Community Corner

Medford City Officials, Residents Raise Concerns with Everett Casino Proposal

At times, Monday's meeting got contentious.

Medford city officials and residents raised concerns Monday with representatives from Wynn Resorts about the developer’s $1.2 billion casino proposal on the Mystic River in neighboring Everett.

Medford Mayor Michael McGlynn, who opposes the project, said traffic, especially on Route 16, and environmental impacts are his main concerns, while City Councillor Richard Caraviello brought up the economic impacts, possibly negative, the casino could have on Medford restaurants and businesses.

The two sides met at the Hyatt Place in Medford Monday morning. In addition to city officials, including many department heads, and the group from Wynn, Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria Jr. and a handful of residents were also in attendance.

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A few nearby Medford residents also mentioned the impacts on traffic, and on property values.

After Wynn’s general counsel, Kim Sinatra, gave an overview of the project at the old Monsanto chemical plant, at times, the meeting got contentious, especially between Medford city councillors and DeMaria.

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“You’re getting a financial reward, we’re getting nothing,” City Councillor Robert Penta told Everett’s mayor.

“You’ve been getting financial reward for the last 50 years,” DeMaria replied. “We haven’t had a crane in the city of Everett.”

DeMaria brought up Medford’s Station Landing on a few occasions, noting that Everett had no say in that neighboring development.

“I was happy to see Station Landing developed,” he said, “but Everett didn’t have a say in what happened in Medford – we never have.”

After one Station-Landing reference, McGlynn said, “That’s over now.”

DeMaria is a strong supporter of the casino project for his city, and last month, Everett voters overwhelmingly backed the project, 86.5 to 13.5 percent, allowing it to move forward.

The casino proposal is one of three being considered by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission in the eastern part of the state – East Boston and Milford being the other two. A decision is expected in the first half of 2014.

DeMaria was confident the Everett proposal would move forward.

“I’m not a betting man anymore,” he said, “but I’m going to bet the application is going to go forward.”

DeMaria praised Wynn’s leader, Steve Wynn. He also focused on the positives, such as the infrastructure improvements, and downplayed concerns, such as traffic.

“It’s not a ballgame where 30,000 people are coming out at one time,” he said. “I’ve never sat in traffic going to Foxwoods.”

Sinatra said casinos have shown to help nearby restaurants and businesses by bringing people to the area and providing jobs.

The meeting was also the beginning of the mitigation process. Even though McGlynn is opposed to the project, if it moves forward, he wants a say.

DeMaria said he considers Medford a “surrounding community,” or a community that is impacted by the project, therefore, allowing it to go through mitigation under the state statue.

McGlynn said he believes Medford will be a “surrounding community.”

“I would be shocked if we weren’t,” he said. “ … There is no way to get north or west without going through Medford.”

The mayor’s office is collecting residents’ concerns about the project through two email addresses, casinocomments@medford.org or casinoconcerns@medford.org. The mayor is in charge of mitigation, according to the state statute.

City Councillor Michael Marks said he thought the meeting should have been better advertised so more residents would have known about it. Marks, who lives near Wellington Circle, also disagreed with DeMaria’s take that the casino being a “destination” would be a positive.

“I didn’t buy [my house] to live five minutes from a resort destination,” he said.

“I know this will be a win, win for the City of Everett,” Marks added. “I don’t think it’ll be a win, win for the City of Medford.”

The City Council has made three resolutions against the casino.

“I was a little disappointed to hear some of the stuff you guys said,” DeMaria told Penta.

“You can be disappointed all you want,” Penta replied.


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