Governor, Rosemont mayor urge gaming board to decide on casino proposal

Don Babwin

Thursday, Nov. 2, 2000 | 9:48 a.m.

ROSEMONT, Ill. - Gov. George Ryan called on the Illinois Gaming Board on Wednesday to move quickly on whether to approve a proposed floating casino in Rosemont.

"There's communities waiting for their share of this money (tax revenues)," Ryan said Wednesday, a day after the state Supreme Court ruled the gaming board can decide on Emerald Casino Inc.'s proposal to build the casino. "This thing's been under consideration for more than a year and the gaming board probably ought to move a little faster if they could."

Ryan's comments came about two hours after Rosemont Mayor Donald Stephens and a dozen other suburban mayors held a news conference urging the board to approve the proposal before its scheduled Dec. 5 meeting.

"There are no more legal impediments. ... Issue the license," Stephens said.

Gaming Board Chairman Gregory Jones said he did not know if the panel would call a special meeting to vote on the proposal before the next regularly scheduled meeting in early December. If not, he said they should be able to reach a decision at that December meeting, "depending on what the staff tells me."

"I think it's a high priority with the board to move this and make a decision as soon as it can," he said.

Stephens said the gaming board's lengthy investigation has cost the state at least $128 million in lost tax revenues in the last 16 months - a loss that is growing at a rate of $2 million and $3 million a week, he claimed.

Ryan, who was appearing in Rosemont at the Illinois Women's Health Conference, put the cost to the state at about $20 million a month.

The governor stopped short of saying how he thinks the board should vote, only that it should do so soon. "I'm satisfied with whatever the gaming board does," he said. But, he said, "They either ought to grant it or they ought to not grant it."

The court's ruling does not compel the gaming board to vote on the issue. Nor does it end a lawsuit filed in October 1999 by a rival casino group, Lake County Riverboat L.P., which claims the state's gambling law is unconstitutional because it granted Emerald Casino the right to renew its gaming license and relocate to Rosemont.

But the court did say that the board can decide on the proposal while the lawsuit is pending.

Stephens and William Quinlan, an attorney representing Rosemont, acknowledged the board has said the only thing standing in the way of a vote was a Supreme Court ruling. Quinlan said he was told by Sergio Acosta, the board's administrator, that the board would be inclined to vote on the proposal before the scheduled Dec. 5 meeting.

Gaming board spokesman Gene O'Shea said Wednesday that Acosta would have no comment. O'Shea would not discuss the possibility that a special meeting would be called before then.

Stephens also said he was frustrated by both the length of the board's investigation and the board's refusal to disclose any details of its probe. "I've asked them repeatedly, 'What are you looking for?' I really don't get much of a reply other than 'We're conducting our investigation."'

He said if the board's investigators have questions about any particular investors, they should tell him. "We are also a governmental agency," he said. To the board, he asked, "Tell us who these bad people are because we don't want to do business with them either and we will help you."

O'Shea would not discuss any details of the investigation.