Two anecdotes in an Eagle news article Thursday illustrated the contrast of what many local citizens want and what some local lawmakers don’t want to hear.
Park City Mayor Dee Stuart (in photo) told The Eagle that she was at a rest stop near Emporia Wednesday when she was recognized by some Wichita-area residents who were part of a bus trip to Harrah’s Prairie Band Casino north of Topeka. She boarded the bus, told the riders that she was headed to Topeka to try to get Sedgwick County included in a casino bill, and left to a round of applause, she said. But when she arrived in Topeka, she and two officials from Sumner County weren’t allowed to speak at a lunch meeting of the Sedgwick County legislative delegation and were told that they could sign up to sponsor a future lunch.
Given all the requests that the delegation receives from groups, Stuart and the officials shouldn’t have presumed that they could show up without making any prior arrangements and appear before the delegation. But they also shouldn’t have to buy lunches for the entire delegation in order to gain an audience.
Delegation chairman Sen. Phil Journey, R-Haysville, did say later, when questioned by an Eagle reporter, that Stuart could speak at a future meeting without having to buy all the lunches.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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13 Comments
Just goes to show that the Segdwick County delegation is largely bought and paid for by out-of-town gambling interests and are striving mightily to protect their monopoly on gambling in the State.
State employees wont even let us buy them a sandwich when they drive all the way out here because they have rules against such things. Pity the rules dont apply to the ones who make them.
They probably wouldnt have talked to Dee if she had been toting prime rib and caviar for lunch. Now bread and wine, that might have been a different thing. I bet Terry, Joe and Fred dont have to make an appt with these folks.
see what happens when you make the royal family mad? maybe if she had not made such a big deal out their dirty little money deal she would have gotten a better reception.
We should take up a collection to buy lunch for our POOOR starved legislators. I have some stale bread to supply. ksgirl – got any old baloney for the snadwiches? (preferably sort of green and growing?)
lol ben, nothing but organic beef and veggies here.
Dee Stuart is a bomb thrower and an absolute embrassment to Park City. I know a few people that reside in Park City and the growing setiement is the same with their neighbors, that Stuart will not be voted in again for Mayor.
She is a complete hypocrite also. She said if she cannot get her destination Casino, she would oppose the slots at the dog track, because it’s not in Park City.
What a hypcrite! What is the difference between a Casino across the interstate from the Dog Track and the Track itself? Oh! I see! It’s not about the jobs that the slots in the track will produce, its not about the growing traffic in the area that will be eating and filling up with gas in Park City, it is about the property tax revenue.
I thought she was passionate about the Casino because of economic development and jobs, but we all know her true reason, its more tax revenue, not the jobs or economic development.
She has burned a lot of bridges, and she is losing support from her constituents, so she will lose any political clout she ever could mustar.
Joe, there is quite a bit of difference between a bunch of slot machines and a full-service destination casino. That is why the NE Kansas gambling interests are paying sedgwick County legislators to keep that competition from happening.
Ben! A casino doesn’t have dog racing though.
Have you ever been into a casino? It is nothing but slot machines and a few card tables. The money is in the slots.
I recently went down to the Native Lights Casino in Newkirk, Oklahoma to install equipment there. That place, although not very big, is nothing but slots and they only had four card tables. A Snack Bar and a regular Bar, and you got yourself a Casino.
I know that a Destination Casino would be more than that and it would be a hotel also, but when people want to gamble, I say that 95% want to do slots. So having slots at the Dog Track is equvilant of having a desination casino.
There are going to be hotels built in that area if the Dog Track gets slots and of course Wild West World.
It’s a win win for everybody. Legislators who oppose gambling can say they stop a destination casino, the Dog Track could start making money because they have slots, people that want to gamble will go the to Dog Track, and people and Park City along with the County and State would benefit in tax dollars.
What is the real difference here? I’m mean for real?
Yes, I have been to casinos – Vegas, Reno, Atlantic City, Kansas City, and even stuck my head in at Prairie Band once. While they aren’t really a big deal in my vies I see a number of card tables, full restaurant and bar, etc.
I guess my problem is that the “powers that be” have denied us a vote on the issue and they piously claim to be morally opposed while they do the bidding of NE Kansas gambling interests. I doubt that Ruffin’s track with slots will draw anywhere near the number of people a true casino would draw. That is why the casinos in NE Kansas are paying McLeland, Donovan, Journey etc to block it.
I’d like to see some proof rather than assumptions that county officials won’t allow for a vote because they’re paid-off by NE KS casinos.
Follow the money trail. Sedg County Commissioners were going to allow democracy to take place. Then a group of “moral” legislators convinced them not to. Those “moral” legislators had taken large amounts of money from out-of-town gambling interests that stand to lose business if competition moves in.
Obviously they are not going to walk in and say “Hi, I’ve been paid off by the NE casinos” but; if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck …
And if you wave one of those contribution lists in front of them, and they scream, “that HAS to be a lie”…
Wow, and I thought Salina was bad.