To the NYS Gaming Facilities Location Board:
I am writing as a concerned citizen in vehement opposition to the Sterling Forest casino resort proposed by Genting Americas. It is the wrong project in the wrong place, chosen for the wrong reasons.
Sterling Forest State Park, which encloses the proposed resort, was set aside only 16 years ago in a historic collaboration of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, the National Parks Service, the states of New York and New Jersey, and dedicated groups of citizens, at a cost of more than $100 million. As a result, we have a 22,000-acre natural resource, protecting a vital watershed and providing vitally wild habitat, only an hour's fast drive from New York City.
This fragile habitat is the wrong place to bring the Genting resort, with its 1.4 million square feet of space and its expected 6,900,000 visitors a year.
Evidence shows that the host community is conflicted at best about endorsing the project. An email poll solicited by the Tuxedo Town Supervisor on the casino question revealed that out of more than 250 respondents, an overwhelming majority of 2 to 1 oppose a Tuxedo casino. At a recent Tuxedo Town meeting where citizens were invited to speak, the number was 78% opposed (out of 24 speakers).
Tuxedo Town government endorsements aside, significant numbers of its citizens do not welcome it, do not want the traffic, the intense activity, and the social degradation associated with casino gambling. The State must respect this community's reluctance. A divided community is the wrong host for the Genting resort.
We would also point out that the Upstate New York Gaming and Economic Development Act of 2013 was intended explicitly to bring casino jobs to economically distressed areas upstate. That hardly describes the town of Tuxedo. If the project is intended to foster economic development, that is the wrong reason to choose a site in Sterling Forest State Park.
Certainly other communities in the Catskills/Hudson Valley gaming region can be found that are more suitable, more economically distressed, without an environmental treasure to protect.
Choosing Tuxedo is wrong.