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View from proposed park to casino
Mayor signs casino agreement
Published Wednesday, July 11, 2007
NATCHEZ — After more than six months of negotiations, Lane Company signed an agreement with the city Tuesday to reserve the land under Roth Hill with the intent to lease it.
Lane Company representatives plan to locate a casino and riverfront development under Roth Hill.
The board of aldermen unanimously voted to sign the agreement at Tuesday’s board meeting.
Under the agreement, Natchez Enterprises, LLC, an offshoot of Lane Company, has six months to reserve the roughly 5.3 acres.
If the company hasn’t entered into a contract with the city, promising to build, by Jan. 9, the company will pay the city $100,000.
If the company signs a lease with the city, Natchez Enterprises will have the land for 50 years, under the proposed contract.
The city and Natchez Enterprises will “use their best efforts” to introduce into the 2008 state legislative session legislation to extend the lease another 49 years.
Under the proposed contract, the company will pay the city a rent of $1 million or 4.5 percent of their gross gaming revenue each year.
The rent can be re-examined at each five-year anniversary to reflect an increase in the consumer price index.
As well as paying rent, under the contract, the company also must pay $1 million for the development of a YMCA, community recreation center or civil rights museum. They also must donate an amount necessary to complete funding for the Natchez Trails Project, not to exceed $300,000.
Under the contract, the company will donate $255,000 annually to a community development fund.
If it’s not commercially practical for Natchez Enterprises to construct a parking structure, the city will build 100 parking spaces that “shall be utilized solely by (Natchez) Enterprises for off-site parking.”
“This is a tremendous deal for the City of Natchez,” West said.
The signing was “a big step forward to making the vision of a casino at Roth Hill a reality,” Lane Company spokesman Ted Doody said Tuesday. “We could not be more excited. We look forward to the opportunity to unveil more details of future plans.”
Comments
Posted by browneyes (anonymous) on July 12, 2007 at 5:32 a.m. (Suggest removal)
If this is to be a success, then a 4 lane to Alexandria must become a reality. Looks like no hope for an interstate in the future for our sleeply little town.
Posted by GopherBaroque (anonymous) on July 12, 2007 at 8:08 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Gambling is a no-win for the vast majority of people who play the games. Let me back that statement up with a little math lesson. In a perfect world a coin tossed 100 times should come up heads 50% of the time and tails 50% of the time. That's logical. Casino's don't work that way. They are allowed to cut the percentages in their favor. I don't know what that percentage is by Mississippi law but I know that it exists.
Suppose for example you have a bowl of black marbles and white marbles. The casion says stick your hand in and grab a black marble and you win $1. If you pick a white marble then the casion wins. What you may not know is that there are 40 black marbles and 60 white marbles. Therefore the casion has a 10% better chance at taking your money than you do of winning theirs.
If you do it for entertainment then fine. If you do it to buy your next car with your winnings, don't bother.
Posted by stateofnatchez (anonymous) on July 12, 2007 at 1 p.m. (Suggest removal)
FinancialAdvisor-->
Statistics mean nothing to a person who has just lost everything! And as far as pushing ANY of our city leaders into ANYTHING, don't ever count on that. Based on your broken logic and questionable figures, I'm afraid to ask how you are advising clients on financial matters based on our local demographic.
Posted by srob (anonymous) on July 12, 2007 at 4:25 p.m. (Suggest removal)
While the casino would provide more jobs, and another place that will attract out of towners, it will also bring in people who will leave the casino drunk, drive down roads that are dangerous (like the one RIGHT NEAR the Isle where those people wrecked the other day) and more wrecks, accidents, risks, and deaths. Why haven't they considered that?
Posted by srob (anonymous) on July 12, 2007 at 4:27 p.m. (Suggest removal)
It's also a shame that the only way they can get anyone to build a YMCA is by bribing a company who wants to build a casino.
Posted by ghost (anonymous) on July 12, 2007 at 8:36 p.m. (Suggest removal)
4 lanes all the way to alexandria? take about ten years. Interstate system near Natchez? not in your great grandkids lifetime. and how is this casino going to bring jobs? they import about 90% of their employees from elsewhere. And with the gas prices, i dont see a signifigant amount regional people coming here to gamble. It would be more convienent to go to baton rouge or vicksburg or marksville. this casino will just be another option to blow welfare checks and create more hardship to families. GO SNATCHEZ!
Posted by concernedcitizen (anonymous) on July 12, 2007 at 10:01 p.m. (Suggest removal)
this is horrible...another casino so people can be tempted to go gamble thier families money away...and people LEAVE casinos drunk and that will cause more accidents...why cant natchez build something useful and attracting not harmful? like museums, or recreation building for kids or something besides that.. i really hate to hear of this..it really dissapoints me.
Posted by mellania (anonymous) on July 15, 2007 at 10:17 a.m. (Suggest removal)
ghost: I don't know where you get that one. My fiance's worked at the boat for years with people who ALL LIVE in Natchez.
Additionally, I agree with a previous post, you CANNOT babysit a society. A casino might not be the BEST choice for new business, but in case you haven't noticed, without the hotels and casinos coming in, Natchez is wilting faster than a 3-day old magnolia blossom.
Posted by c_8512 (anonymous) on July 18, 2007 at 10:40 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Please do not forget that when the first GAMBLING BOAT came to Natchez, there quickly followed many car title pawn shops, "Repo-Wrecker" outfits, bailbondsmen, an increase in emergency room security guards, street corner food stamp exchanges, Department of Human Services child neglect case loads, and the total lack of concern for DECENT entertainment, or jobs, in this area by the city and county governments, just to name a few. So, what economic advancements will another "boat" bring?
Posted by c_8512 (anonymous) on July 27, 2007 at 7:26 p.m. (Suggest removal)
FinancialAdvisor, I meant no disrespect to the hardworking individuals who do not take advantage of those people who are addicted to gambling or drugs. However, the gambling industry does not discriminate against those people that take their paychecks or welfare checks or loan checks to the "boat" in the hopes of getting rich. Neither do the pawn shops excuse a debt merely because it is for the purpose of gambling. As far as the other professions that I mentioned, some people that are addicted to gambling commit crimes, sometimes violent crimes in order to get money to gamble, or do drugs to bolster their courage to steal. Sometimes these people wind up in the emergency rooms of hospitals, where they would like nothing more than to continue the violence that they started on the streets, hence the need for extra security to protect the hospital workers, and other patients. And then, as soon as these people are released from the hospital, the police are there to take them to jail. Rather than spend their time in jail, these people call a bailbondsman to get them out. And there have been several reports of small children being left unattended in the "boats" parking lot while the parents gambled. Yes, you are correct, these hotels will bring jobs to Natchez, and I am sure that the people who work in them will enjoy the benefits that come with being employed. Maybe some of these hotels will even employ local people.
Posted by cherron (anonymous) on August 2, 2007 at 3:51 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Everyone that state negative ideas about the casinos, needs to think about how much have they brought into the city. People say that the casinos will not help Natchez, i think it will, but it's a start. I cannot run for any office in this state, but i am willing to assist in anything that will make this city grow. If you don't want this city to be overran by casinos then get off your butt and do something. Meet up will the leaders and overrun the casinos with indutry.
And to c_8512, I don't know what fictional world you live in but if you think that's what's going on then go to vegas, that don't even happen there.
Posted by Teach4Peace (anonymous) on August 8, 2007 at 9:36 a.m. (Suggest removal)
All one has to do is, take a look at what the current casino boat, has accomplished and done for Natchez. Save the arguments on broken homes, welfare checks, etc., I just really don't see what that boat has done for Natchez, other than being docked down there, 24/7. All the glitz and glamour proposed on the first one, has it really come into fruition? Natchez seems to be infatuated dreams and can be sold them quite easily, without ANY accountability for the non-results she gets. It seems to be a perveyor of dreams, rather than hard core reality and the realism it takes, to get things done.
Posted by cherron (anonymous) on August 9, 2007 at 1:23 a.m. (Suggest removal)
to Teach4Peace... Lets take a look at what the casino has done for Natchez, or just look at one aspect. Tourism died along time ago, this only casino kept natchez going. the donations from the casino helped many lives, gave more money and assistance than all the businesses that natchez ever has combined, gave the police department weapons and body armor when the mayor would not use the tax money for it. If just one casino can do that think about what more can do.
Just FYI, if natchez would have approved isle of capri in 91 and 92, Natchez would be bigger and booming more than Biloxi. remember natchez is where they wanted to start the corperation.
Before you include ur 2 cents in, do research. It helps me out in times.
Posted by frogprincenessntz (anonymous) on October 25, 2007 at 5:37 a.m. (Suggest removal)
to cherron...do some more research. Check the sales tax receipts from tourism prior to 1995 when the boat docked. I think you will find that they took a nose dive as soon as the curiosity seekers got their first look at the new gambling boat. I had a tourism based business and from 1990 to 95 there was a steady increase in both sales and the number of people we saw. After the boat came, many of my customers told me they wanted something from the store, but had lost too much money to buy it. Many of the gamblers, from other areas that came through the store, said that this boat did not pay off as well as the boats on the coast or Vicksburg. So maybe Gopher Baroque knows what he is talking about and they cut the percentages too much. The tourism folks say the numbers have increased, but to hold their jobs they have to say that. I can remember when locals did not come downtown during Pilgrimage because there was too much traffic congestion from the tourists. We have not seen that situation since 1995. Research that!
Posted by Preacher (anonymous) on December 19, 2007 at 12:09 p.m. (Suggest removal)
There is very little secondary income from casinos for the existing businesses of Natchez. Why do we want another one to drain our already strapped economy?
The odds of winning a jackpot on a 3 roller slot machine are about 360,000 to 1. And the odds on a 4 roller machine are over a million to 1. Luck has nothing to do with it. They are rigged to take your money and sucker you with small change payouts along the way.
This is one more $100,000 payout for the city and the potential for thousands of losers in Natchez.
No, I don't know what to do with people who have a greater addiction to gambling than they have common sense.
But I do know that our city and state government should not be promoting anything that destroys our families and ruins the lives of those they have promised to protect.
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