The slot machine revenue from the expansion and relocation of the Casino that will come to the city as the result of the decision of this council will be between $250 and $750 thousand per year. If you are going to agree to this doubling of slot machines without recourse to a referendum or counter petition opportunity I ask for a resolution of council to have a percentage of this money placed in a Social Responsibility Reserve. The City will use this fund to lever money from the senior government. It will be screened in a financially responsible manner to ensure the municipal taxpayers get full value for their Social investment.
Some of the social programs that City Council are asked to fund from time to time are also the results of under funding and downloading from the provincial and the federal governments. The municipal taxpayer should only fund these programs as a last resort after all efforts to convince the Province of the stupidity of their financial allocation decisions. The taxpayer should not be burdened with programs of a provincial responsibility without his explicit consent. That being said, it is about time that this city recognized that some programs should be funded if it can be shown that the benefit to the taxpayer through reduced policing costs, administrative costs etc will offset the dollars being invested. It must be recognized that some of the programs to be funded may have a Regional District component.
The addition of these new slot machine revenues provides the opportunity to set up a new Social Program Reserve. This reserve should have an annual review as to the maximum funding level and could be accessed by application through a screening committee. This fund would be reviewed each year and a list of the agencies that were the recipients would be published and forwarded to the province. Any existing social programs that are funded would be eligible for funding application through this new revenue source.
The majority of this new revenue should continue to be allocated to infrastructure reserve to avoid the temptation of future councils to make flavour of the day projects decisions with this newly minted bonanza.
Moreover, the Council should negotiate with the Casino operator as a condition of expansion a separate agreement similar to that agreed to in 2004 and recently extended between the City of Vancouver and the operators of the Edgewater Casino. In this agreement the city of Vancouver accepted an offering of public benefits from the operators of that casino that included annual allocations of $200,000 for the creation of a 'Social Responsibility Fund'. This contribution is to continue for the duration of the permit to operate the casino and naturally is binding on any heirs and successor companies. 'The declared intent for this SRF was to assist in the development and implementation of harm reduction strategies and programs to mitigate possible negative impact of the gambling industry' This money contribution is above and beyond the casino revenue that the City receives from the Province as part of the host local government gaming revenue agreement.
If this council is going to accept slot machines and gaming in this community without citizen input in the form of a referendum then lets take some of the 30 pieces of silver offered by this expansion and use them to offset this provincial downloading of social issues. Also lets get a few extra pieces of silver from the Casino operator to help fund programs that will aid the impact that gambling has on some of our citizens.
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