PORTLAND — Three of Oregon’s living former governors are joining the current chief executive in opposing two ballot measures that would authorize Oregon’s first nontribal casino.
Republican Vic Atiyeh and Democrats Barbara Roberts and Ted Kulongoski held a news conference with casino opponents in Portland on Monday. Current Gov. John Kitzhaber also has opposed Measures 82 and 83, which would allow investors to build a casino in Wood Village, just east of Portland.
Critics have warned that a new casino would increase crime in the area while harming Indian tribes that operate Oregon’s nine existing casinos and rely on the revenue to pay for social services such as housing and education.
Casino proponents tout a fun destination that they say would create jobs and generate money for parks, police and schools.
Active opponents, proponents
Both sides have spent liberally on television commercials touting the benefits and drawbacks of expanding gambling in Oregon.
Casinos are currently illegal in Oregon, but the state’s ban doesn’t extend to tribal land. Tribes run casinos on their land under federal law, with the state’s permission.
Measure 82 would change the state constitution to allow gambling in Oregon, with some restrictions, if each casino is approved in a statewide vote and in the community where it would be located. Measure 83 would specifically authorize the casino in Wood Village with up to 3,500 slot machines and 150 tables, and require that 25 percent of revenue go to the state lottery fund.
Clairvest Group Inc., a private equity firm based in Toronto, is the primary investor in the casino, working with Great Canadian Gaming Inc., which runs more than a dozen casinos and race tracks in British Columbia and Washington state, and two Lake Oswego businessmen who have been trying since 2005 to get voter approval for a privately owned casino.
Family-friendly destination
The developers are advertising their project as a family-friendly destination currently called The Grange, which they say would include a casino, hotel, theater and water slide on the site of the abandoned Multnomah Kennel Club in Wood Village — a town of less than 4,000 people on the eastern edge of metropolitan Portland, about 15 miles from downtown.
They say the casino would be 130,000 square feet — about the size of an average Target store — with 2,200 slot machines and 100 table games. Their plans call for a 125-room hotel, water park, bowling alley, concert hall and a public space for farmers markets and other gatherings.
The proponents say they’ll build the project as advertised, although there’s no requirement that they do so.
