“Once again, the state’s casino approval process and the Gaming Commission have failed. In recent months, several issues surrounding the site of the proposed Wynn casino have been brought to the Gaming Commission’s attention, including one of the landowners originally refusing to sign a pledge that no secret owners would profit from the land’s sale to the applicant and the acceptance of the applicant’s reduction of the purchase price from $75 million to $35 million. The Commission sold the public short. As their own investigators concluded last December, ‘the conduct of the sellers in this transaction during the Investigations and Enforcement Bureau’s suitability investigation gave rise to serious concerns as to transactional transparency, good faith disclosure and document misrepresentation and falsification.’ Nevertheless the Commission failed to outright reject the Everett property as a site for gaming. Sadly this was not surprising. We have seen throughout this entire process that it was designed, from start to finish, to only favor the gambling industry.”

— Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone