Fed gaming panel to hit the road

Friday, Jan. 9, 1998 | 10:09 a.m.

The National Gambling Impact Study Commission heads into its first meeting on the road this month amid nagging concerns the panel's anti-gaming members are wielding too much influence.

Those concerns surfaced again Thursday as the nine-member commission, chaired by Kay Cole James, an anti-gaming advocate, released the agenda for its Jan. 21-22 session in Atlantic City.

Mayor James Whelan and casino lobbyists complained that the agenda did not provide a fair overview of gambling's impact on the New Jersey resort town the past 20 years.

That led to a major change in the itinerary.

The original agenda called for a tour of a pawn shop and a rescue mission near Atlantic City's famed Boardwalk on the first day of the session. A visit to Donald Trump's Taj Mahal casino wasn't scheduled until 5 p.m. Jan. 22 when several panel members planned to fly home.

But at Whelan's urging, the commission's executive director, Nancy Mohr Kennedy, late Thursday added a lunch-time tour of the city on Jan. 21 to give panel members a chance to get out into the community.

"We had some miscommunication, but I think that's behind us," said Whelan, who plans to lead the hour-long tour. "We're looking forward to them coming, and we're looking forward to working with them."

Added Kennedy: "It's all water under the bridge. We've kissed and made up."

Kennedy insisted the commission has worked hard to present a fair agenda in Atlantic City.

"We tried our very best to be as balanced as is humanly possible," she said.

Whelan said he was concerned the panel was not going to see the real Atlantic City.

"We think that there's a story here," he said. "We'd like to see the accurate story told."

Whelan acknowledged that problems still exist outside the Boardwalk. But he said: "Atlantic City would be dead without casino gambling."

Frank Fahrenkopf, president of the Washington-based American Gaming Association added: "The tour will give the commission a better view of what gambling has meant to Atlantic City."

At least one gaming critic, Tom Grey, of the National Coalition Against Gambling, doesn't believe Atlantic City has a good story to tell.

"If they can see economic development beyond the Boardwalk, it's going to be something they've conjured up since the commission was formed," he said.

Touring the city and its pawn shops won't be the only business packed into the panel's heavy, two-day schedule.

The commission will hear testimony from experts on compulsive gambling and the social and economic impact casinos have on a community.

Though the meeting now appears on even keel, concerns remain about the inherent anti-gaming bias by James and some of her staffers. James is a prominent member of the religious right, which has been spearheading the campaign against gambling.

"We have a chair that is not interested in an objective study, but in pursuing a crusade," said Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev. "Those who wish to see a balanced study are going to have to be vigilant. Whenever the opportunity presents itself, Kay James will stack the deck."

Bryan and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., have been critical of James from the first meeting she chaired last summer.

"I've been disappointed in the way she has conducted these hearings from the beginning," Reid said. "The chairwoman is in league with the people in Congress who want to do away with gaming."

Worried about the way the Atlantic City meeting has unfolded, the Nevada Resort Association has decided to create a committee of influential citizens to make sure Las Vegas puts its best foot forward when the commission comes to town later in the year.

"There is a built in bias among the staff in the arrangements that are made for these site visits," said Wayne Mehl, the NRA's Washington lobbyist. "They're not being as objective as one would think a study commission would want to be to get all sides of the issue."

James may chair the commission, but three of its nine panel members -- Bill Bible, Terry Lanni and John Wilhelm -- have strong ties to gaming.

Divergent opinions about gambling have led to a rocky start for the commission, which must complete its two-year study by the summer of 1999.

The first two meetings in Washington were marred by infighting, as the panel struggled to establish rules of operation and come up with its work plan.

At its third meeting in November, the commission put aside its differences and agreed on an ambitious research agenda that seemed to give the panel direction.

James said afterwards that commissioners just needed time to get to know and trust each other.

In the wake of concerns about the Atlantic City agenda, some within the casino industry believe the commissioners may need more time to get acquainted.