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© 2021 The Somerville Times. All rights reserved.
By Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone
(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries and letters to the Editor of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)
Lately there’s been a lot of news concerning the settlement of the lawsuit between the City of Boston and the Wynn casino in Everett. That dispute garnered lots of media attention, but paid little notice to the fact that the City of Somerville still has four lawsuits regarding the proposed casino working their way through the court system. Our focus has been on serious environmental issues, significant and unaddressed traffic impacts and the integrity of the licensing process, which may not grab headlines as easily. But rest assured, we have multiple days in court still pending.
It’s unfortunate that the Commonwealth’s gaming law leaves abutting communities heavily impacted by a casino project with few, if any, governmental remedies. That left us no option but to seek legal remedies. Somerville is not alone in having outstanding cases concerning this development. The City of Revere and the Mohegan Sun group raised legal challenges regarding the process that awarded the license to Wynn in Everett as well. The resolution of Boston’s lawsuit doesn’t change these legal concerns.
In this column, I’m going to lay out the basics of our four lawsuits. Ultimately these matters won’t be decided in the media. These are technical legal issues concerning what we believe has been a process rigged from the start in favor of casino developers. These cases raise serious legal issues that the courts will review in what we expect will be a more objective manner than we have seen state agencies undertake thus far. This op-ed is designed to keep the people of Somerville informed about where things stand, not to argue the totality of the cases in print. As you can imagine, the finer legal issues are extensive.
The first suit is an appeal of the casino license itself, which was granted by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission before the applicant satisfied Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) requirements. We’re more than familiar with the process for developing along the riverfront. The City contends that no casino license for Wynn in Everett should have been issued until the environmental issues had been fully explored and a comprehensive traffic plan had been devised and approved by the Commonwealth. When we put together the Assembly Row project, we went through a far more extensive environmental review. On top of that, we addressed regional traffic concerns by adding the Assembly Square MBTA stop along the Orange Line to make it transit-oriented development, improving direct highway access and completely redesigning the road network inside Assembly Square in order to pull traffic more efficiently off of regional roadways. The Gaming Commission awarded a license before similar, necessary steps were taken with the Wynn casino. Simply put, the cart got put before the horse.
A related second suit is a challenge of the MEPA findings. Appeals of this sort are highly technical, dealing with issues of water and air quality. Thanks to multiple research studies, including the multi-year Tufts University-led study of pollution near highways and major roadways in our city and region (the CAFEH Study, Community Assessment of Freeway Exposure and Health), we now understand the risks that traffic pollution poses to our residents. Communities exposed to high levels of vehicle exhaust suffer higher rates of heart disease, asthma, and lung cancer, and their residents may suffer illness and premature death as a result. The Wynn casino readily admits 18,000 people per day will be driving to its site, choking local roadways and pumping tons of extra exhaust into the air we breathe. Stalled and heavy traffic threatens to increase the pollution seeping into the runoff water inside the Mystic River watershed as well. Our contention is that MEPA has not addressed the severity of these impacts, nor identified proper mitigations for them.
The third suit is an appeal of the Everett municipal harbor plan. The Wynn project was granted permission to build a 400 foot building in a zone in which buildings are restricted by regulation to being no higher than 245 feet. Wynn’s Everett casino will be one of the two tallest buildings in Massachusetts outside of downtown Boston. At its closest point, the casino will be only 76 feet from the Somerville city line along the Mystic River. We and the river are directly impacted by this decision. It is literally on our doorstep, with serious implications for the shared waterway between our two cities.
The final lawsuit challenges the finding that the casino will provide more of a public benefit than a detriment. This also centers largely on the glaring lack of a regional traffic plan. Committing theoretical dollars to an unknown solution does not change the fact that the casino is scheduled to open well in advance of any regional roadway reconstruction. We have no idea what the solution might even look like or how much it will cost. Contrast that with Assembly Square, where improved highway access, a new internal road network and the new T station are in place as new development comes on line. We do not have the road infrastructure in place to absorb the traffic impact of this casino. The congestion creates environmental concerns, lessens the quality of life for residents, who will be caught in the daily gridlock, and negatively impacts businesses that will become increasingly hard to access through the snarl of traffic.
A massive project like this creates ripple effects that need to be fully understood and addressed. The Commonwealth’s casino licensing process did not allow for that thorough review and consideration to take place. Now we are looking at a gigantic impact that will spill across multiple communities that do not have the necessary information needed to plan. Somerville’s lawsuits are looking to inject fairness and sanity into the process.
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Wynn has committed to running shuttle buses from Wellington and Sullivan stations for patrons and employees. They are planning to run a water shuttle to downtown Boston. And they are paying to completely rebuild Broadway in Everett between Route 16 and Sullivan Square, as well as doing some modifications to Sullivan Square itself. They are also building an extension of the Northern Strand Trail from just north of Route 16 through the Wynn property, connecting it to the existing trails along the river. They are charging for parking for patrons who park at the casino. They are having employees park at remote lots and busing them in. I would hardly call that nothing in terms of traffic mitigation.
The best way to mitigate the traffic impact of the Wynn casino is to build a pedestrian bridge across the Mystic River, linking it directly to that new Assembly Orange Line station. With this connection, people can take public transit to the casino instead of driving there.
Please drop the city’s doomed lawsuits and instead support this infrastructure improvement, which will greatly benefit people and businesses on both sides of the river.
Mr. Mayor, please stop wasting our tax dollars!
Keep the pressure on those scumbags until Wynn goes out of business. Check out WYNN stock in the last year: 160 to 60 ha ha!
Who are these people that think they can pollute everyone around them with their exhaust?
I’ll just leave this here… : People should know when they are conquered.
It’s a done deal. Get over it.
Charlie – Broadway in Everett has already been rebuilt within the last few years, including wonderful new bike lanes. It does not need another rebuild for quite a while.
I still say Wynn’s going to recognize one of these days that Everett is never going to be a destination resort town and scrap this project. No way is he going to be able to keep that hotel packed or attract the whales who can go to Monte Carlo and Macau. He might already realize it and his plan is to get deep enough into the project to come back with a dramatically scaled down version. Half a loaf of is better than no loaf, right?
Slowing his roll and making double sure he’s playing by the rules might screw up his timeline enough for him to pull out of the project. The more promises he makes are that many more promises he’s got to break down the road. Good on the city for pushing on this house of cards.
Isn’t there a lawsuit against you? at least one?
i can see steve wynn with a smile on his face waiting for me at the door!!!
they havent even broken ground yet? and that unfinished fenced off
strip mall whatever it is does that have to to with wynn? and will there
be a free shuttle from sullivan station? im just giddy about a new casino
here!!!!!
Curtatone,
You are so hypocritical and transparent. I cannot wait until you decide you want to run for a higher office or someone with a shot will run against you in an election. Stop wasting time and Somerville taxpayers money on this nonsense.
You are conniving and dishonest with your court actions. This guise is nothing more than a disingenuous concern for public safety and benefit. It is absurd given your past dealing with developers within city limits. You want more money, clear as day. You messed up by not requiring proper mitigation from the assembly development. Now are trying to make up for it by attacking a politically easy target. You will lose your appeal and have nothing more to show for it, other than a larger legal bill. Stop with this waste and take ownership of your missteps and work with Wynn best as possible.
1. You complain about increase traffic and the lack of mitigations from the casino, but you showed no concern when Federal Realty Investment Trust want to build Assembly Square. Wynn traffic will be less than the traffic generated by Assembly Square. Assembly is generating 4,000 to 6,000 car trips per hour during rush hours and you are fretting about 18,000 cars per day on a weekend, and not all of them travel through Somerville. Where were your objections to Assembly. It was quite the contrary, as you threw money, $25 million in city bonds to be exact, for road constructions to sweeten he deal for those developers.
2. When Partners decided to move into Assembly, you did not require them to do anything to mitigate and update the intersections around Assembly. Broadway and Mt Vernon is a mess and residents have complained about it for years. Adding the thousands of trips from Partners during rush hour will kill that intersection. You did not demand that they mitigate the extra traffic. The upgraded lights, which are horribly designed, were installed well before Ikea dropped out and Partners took their place. Partners was required to do nothing.
3. You complain about a 400 foot tower on the water worrying that it will hurt public access of the water way. How is this different from the 6 or 7 250 foot towers Assembly Square will build that are just as close to the river. Even then Wynn is building a public garden and harbor walk. What are your plans for the Somerville’s side?
Ha ha. Sour grapes mayor. Everett got the biggest company in the region. Breathe; relax and stop wasting our tax dollars! Please!
I love how the Wynn puppets are getting on here and berating the mayor for doing his job. As if this will help save their jobs. The people see through this. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Keep up the good fight.
There were local roadway improvements constructed and paid for by the Assembly Row developers. These were done when IKEA was still planned to come as well. This included widened intersections and signals on Route 28 as well as I-93/Mystic Ave at Lombardi St.