The head of the state gaming board encouraged a top casino exec who had been considering Springfield to mull Boston, raising ethical questions from industry watchdogs as well as the ire of developers who claim the conversation helped sink their project.
Two Springfield developers who were working with Hard Rock International to build a proposed gaming palace in the city blasted Massachusetts Gaming Commission Chairman Stephen Crosby yesterday for suggesting to a top Hard Rock executive that the firm consider Boston, where Suffolk Downs racetrack is the odds-on favorite to land a coveted casino license.
"In the chairman's zeal to find a competitor for Suffolk Downs, he severely undercut and damaged our ability to deliver a world-class project for the city of Springfield," said Anthony Ravosa, a former Springfield city councilor whose company, Western Mass Development, was working with Hard Rock. "I think it's entirely inappropriate."
The conversation occurred in August between Crosby and Hard Rock chief financial officer Brad Buchanan at a gaming board hearing in Springfield.
Anthony Cignoli, another Western Mass Development partner, said the conversation led the businessmen to believe that Crosby was urging them to consider a Boston license, rather than Springfield. Hard Rock pulled the plug on its Springfield plans last month.
"I think it's a step over the line," Cignoli told the Herald. "To have a commissioner take an international player like Hard Rock and suggest to them they should be somewhere else besides Springfield is really egregious."
Crosby downplayed the flap, saying he made a "passing comment" to Buchanan, whom he said he had never met before the meeting.
"Somewhere in the course of that conversation I said, 'It's great to have you interested in western Mass. You should look at eastern Mass. too,' " Crosby said last night. "It was a complete nothing. It's totally silly to say that had anything to do with the Hard Rock's actions.
"It's certainly appropriate to talk to people about the various opportunities in Massachusetts," he added. "I don't think it would be inappropriate for us to sort of generically encourage all people to look long and hard at the competitive opportunities."
Crosby has been pushing for more competition in the Boston region for months. Casino experts question whether Crosby — who will be tasked with approving casino license applicants — may have crossed an ethical line.
"I don't think it's appropriate," said gaming expert Richard McGowan, a Boston College professor. "He's not supposed to be going out soliciting bids."
Sources say Hard Rock has, in fact, turned its sights to the Boston area and is eyeballing a site in Everett. So far, the only competition for Suffolk Downs is Crossroads Resorts in Milford, but the developers of that project have yet to reveal any formal plans.
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