Unselected casino bidder files lawsuit against Archer

Wednesday, Oct. 8, 1997 | 10:48 a.m.

In the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit, Joel Ferguson, chairman of casino bidder NewCentury Detroit, said he questions the validity of the evaluation process for the licenses.

Ferguson's group was one of four groups not selected to be among the final seven casino builders.

"This was not supposed to be a popularity contest," he said in a news release. "We expected to be judged on the merits of our proposal on an equal footing with the other developers and operators. It is clear to me that we were not."

Mayor's spokesman Anthony Neely said the requirements for casino developers were clear and Archer made his selection based on the criteria he had established.

"The selection process for picking casino development finalists was fair," Neely said Thursday. "Mayor Archer made his decision based on those who met the requirements best. The people who have gone to court really have no basis for their claim."

He said he could not comment specifically on the lawsuit.

Other defendants named in the lawsuit were the State of Michigan, the Michigan Gaming Control Board, Atwater Entertainment Associates LLC and Greektown Casino LLC.

The Atwater and Greektown groups have preferences for a license under the state casino law because they helped finance the 1996 campaign that approved gambling in Detroit.

The Detroit Free Press also has reported that the seven finalists for the three licenses have close ties to Archer, including his college roommate, his next-door neighbor, the treasurer of his first mayoral campaign and members of his former law firm.

NewCentury Detroit would have turned the licenses over to three casino operators - his competitors - selected by Archer and receive 20 percent of the profits.

The rest - an estimated $200 million a year - would be reinvested into the city according to guidelines of the trust that an 11-member board would have to follow, Ferguson had said.

The NewCentury proposal was modeled in part by casinos in Windsor. There, the Ontario government owns the casinos and pays operators to run them.