chairman Stephen Crosby stated that McGee deserved “the presumption of innocence’’ and that the settlement did not change that.
McGee, who resigned the day this story ran, ‘helped craft the state’s casino law’. The follow-up story on May 10 said:
Board chairman Stephen Crosby … had staunchly defended McGee’s appointment and had called the 2007 abuse allegations meritless and warrantless….
He cited McGee’s “substantial knowledge and expertise’’ in gaming and policy making and his reputation among his peers, but concluded that “his serving in this role would impede the commission’s ability to accomplish its mission.’’
McGee is expected to return to his job as assistant secretary for policy and planning in the Patrick administration.
The question of the Patrick Administration’s knowledge of the sexual abuse settlement hasn’t, apparently, arisen. But suffice it to say that the McGee scandal hardly signals that a fine attention to transparency will characterise the Commission’s – or the Administration’s – deliberations or dealings.
***
On to the Business Section on p. B8 where the story at the top of the page is headlined, ‘Yahoo director to leave board amid CEO flap’. Here are its first two ‘graphs:
The flap over a bogus college degree on Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson’s official biography has claimed its first casualty – the director who led the committee that hired him four months ago.
Patti Hart will surrender her Yahoo board seat at the company’s still-unscheduled annual meeting. She framed her decision as a commitment to focus on her job as CEO of gambling-machine maker International Game Technology, while allowing Yahoo’s board to deal with the fallout from the recent revelations about Thompson’s inaccurate academic credentials.
***
Neither I nor The Globe connected these stories. But they are pieces in a mosaic whose figures are all too clear.
‘Boardwalk Empire’ may be set in the 1920s, but it is a telling metaphor for New Jersey today. And voters know it.
***
On page B3 in the Metro section, a headline reads, ‘Gaming Panel Head is Pressed to Reveal Terms of Settlememt’. The just formed Massachusetts gaming commission already has a scandal on its hands.
Its choice for its acting executive director settled a civil suit alleging sexual abuse of a child in 2007. The commission did not reveal this when it announced Carl Stanley McGee’s appointment. Nor did it leap to disclose details of the settlement when word of it spread. In fact,
The gambling commission has defended the decision to hire McGee, saying the allegations were unproven, but the panel’s chairman acknowledged that the board did not conduct its own investigation. On Monday, chairman Stephen Crosby stated that McGee deserved “the presumption of innocence’’ and that the settlement did not change that.
McGee, who resigned the day this story ran, ‘helped craft the state’s casino law’. The follow-up story on May 10 said:
Board chairman Stephen Crosby … had staunchly defended McGee’s appointment and had called the 2007 abuse allegations meritless and warrantless….
He cited McGee’s “substantial knowledge and expertise’’ in gaming and policy making and his reputation among his peers, but concluded that “his serving in this role would impede the commission’s ability to accomplish its mission.’’
McGee is expected to return to his job as assistant secretary for policy and planning in the Patrick administration.
The question of the Patrick Administration’s knowledge of the sexual abuse settlement hasn’t, apparently, arisen. But suffice it to say that the McGee scandal hardly signals that a fine attention to transparency will characterise the Commission’s – or the Administration’s – deliberations or dealings.
***
On to the Business Section on p. B8 where the story at the top of the page is headlined, ‘Yahoo director to leave board amid CEO flap’. Here are its first two ‘graphs:
The flap over a bogus college degree on Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson’s official biography has claimed its first casualty – the director who led the committee that hired him four months ago.
Patti Hart will surrender her Yahoo board seat at the company’s still-unscheduled annual meeting. She framed her decision as a commitment to focus on her job as CEO of gambling-machine maker International Game Technology, while allowing Yahoo’s board to deal with the fallout from the recent revelations about Thompson’s inaccurate academic credentials.
***
Neither I nor The Globe connected these stories. But they are pieces in a mosaic whose figures are all too clear.
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