After being promised more than $2 million in annual gaming revenues from a local slots proposal in 2006, Gettysburg Borough Council is unlikely to receive a cut from the proposed Mason Dixon Resort and Casino in Cumberland Township.
Borough officials say they have not been approached by local businessman David LeVan, who hopes to transform the Eisenhower Inn into an exclusive slots resort.
But it’s not just the money that concerns new Borough Council President John Butterfield.
“It will affect our infrastructure,” said Butterfield. “If people come here from Maryland, they’ll stay in town.”
LeVan and his business partner Joseph Lashinger have presented the project to the Adams County Commissioners and Cumberland Township Board of Supervisors, but Butterfield said that “they have made no overtures to us at all.”
Under a state gaming law formula that determines local government share, it would take $50 million in casino revenues to generate $1 million in tax revenue for the county and Cumberland Township.
The borough is not a part of that formula — at least for now — and LeVan spokesperson Dave LaTorre said he was unsure if the borough would be included in future discussions.
Fourteen-year Councilman Ted Streeter, the board’s former president, doesn’t envision casino revenues being offered to the cash-strapped borough this time around.
“It’s unlikely that any revenue-sharing agreement directly between the borough and the casino will materialize,” said Streeter.
Butterfield acknowledged that he “wouldn’t expect” Mason Dixon Resort to make a presentation to the borough, “unless out of the goodness of their hearts, they’d be willing to offset infrastructure and police costs.” The third-year board member was not on Borough Council during the Crossroad Gaming Resort public hearings and deliberations in 2005-06.
“I hope they do come to us at some point and tell us what sort of impact it would have on the community,” he said.
Streeter recalled the failed Crossroads Gaming Resort project, which literally split the nine-member board in 2005-06.
The project was proposed for the intersection of U.S. 15 and Route 30, about two miles from borough boundaries. But to gain support from Borough Council, LeVan guaranteed $1 million in annual gaming revenue from the slots parlor, which would have represented one-fourth of the town’s $4 million budget. Later, after a revenue-sharing agreement was crafted between the borough, county and Straban Township, the borough would have received up to $2.5 million in the first year of operation from the casino, with the figure escalating on a yearly basis. Streeter noted that only 50 percent of the town’s properties are taxable, so the borough struggles to balance its budget every year.
At the time, Streeter testified in favor of the project before the state’s Gaming Control Board, noting that the nine-member board voted 6-3, and later 5-4, in favor of the project. But the Gaming Control Board rejected the proposal in 2006, citing opposition to the project.
“I must confess that, as I presided over the casino hearings, I couldn’t quite understand the perspective of the ‘cons’,” said Streeter. “Their argument that a casino would bring organized crime, prostitution, pawn shops, gin mills and other nefarious activities into the area didn’t seem valid to me.”
The Mason Dixon project is proposed for land along Business 15 in southern Adams County. Still, Butterfield said he’d like to see visitation projections, including winter and summer estimates and overnight stays.
“There is a little bit of…I wouldn’t say concern, but interest as to what this would do to the borough,” Butterfield said Tuesday morning on 1320 WGET.
“Of course, we’d have to make infrastructure improvements, or at least consider our infrastructure if we got a significant number of people,” said Butterfield, noting that the Mason Dixon project is “certainly not a done deal.”
“These are peripheral things that we’d like to hear about at some point,” he concluded.
LeVan has secured an option to purchase the Eisenhower Inn, which is located atop land that is already home to commercial and recreational development. As part of the State Legislature’s table game law, the Gaming Control board has reopened the gaming application process. LeVan, who owns Battlefield Harley Davidson near Gettysburg, plans to file an application by the April deadline. There is one Category III license available for a “slots resort,” which are issued to existing hotels
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