Inside the State House, a senator questions the findings of a consultant the Senate hired to gauge the impact of a West Warwick casino on the state's two existing gambling venues.

11:59 AM EDT on Wednesday, May 12, 2004

BY KATHERINE GREGG
Journal State House Bureau

PROVIDENCE -- While a sea of construction workers shouting "jobs, jobs, jobs" packed a pro-casino rally outside the State House yesterday, questions mounted about the independence of the consultant Senate leaders hired to advise them on the financial pros and cons of the proposed West Warwick casino.

Outside, several of the state's union leaders screamed pro-casino slogans until they were red in the face in the hot late-day sun.

"I guess if there is one thing the Narragansett Indian tribe and the labor movement understand, it's that we have to fight for everything we ever get. Nobody gives us anything," George Nee, secretary-treasurer of the state AFL-CIO, hollered into a microphone on the eve of today's day-long State House hearing on the proposed casino.

Journal photo / Connie Grosch Legislators and members of the Narragansett Indian tribe and Harrah's Entertainment gather around a conference table at the State House before the start of a rally yesterday in support of a casino.

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"We've got a governor that talks about economic development," but "I don't know what the hell he is doing about it," said Nee of the state's anti-casino Republican governor. "You got a project right in front of you and all you're saying is: 'No, no, no.' That's got to stop. He's got to start saying: Jobs. Jobs. Jobs."

Cheers erupted from the throng of sign-carrying construction workers, and pro-casino volunteers in the matching royal blue T-shirts -- emblazoned "Narragansett Indian Casino" -- that Harrah's bought by the gross.

But inside the Rhode Island State House, a lawmaker questioned why the Senate hired -- and should now believe -- the findings of a professor at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth whose work had been prominently featured in the information kit the Narragansett Indians and Harrah's Entertainment gave legislators in January.

"We have created this information kit to inform all legislators about our casino resort project," wrote Matthew Thomas, chief sachem of the Narragansett tribe, in the cover letter to the binder entitled "Harrah's Narragansett Indian Casino: An Economic Engine for Rhode Island" that the tribe and its Las Vegas backers gave the lawmakers.

Sen. Leonidas Raptakis, D-Coventry, questioned whether the Senate had hired Clyde W. Barrow, director of The UMass-Dartmouth Center for Policy Analysis, to analyze and critique the core assumptions behind his own findings.

Among them: that a "Foxwoods-style casino" in West Warwick -- without a performance arena and some of the other Foxwoods draws -- could produce $127.5 million for the state without seriously hurting business at the state's two big gambling money-makers now. Together, Lincoln Park and Newport Grand are expected to produce upward of $213 million for the state this year.

Raptakis said his problems with the report Barrows gave the Senate last week are twofold: "It is not a non-biased opinion. Non-biased . . . should have been someone who had no connections to Harrah's."

Moreover, Raptakis said: "We just paid for secondhand information . . . He rehashed old information and charged the Senate . . . I think he owes the Senate a refund."

But in an interview yesterday, Barrow, the author of both studies -- the "patron origin study" included in Harrah's/Narragansett promotion package, and the one presented to the Senate last week -- denied ever having worked for the gambling industry.

He acknowledged doing market studies, in 1999, for the Visions Group, a consortium of landowners and community leaders backing the efforts of a Nevada-based gambling company to open a casino in Salisbury, Mass. But he said the push never went anywhere, and he has never worked for Harrah's.

He said he was also "unaware that they were using that as part of a promotional package."

But, "I put that on the Web. That would have been available to anybody," he said of the forerunner of one of the major pieces of the report he gave lawmakers here last week. He also said he did extensive work -- including new telephone and license-plate surveys to update and localize his earlier findings about the vast unmet demand for more gambling opportunities in the region.

Added Harrah's lobbyist Terence Fracassa: "The study that I circulated was a general study concerning the gaming market in New England. This was specific to Rhode Island and the West Warwick project, which I think would be very helpful to the General Assembly."

Senate President Joseph A. Montalbano said he was unaware when he signed Barrow's $34,780 contract on April 23 that Harrah's had been touting Barrow's findings as part of its own pitch. But, "unless he did that on their behalf, I am not worried about it," he said.

Montalbano, D-North Providence, said the Senate's own fiscal staff is still analyzing Barrow's report. He said they have not yet come to their own conclusions.

But, "I would point out," Montalbano said, "the detractors so far are the governor, the Lincoln Park people, the Newport Grand people and Lou Raptakis and they all have one thing in common. They are all adamantly opposed to a casino in West Warwick.

"My purpose is not to proselytize and convert them," he said, but to get enough information for "the rest of the Senate, which has been keeping an open mind," to make a decision.

Today's hearing by the House Finance Committee on various casino-related bills is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. and stretch into the evening.

Between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., the chairman -- Rep. Steven M. Costantino, D-Providence -- expects his committee to hear proposals for regulating and taxing casinos that have been introduced on behalf of Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch and others.

From 1 p.m. on, he expects to hunker down for an hours-long presentation by the Narragansett Indians and their Las Vegas-based backers on their bid for a statewide referendum in November on their casino proposal, followed by hours of opposing arguments from owners of the Lincoln Park track-and-slot parlor, and the slots-only Newport Grand.

Since it remains unclear how late the hearing might go, and when members of the public might get their first chance to testify, Costantino said his committee will also open its doors to public testimony again around 5 p.m. tomorrow after the House adjourns.