Wednesday, December 11, 2013

The Casino-Industrial Complex...Pushing Back Against The Pushback.

SomeCroniesWillNeverEverEverEver
QuitVille


It would appear that the folks from Vancouver-Not-Vegas are taking the public health high road to counter the 'inevitable' coming of the complex, at least for now.

And, in turn, it looks like the pushback counter-offensive from the flack-hackery, the comment surrender monkeys and the twitmachine freepers is a message that 'there is no increase in casino size!' b/w an undercurrent of anti-nimbyism counterspin and 'Jobs, Jobs, Jobs!' screechifying thrown in for good (proMedia maw) measure.

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Look.

It is true that the number of tables and the number of slots on the license has not gone up in the current 'proposal' from the fine folks from Vegas.

But the actual casino floorplate has.

Massively.

Now, with that in mind, do not forget that that this whole Casino-Industrial Complex thing was breech-birthed by the pushing and the pulling of the cronies of both the folks from Vegas and the Campbelleros right from the start.

Specifically....

As Ian Reid discovered through an FOI, it would appear that it all began down at the civic level (Smilin' Sammy/Ms. Rogers/Hatman division) in an immaculately pre-conceived, quasi-secret 'the fix-is-in' kinda/sorta way back in 2008.

And then there was the 'request for proposals' that sure looked like it was tailored for one specific company (where had we seen that 'contracts for cronies' m.o. before Railgate cultists?) that made the fine folks from Vegas the 'Preferred Proponent' on by the Campellerians at PavCo in a Vegas minute.

And, of course, how could we forget the 'Give us our $600 million dollar roof or we'll walk.' part of the deal.

You don't remember that?

Well, here is what apparently transpired between the then Campbellerian Minister responsible for BC Place, Mr. Kevin Krueger, and the Vegas folks' very fine local man on the ground, Mr. T. Richard Turner.

First, the good Mr. Turner's perspective on a 'phone call' he made to Mr. Krueger:

...I didn't try to influence any decision," said Turner, adding he made the call after Paragon had been picked for the project.

"What I recall saying is . . . if the roof doesn't go ahead, that's fine, but we can't build what we said we'd build in the bid because we're counting on synergies between BC Place as renovated and the new development," he added, recalling the conversation with (Kevin) Krueger, the minister responsible for BC Place.

"If you cannot proceed with the roof, no problem, but we'll have to downsize what we said we would do in the bid package," Turner added, recalling what he told Krueger during the phone conversation...


Next, here is Mr. Krueger's recollection of said phone call:

...In Krueger's recollection, Turner had characterized the issue as a "deal breaker."

"He wanted to make me aware that was the fundamental consideration to Paragon and that their bid wouldn't proceed at the same level if it wasn't a retractable roof," Krueger said Thursday...


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So.

With all of the above-recounted local history in mind, does anybody really think that these people will ever stop until they fill their Marksville Lousiana (World Class City!) - style casino to bursting with every bell-ringer and Pavlovian chain-yanker imaginable?


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I'll come back to the thick and thin of the 'crony connection' aspect of this thing later....Why?....Well, because, once again....I've got a memory and I'm going to use it.
Hey...If you haven't already head on over to VancouverNotVegas to sign their petition...They are above 500 now...But that is still nothing and it will be ignored by everyone including the cheerleaders in the media if it does not swell significantly, and soon... I honestly don't get the apathy here given the importance of this thing... I mean, never mind Pottersville....Do we really want downtown Vancouver to become just one more cut-rate Atlantic City/Biloxi Mississippi (and ALL that entails)?


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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are non-residents of Vancouver acceptable signatories?

Eleanor Gregory said...

Interesting mix of folks who have signed the petition, for example, May Brown and Pat Carney.

karen said...

Hey Anonymous, I emailed them and they said yes.

RossK said...

Thanks Anon and Karen.

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EG--

I missed Ms. Carney's, but I did notice Ms. Brown's which I thought was most interesting also.

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Hugh said...

So the public paid $560 million for a new roof when the old one probably could have been repaired for very little.

Just so these people can build a mega casino?

Gaaaakk!!

RossK said...

Hugh--

That is my opinion - yes.

Put another way, after examining all the publicly available information (which goes all the way back to 2006, by the way), I have come to the conclusion that the huge outlay/cost of the roof was used, at least in part, to justify the need to have such an enterprise so that the latter could be used to 'pay' for the former.

And the real killer in all this...the latest PavCo deal actually cut the $6 million dollar a year deal down to $3 million.

In other words, again in my opinion, we will now be subsidizing a crony-leveraged casino-industrial complex that we already spent, essentially $600 million on.

As for those people who live on Texada Island...

Well.

Where are there connections?

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