Staff writer
FREDERICKTOWN - Coal cars rumbled regularly just feet from the East Bethlehem Township fire hall, but even the noise of a freight train couldn't drown out the furor that was unleashed Friday night over Washington County slots revenue allocation process.
After more than 90 minutes of complaints from local officials, state Sen. J. Barry Stout, the self-described dean of the Washington County legislative delegation, let loose his frustrations in a string of Biblical allusions laced with profanities for which he later apologized.
"Anybody here want to be Solomon?" Stout asked. "Maybe we ought to cut the damn baby in half. You can't make anybody happy."
Stout spoke much more than the uncharacteristically terse state Rep. Bill DeWeese of Waynesburg, House Democratic majority leader, who sat in the audience instead of on the hot seat. DeWeese said his district lies in the periphery of Washington County, so he was deferring to legislators whose districts include the casino and its neighbors.
Officials in East Bethlehem and neighboring Centerville are angry enough about not sharing in the estimated $8 million in slots revenue that they've vowed to file suit. Municipalities and agencies filed more than $88 million worth of requests before the Dec. 31 deadline.
"Everybody in Washington County deserves a piece of that," said Mike Packrall, East Bethlehem Township supervisor. "The smaller communities are the ones that are struggling. They can't afford to put a package together so it's presentable."
Stout was adamant that the slots proceeds are not intended to be used as revenue sharing, but state Rep. Jesse White said he believes water lines and sewer projects need to be priority projects for slots revenue.
"We're never going to see this money unless we file this lawsuit. We're waiting for (the gaming revenue) to be given from the state to the Department of Community and Economic Development, and we plan on filing an injunction then," said Paul Battaglini, East Bethlehem Township supervisor, after the two-hour-long gathering in which participants questioned the appearance of conflict of interest among members of the Economic Development Roundtable whose agencies were recommended for hefty shares of slots revenue.
"I would like to see a panel of experts" evaluate the slots revenue applications, Packrall said. "I would not like to see anybody on the panel applying for the money."
The three largest recommended allocations - $1.3 million for Southpointe II infrastructure, and $1.2 million apiece for Alta Vista and Starpointe business parks - came from agencies having members on the economic development roundtable.
The fact that deliberations on the recipients were held behind closed doors also rankled those who attended Friday's meeting.
The Fredericktown fire department bingo hall, geographically about as far as one can travel from The Meadows Racetrack & Casino and still be in Washington County, is likely losing customers to slot machine gaming.
Battaglini also talked of the need for sidewalks in Fredericktown, a former mining town, where a series of red cones, not walkways line the streets.
Friday night's gathering may not have been the most contentious of four gatherings held over the past few weeks, but it's the only one where the threat of a lawsuit reared its head.
"People are pretty passionate about their concerns and about this money," said County Commission Chairman Larry Maggi, who received a round of applause as the sole member of his board attending each of the confabs.
"We just want to make sure we do it right."
"Anytime you have the threat of a lawsuit, obviously, it's going to be a little more contentious," White said after the meeting. "This one probably was a little more heated than the other ones. I had my ethics questioned."
After public hearings conducted by the local share committee of the Economic Development Roundtable, of which White was the appointee of the Washington County legislative delegation, the Washington County Commissioners in February recommended a list of 26 projects to DCED. The department likely will announce the final recipients in June.
That's the same month that White, of Cecil Township, state Rep. Tim Solobay of Canonsburg and Stout plan to make a recommendation to the county commissioners on changing the process for slots revenue allocation.
The legislators asked local officials not to resort to filing a lawsuit.