The Mass. Military Reservation is a gigantic piece of mostly unused land, and it’s been mentioned as a possible site for a new casino to be built and managed by the newly-recognized Wampanoag tribe of Mashpee.
What buildings exist on the MMR are for the most part the worst kind of institutional architecture. The air force base on the MMR was a victim of political payback during the Nixon years, and the fighter jets that are housed there will shortly be deployed to a location in Western Mass.
The Wampanoags are also looking at New Bedford, a city which has suffered economic decline for decades. Bringing a multi-million dollar revenue- and job-producing venture to New Bedford would be nothing short of a godsend for that community.
In spite of these facts, casinos in Massachusetts have been voted down by the state legislature in the past. The opposition is based less on Prohibition-like moral or social concerns than connections to organized crime – at least, that’s my opinion.
The current theme among those who oppose the building of a casino in Mass. has to do with the expected decrease in revenue from the state-run lottery, the proceeds of which are supposedly returned to cities and towns.
In other words, money will be taken out of the hands of our greedy, self-serving, manipulative legislature and redirected to residents of Cape Cod, the Wampanoag tribe.
How horrible, how stupendously horrible that would be.