Cuomo: Deal in Southern Tier plan

Governor urges casino siting board to weigh a fourth license


Gov. Andrew Cuomo is asking the state's casino siting panel to deal in one more player.

The governor sent a letter to the state Gaming Commission and the Gaming Facility Location Board on Friday urging its members to consider awarding a fourth license to a Southern Tier proposal. His new directive comes after the board announced Dec. 17 that it would recommend licenses for three proposals, all away from the heart of the Southern Tier. The proposal the board picked from Region Five Eastern Southern Tier/Finger Lakes is for Tyre, a Seneca County town halfway between Syracuse and Rochester.

"The Binghamton area is tied for the region with the highest unemployment rate in upstate New York, and stands to benefit greatly from new jobs and economic development in the region," the letter states. Cuomo wrote that he wants the siting board to consider issuing a new request for application "to seek a qualified applicant to submit a new bid" for the fourth license in the "true Southern Tier."

"We think the Southern Tier region is getting cheated here," state Sen. Tom Libous, a Binghamton Republican, said Sunday. "You look at the Thruway corridor, the Thruway corridor continues to get more services from the state, in this case a casino. Sullivan County gets a casino, then you come up around the Southern Tier and shoot out to the state of Ohio and there's nothing. We need the jobs. We need it badly."

A fourth license isn't out of the realm of possibility. The law allowing for new gaming facilities outlines that up to four locations can have casinos. It was originally thought that Orange County could receive the fourth license (a Sullivan County proposal already won the board's approval for the Catskills/Hudson Valley region) because of its proximity to New York City, a key market that the upstate facilities are supposed to tap into.

However, even if the siting board chooses to select a new bid in the Southern Tier for the fourth license, the process wouldn't formally be over. As with the three proposals already selected, a fourth would be subject to Gaming Commission approval.

The letter is a break from the laissez-faire approach Cuomo said he was taking with the casino siting process. During a Q&A with reporters in Schenectady the day after the panel announced its selections, the governor said he wanted the siting board to be separate from both the Executive Chamber and the Legislature in an effort to keep it away from politics.

"They are qualified professionals. None of them had any conflicts. They just used their best judgment," he said. "I don't know why they made what decisions they made, but it wasn't my place to interfere and I don't want to second-guess them now."

Cuomo's letter doesn't read like he is second-guessing the board, but it does firmly request that it look at making a new decision.

"Indeed, as this would be the last license issued in New York state, it may excite national competition by interested parties that submit even better applications than the first round," Cuomo wrote. "If you agree to this request, the GFLB should quickly establish a process for the fourth license that could be complete as expeditiously as possible as the Southern Tier needs jobs and investment now."

Lee Park, a spokesman for the Gaming Commission, said Sunday that the panel has received the letter and is reviewing it.

Since the panel made its decisions, sharp backlash has come from the Southern Tier's elected officials, residents and potential casino owners. The criticism has been amplified because the same day the siting recommendations came down, the state also moved to ban hydraulic fracturing for natural gas.

"No fracking, no casino, why don't you just tell 'em they can all move someplace else?" a stunned Jeff Gural of Tioga Downs said after the siting recommendations were announced. "These are decent people — my mother came from Binghamton — and this is how you treat them? And one of the criteria supposedly was a depressed area? Is there more a depressed area than Elimra, Binghamton, Tioga County? It's just unbelievably stupid."

Gural has since teamed up with former competitor Peter Walsh of Traditions at the Glen to push for a license for the proposed expansion of Gural's Tioga Downs, a harness track and racino. Libous and Assembly members Clifford Crouch, a Republican, and Donna Lupardo, a Democrat, joined the businessmen at the announcement of their partnership last week.

While Libous said he doesn't want to interfere with the bidding process and others are welcome to apply, he added that it would make sense for the Tioga Downs expansion proposal to receive the fourth license.