http://www.kentucky.com/181/story/165390.html

Posted on Sat, Sep. 01, 2007

Casinos bring mix of pluses and minuses; Metropolis, Ill., a case study for
Ky.

By Ryan Alessi
ralessi@...

METROPOLIS, Ill. — The Harrah’s Casino boat that’s been docked on the Ohio
River for the past 15 years has forever changed this Southern Illinois
town, once dominated almost exclusively by the Man of Steel.

Economically, the city of 6,415 has never been as stable, residents say. As
for the other costs and benefits — those remain points of debate.

The full story of the casino’s effects is one of many tradeoffs: a revenue
machine in exchange for some incidents of personal tragedy; jobs and
stability swapped for increasing dependence on the gambling industry; and
an ongoing struggle for the identity of the town, a smaller neighbor to
Paducah, Ky.

It’s also a much more complex saga than the first two re-election campaign
ads of Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher would have viewers believe.

Fletcher has thrust the spotlight on cities with casinos in neighboring
states as a way to urge voters to reject his Democratic opponent, Steve
Beshear, who favors allowing a limited number of casinos in Kentucky.

“How bad it could really be? I visited some towns and some cities to find
out — places where casino gambling has laid a hand,” Fletcher says in his
first ad. “It’s a story without a happy ending.”

Fletcher’s only other commercial, which began airing Monday, tells of a
Waterloo, Ill., woman who became so hooked on gambling that she embezzled
$241,000 from the bank where she worked.

Kentuckians are waiting to find out what else the governor discovered.

The Herald-Leader’s tour of a nearby city with a casino shows that
gambling, like any industry, brings problems, and some residents still view
Harrah’s warily even after 15 years. But it is impossible to ignore
economic benefits and effects a casino can have.

“If the casino left Metropolis, Metropolis would become a ghost town,” said
Dawn Teague, who grew up in the city and worked in Harrah’s accounting
department for five years before opening a Christian book and gift store
downtown earlier this year.

“You would have so many people who would have to move away,” she said.

Harrah’s employs roughly 1,200 people, including those who work at the
hotel adjacent to the casino. The establishment attracts 1.1 million
visitors a year and generates $41 million for the state and $8.4 million
for the city, according to the Illinois Casino Gaming Association.

Benefits to city

Metropolis’ entire revenue structure has been turned upside down by the
casino revenue, which replaced taxes on utilities.

Municipal buildings and roads are being rebuilt at a faster pace than
officials thought possible. And the economy is stable, even if many of the
town’s other businesses aren’t seeing much of an uptick in customers.

Mayor Billy McDaniel, a devout Baptist who was first elected a decade after
Harrah’s arrived, makes it clear he doesn’t advocate gambling and remains
conflicted — and a bit uncomfortable — about the casino.

“I treat it as inherited income. We deal with what we have to deal with,”
he said, sitting in his city hall office three blocks from Harrah’s.

That “inherited income” is seemingly everywhere.

It helped the city pay for its new police station, a new fire station,
renovations to the library, a repaved four-lane road through the center of
town leading to the casino, sewer and water lines, Metropolis’ first water
filtration plant and most recently a new $4 million electricity substation
completed this summer, as well as park improvements.

“I’m not giving all that credit to the gaming part of it,” McDaniel said.
“But cities that don’t have that would have to float bonds … We’ve been
able to pay for items like that with cash. We don’t borrow money.” He said
without the casino revenue Metropolis would have taken “twice as long” to
make those improvements.

Residents have directly benefited, too.

The city doesn’t charge local taxes on utilities and also subsidizes
resident’s electric, water, sewer and garbage bills, McDaniel said.

It makes it so much cheaper on residents. That was their way of giving back
to the people,” McDaniel said of his predecessors in city government who
set up that system.

Casino money also has funded an after-school community center, as well as a
need-based program in which city residents attending Massac County High
School can earn up to $10,000 in scholarship money to any university.

McDaniel, who owned a barbeque restaurant before being elected, conceded
that Harrah’s “hasn’t been as bad as I originally thought.”

“It’s just like any vice — I guess you can call it a vice. If you’re around
it enough, you become complacent to it,” he said. “It doesn’t make it
right. It just makes it that it’s there.”

Still Superman’s town?

It is perhaps appropriate that the city — the only one in the United States
named Metropolis — would have dual identities. For decades it has billed
itself as the home of America’s most famous hero with an alter-ego,
Superman.

But even the Superman business has benefited from the casino’s presence.

Jim Hambrick moved to Metropolis from Los Angeles to open his Super Museum
and gift shop the same year that Harrah’s opened. He said Harrah’s
officials encouraged him to set up shop here.

He said the increase in traffic because of the casino has been a boon to
his business and prompted the construction of his second attraction, the
Americana Hollywood Museum, a block from the boat.

“If Harrah’s itself is getting 8,000 to 11,000 people a day, there’s got to
be a way to benefit,” he said.

But Hambrick, who said he’s been to the boat for meetings but never to
gamble, said there remains a clear division between the casino and the Man
of Steel, noting that Harrah’s isn’t permitted to display anything
Superman-related.

“Superman and gambling cannot coexist under the same roof, but they can
coexist in the same town,” Hambrick said.

Gary Motta, pastor of the First United Methodist Church in downtown
Metropolis — the closest church to Harrah’s — said that connection to
Superman, as well as the fact that Metropolis serves as a bedroom community
to Paducah, has kept the city from being known as just a casino
destination.

“It has not become completely the main identity of this town,” Motta said.

Struggle for identity

Even though most residents have come to accept the casino, in many ways
Metropolis residents continue wrestling with all that comes with the glitzy
casino.

Motta said no unified opposition exists, even from the religious community,
although one local Baptist ministry has stepped up its outreach to people
with addictions.

“The question of whether a community is healthier with or without the boat
is really up in the air,” he said.

Because Metropolis is a tight-knit community, any tragedy or bad luck that
befalls residents on the boat courses quickly through the gossip circuits.
Many acknowledged that especially right after Harrah’s arrived, they heard
stories of some folks losing more money than they could afford.

“It has caused a few problems,” said Mayor McDaniel. “Of course, those same
people may be spending that same money on lottery tickets or something
else.”

McDaniel and others interviewed declined to offer any names of residents
who got into trouble with gambling.

David Keyes, pastor at Hillerman Baptist Church, said he had been a
preacher for more than 40 years before one of his parishioners committed
suicide — a young man who amassed a large gambling debt five years ago.

“It has ruined our town,” Keyes said of Harrah’s. “Nothing is the same as
it used to be. Everything is about the river boat now.”

But Jim Myrick, who has lived in Metropolis since the mid-1960s and retired
after 35 years from the Honeywell chemical plant, said most residents
gamble at the casino infrequently at most.

“I’d say 99 percent of the people who come to the boat are from out of
town,” he said. “Most of them are from Kentucky or Tennessee.”

Though by no means conclusive, a stroll through one of the casino’s parking
lots Wednesday morning showed 27 cars with Kentucky license plates, 24 from
Tennessee and 19 from Illinois.

Myrick said he understands that Fletcher seized on the gambling issue
because it’s controversial. But he said he hopes Kentucky’s governor
doesn’t paint an inaccurate picture of Metropolis.

“If someone from Lexington asked me about the boat, I’d say if you can get
you one, grab it,” he said. “It means lots of jobs.”