URL: https://www.indianz.com/News/archives/001554.asp

Friday, September 19, 2003

" Folks watched the Turning Stone story unfold in disbelief and disgust before acknowledging defeat. They watched the tribe buy vast stretches of land, all of it coming off the tax rolls. They watched the Oneidas open gas stations and stores, tax-free places no local business could compete with. Our laws - from environmental standards to building codes - meant nothing to them.

They built golf courses and hotels. But so much land became tax-free that - even as the casino raked in $200 million a year - towns had to raise taxes, to pay for schools that Oneida children went to. The towns, in a deal even worse than our compact with the Senecas, got no slice of the casino take.

Country roads became gridlocked. Bingo games that funded churches and firehouses shut down. "

Get the Story:
Donn Esmonde: Horror stories from the land of the casino (The Buffalo News 9/19)

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