Fairfax,
VA - Even though the Virginia Senate passed Senate Bill 982 by a margin
of 24-16 on February 4, 2025, and it is now headed to the House of
Delegates, that hasn’t discouraged the No Fairfax Casino Coalition in
efforts to obtain the facts regarding claims of financial benefit that a
Tysons area casino will bring to Fairfax County and the State.
Chief Patron of the senate bill, Senator Scott Surovell, has described the economic benefits that his bill and a new casino will produce. Calling it a boost to the economic development of Tysons, he has claimed that revenue predictions will lift the economies of both Fairfax County and the State.
Chief Patron of the senate bill, Senator Scott Surovell, has described the economic benefits that his bill and a new casino will produce. Calling it a boost to the economic development of Tysons, he has claimed that revenue predictions will lift the economies of both Fairfax County and the State.
In defending his bill during the February
4, floor debate in the Virginia Senate, Surovell stated the developer
(for the proposed Tysons casino) had hired The Innovation Group, the
same consultant hired by the Joint Legislative Audit & Review
Commission (JLARC) to do the 2019 General Assembly study on five
down-state casinos. To our knowledge, if such a report exists from The
Innovation Group, it has not been made public or shared with State or
Local representatives.
The lack of
transparency has led others to think that Senator Surovell's projections
were provided by a different source. A February 5, article by independent journalist Josh Stanfield published
by Substack disclosed internal communications between the developer
and Professor Terry Clower, Northern Virginia Chair and professor of
public policy in GMU’s Schar School of Policy and Government. Email
records, obtained by Stanfield through the Virginia Freedom of
Information Act (VFOIA), reveal that on December 10, a representative of
Chris Clemente, the principal of Comstock Properties, wrote to the
GMU’s Dean of the Schar School of Public Policy and Government, Mark
Rozell, to engage a “comprehensive study on the economic benefits of the
project.” The records also revealed that Dean Rozell informed GMU
Professor Terry Clower that Comstock Co. “…will provide all the needed
data, so the scope of the work with the tight deadline may not be a
challenge.” The email exchanges between the Dean and professor Clower
discussed potential compensation and whether or not the study would be a
“Schar School product” and that it would be a public document.
It is important to note that the GMU Schar School of Public and Government is named for Dwight Schar, father-in-law of Christopher Clemente, the mixed-use developer behind the proposed casino. Also, the published email exchanges indicate that the “numbers” provided by Comstock to support the Schar study were derived from several sources including a news story published by the Milford Daily News on December 18, 2020, that describes revenues generated by construction of the Wynn Resorts Encore Boston Harbor casino in Everett, Mass.
It is important to note that the GMU Schar School of Public and Government is named for Dwight Schar, father-in-law of Christopher Clemente, the mixed-use developer behind the proposed casino. Also, the published email exchanges indicate that the “numbers” provided by Comstock to support the Schar study were derived from several sources including a news story published by the Milford Daily News on December 18, 2020, that describes revenues generated by construction of the Wynn Resorts Encore Boston Harbor casino in Everett, Mass.
Senator Surovell told the audience at his February 1, Town Hall the developer is working with the operator, Wynn Casino.
All
indications are that the study, the economic foundation for the revenue
predictions that a Tysons casino would bring to the people of Fairfax
County (and the Commonwealth) is nothing more than a project financed by
the developer, possibly prepared by a professor who, once engaged by
the developer, somehow completely reversed his position about the
benefits a Northern Virginia casino would deliver. Something changed
Clower’s mind about the beneficial economic prospect of a
Tysons/Northern Virginia casino. Quoted in a February 2023, Mercury
News article entitled, Why some think going all-in on a Fairfax County casino would be a bust, Clower stated “I can’t help but think of it as being in a way a measure of economic development desperation.”
The
No Fairfax Casino Coalition agrees with Professor Clower's 2023
assessment and urges the Virginia General Assembly to oppose the casino
bill which has been floating on a bed of confused and unsubstantiated
claims of an economic pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.
###
Media Contact:
Lynne Mulston, Chair 214-450-9539
__________________________________
No Fairfax Casino Coalition
Facebook: NoFairfaxCasino (all one word)
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