Trades Council Leader Slams Hofstra Over Long Island Casino Stance
Posted on: December 5, 2023, 04:03h.
Last updated on: December 9, 2023, 01:02h.
The leader of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Nassau & Suffolk Counties blasted Hofstra University over its legal wranglings aimed at thwarting Las Vegas Sands’ efforts to bring a casino hotel to the site of the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, NY.
In an op-ed published by Newsday, Matthew Aracich, president of the council, said Hofstra’s claims that public comment on the casino issue was stifled and related dealings were conducted in backroom fashion, “weak and incredulous.”
Last month, New York State Supreme Court justice Sarika Kapoor ruled that Nassau County’s transfer of the lease on the Coliseum to Sands violated New York’s open meeting laws. Days later, the appellate division of the New York State Supreme Court put a hold on that ruling. Aracich noted that Hofstra representatives were present at many of the meetings at which locals made their voices heard on the casino resort issue.
Contrary to the case presented, Hofstra’s active presence at these meetings speaks volumes. Members of its administrative team were not merely observers; they actively engaged in the hearings and lobbied legislators in private meetings at the same time,” he wrote.
The Building and Construction Trades Council of Nassau & Suffolk Counties represents 65K tradeswomen and tradesmen in Long Island.
Aracich Hits Hofstra on Environmental Review for Long Island Casino
Large-scale projects like new gaming venue developments require comprehensive environmental reviews. In its legal arguments, Hofstra asserted that the process was somehow skirted by Nassau County.
As Aracich pointed out, the county doesn’t have purview over the environmental review. The town of Hempstead does, and the college’s legal posturing hampered its progress. The trades council boss said the university knows as much, and its behavior indicates a “blatant disregard for transparency and public interest.”
Some legal experts believe that the outcome Hofstra is angling for is to send Nassau County and Sands back to square one or to engage the county in a protracted legal battle. Both options could be dangerous to the hopes of a Long Island casino, as it’s taking the state of New York years to hear environmental law cases. That’s the time Nassau County and Sands don’t have because state regulators may award the three downstate casino permits next year.
Sands, the largest casino operator by market value, previously said the legal maneuvering won’t affect its bid and plans in Long Island.
“Sands represents an engine of transformative growth for our region, a need that resonates across both counties. This project offers an opportunity to partner with a world-class company eager to hire and train the Long Island workforce,” added Aracich in the Newsday piece.
Aracich Promises Community Will Fight Hofstra
Aracich concluded that if Hofstra successfully forces Nassau County and Sands to start the process anew, the college will feel the weight of locals who want to see the project come to life.
The trades boss promised that if Hofstra is victorious, more casino supporters will emerge and crowd legislative buildings in Nassau County to voice their endorsements of the casino venture.
“Long Islanders continue to demonstrate an unwavering belief in this project that eclipses Hofstra’s narrow, out-of-touch agenda,” he concluded. “It’s time to reclaim the narrative, ensuring that our strong and diverse communities triumph over these self-serving maneuvers and steer Long Island toward a future built on shared prosperity and collective growth.”
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Last Comments ( 3 )
If Mr. Aracich is really interested in providing his union members with jobs and securing the future of the community he would do his homework without political and personal gain affiliation. Why would you support a project that wants to build the second largest casino in America and have at least 20,000 additional people every day at the Nassau hub? Why would you want to add the tremendous amount of traffic to Hempstead tpke and surrounding parkways daily ? It’s already overcrowded. Why would you want this increased flow of people to decrease our fragile water supply? Why would you want the air quality that is just getting by inspection to impose a greater burden on the communities? Any reasonable person who have done there research knows the negative impact a casino has. Once the public has the true facts they will come out in force against this devious plot. There are so many more productive developments that can be constructed that would help the communities and add permanent jobs as well as construction jobs. Do the right thing and tell the truth. It always comes out in the end.I applaud the President of Hofstra University who had the courage to stand up to this mega giant Sands and tell the truth.
We love union construction workers who build so many things to improve our quality of life - schools, hospitals, apartment buildings, and factories. However, if they build this massive casino in the heart of Nassau County that will result in over $2 billion a year in gambling losses - it will forever harm our quality of life - it will inevitably lead to more crime, more traffic, more DWI fatalities, more pollution, more gambling addictions among the most vulnerable, it will also result in harm to our local restaurants and downtown businesses due to the enormous diversion of discretionary dollars to gambling losses. Casinos do not create wealth for a local community, they drain wealth. Tax revenues are not generated from real economic activity but from gambling losses. Short term gains for construction workers will lead to forever heartache for our community.
No casino can create a future built on shared prosperity and collective growth. Casinos do not generate any economically productive activity that can be reinvested back into society, but rather merely reallocate existing resources among their customers while simultaneously extracting a large cut of those resources for the casino owners. The best any casino can promise is that it will enrich its owners and a few lucky winners at the expense of a much greater number of people who must lose to provide the resources needed to pay the few who do win.