Nassau inches closer to a casino as a House hearing comes to town

Daily Point

A delayed bet

In the last two months, there’s been little progress on the effort to award downstate casino licenses, as prospective bidders continue to wait for the Gaming Facility Location Board to issue responses to their first round of questions.

Those questions were submitted in February. In March, Gaming Commission officials said they needed three more weeks. It’s now been more than six weeks since that update, and a Gaming spokesman said he had no further information as of Monday. There’s still a second round of questions and answers to go before final applications are submitted, so it’s possible that part of the process could drag on into the summer.

Despite that lack of progress on the state level, Nassau County’s potential casino plans do seem to be moving forward closer to home. A source close to the negotiations told The Point Monday that Sands officials and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman are “very close” to a deal on a potential lease transfer. That deal would have to be approved by the county legislature.

And the delay in the broader process hasn’t stopped those on all sides of the casino debate from ramping up their efforts in recent weeks.

In Nassau County, that’s meant efforts from the Say No to the Casino Civic Association and the Nassau Coalition for Responsible Development, including rallies and pushes for members to call their county legislators to tell them to oppose the transfer of the Nassau Coliseum lease to Las Vegas Sands, which has proposed a casino resort for Nassau Hub.

Leaders of that opposition are already planning for the possibility that the legislature will vote on that lease transfer at its May 22 meeting.

“Please put in for vacation time now from work, as we will need ALL hands on deck May 22nd!” the association wrote in a recent Facebook post.

But there’s no indication that the May timing is definitive. Legislature Majority spokeswoman Mary Studdert told The Point that the legislature has not received any item regarding the potential lease transfer.

“When an item is filed, we will review the details and offer the public opportunities to be heard including a public hearing,” Studdert wrote in an email. “Additionally, depending on when we receive the item, that will dictate when the Legislature will consider it.”

And it’s not just Nassau. In Manhattan, the No Times Square Casino coalition emerged last week, a group that included The Broadway League, local neighborhood groups and well-known Times Square restaurants like Sardi’s. Their list of concerns – from traffic to “economic disruption and social harm” mirrored much of what those opposed in Nassau have said.

In Queens, where New York Mets owner Steve Cohen has been discussing options for the parking lots around Citi Field, including the possibility of a casino resort, a coalition called Save Flushing Meadows- Corona Park has taken up the casino as its most recent target. Their opposition primarily notes that Cohen would be building on public parkland.

Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, Community Board 13 is holding an open forum on Wednesday regarding the proposal for a casino in Coney Island.

But even as some opposition ramps up, so too has significant lobbying, consulting and public relations efforts. Sands has continued to line up backers in Nassau County, from the Uniondale Chamber of Commerce to Long Island University and others. Sands is using a host of its own lobbyists, including former Gov. David Paterson, and also is working with political consultant Resi Cooper and others.

In Coney Island, meanwhile, well-known lobbyist Patricia Lynch has taken a role, as she represents the development entity, Thor Properties, and an entity known as TSG Coney Island Entertainment Holdco.

She knows how to play the game. Nearly a decade ago, Lynch was representing Genting New York and Yonkers Racing Corporation – both now also in the competitive mix for the three downstate casino licenses that are up for grabs.

— Randi F. Marshall @RandiMarshall

Pencil Point

The leak problem

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Final Point

U.S. House v. NYC: Koch then, Bragg now

One can hear an echo from 40 years ago when a U.S. House committee rolls into New York City to poke and probe local officials regarding law enforcement.

In 1983, Rep. John Conyers, head of a Judiciary Committee subcommittee, homed in on the issue of NYPD abuse against minorities. Reps. Charles Rangel of Manhattan and Major Owens of Brooklyn were advising Conyers at the time.

That September brought hours of statistical presentations and emotional eyewitness statements at a public hearing in Harlem into allegations of police brutality against Blacks and Hispanics. Then-Mayor Ed Koch branded it political grandstanding by his detractors and not helpful to the issue. He said police brutality had declined and remained more of a problem in other cities.

''It’s hard to believe that Congressman Conyers, who comes from Detroit, which has one of the worst records of police brutality against black citizens, would be shocked,” Koch said. “I’d think he’d find this heaven.” And Koch called the hearing “inflammatory” and warned it would prompt minority communities to react against cops.

Owens was quoted as responding: ''Instead of being inflammatory, the holding of hearings on a situation that's inflammatory already is a positive approach.”

That was then. This is now.

The target of the alleged grandstanding, this time by House Republicans, is Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Just as Black Democrats saw Koch as the problem decades ago for what happened then on the street, the state and national GOP have hammered away at Bragg, the borough’s first Black D.A., for what happens now on the street.

Bragg began his term in office with a memo essentially holding harmless a number of relatively minor offenses in order to ease up on incarceration. He has since caught flak for his controversial handling of several cases that include a violent anti-Semitic incident and an attack on a bodega owner. Last year’s gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin vowed to fire the elected Bragg “on day one” of his term.

And so Monday’s hearing at the Jacob Javits Federal Building around the block from Bragg’s office had some of the raucous, visceral feel of the past one in Harlem. And last week Bragg used arguments reminiscent of Koch: “Don’t be fooled,” he said, “the House GOP is coming to the safest big city in America for a political stunt.” While Koch said Conyers should turn instead to Detroit, Bragg says Jordan should turn instead toward high crime rates in his home state of Ohio.

Of course, there is another angle to Jordan’s targeting of Bragg that Conyers’ targeting of Koch could never have matched. The Manhattan D.A. currently has former President Donald Trump, whom Jordan supports, under indictment for covering up hush money payments to a porn actress.

Political parallels, turnabouts, and mirror images go only so far.

— Dan Janison @Danjanison