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The Selectmen's meeting at Middleboro Town Hall last night was interesting. Aside from the usual mundane business, Roger Brunelle presented his report on the costs of the Special Town Meeting of July 28th.

That Roger and his team pulled this off at all is remarkable; to pull it off far under the estimated budget is beyond belief. The expected cost was $120,000.00, it was actually done for a little more than $74,000.00.

Following that report, Roger publically thanked various people who had contributed, and then the Selectmen themselves and members of the public gave their thanks to Roger and everyone else. There was a lot of cross-congratulations going on, and most of it was well deserved.

Not all of it, however. Selectman Pat Rogers made a special point to praise CasinoFacts.org, and thanked them for their "honesty" (and by the way, did not say one word about Casino-Friend.com!).

I have to take exception to that. I will agree that CasinoFacts had some value in this; they may have pointed out some problem areas that might otherwise not have been considered. I can't point to specifics on that, but I'm willing to assume that it's true. If nothing else, they made us dig harder than we might have otherwise, and that's worth something.

But "honesty"? Was it honest to imply that this resort would have a 68% comp rate (thereby cutting our expected revenues) when that figure was for Atlantic City casinos with much higher competition? Was it honest to imply that "free drinks" would contribute to drunk driving when the agreement clearly states that the tribe will follow Massachusetts rules which do not allow free drinks? Was it honest to insist that crime would be an issue when our own Police Chief determined that it will not be?

Oh, well. I suppose there's nothing wrong with the gesture even if I do object to the specific language. I'd like to say that it's time for the CasinoFacts folks to help us move on to the challenges and problems we need to face, but I know that some of them (perhaps most) are still fighting, making allegations that the vote was invalid, that there were irregular practices, intimidation and so on. Given that, it's hard to extend a hand of friendship.

Perhaps we'll have to wait until the resort is built before we can hope to make this community whole again.

In the meantime, I have a light-hearted suggestion: blame everything on the "Casino". Did your golf game get rained out? Damn that Casino! Have a fight with your spouse? It's the Casino's fault! Whatever it is, from traffic to tripping over your grandchild's toys, blame it on the Casino. If anyone questions your rationale, explain that you are just practising: the real issues will be here soon enough.

By the way, I agree that hotel revenues will be less than expected, though for quite different reasons. People from Western and Central Massachusetts are closer to the Connecticut Casino's than they are to us; I think we'll get South Shore and Cape visitors, but they aren't likely to be staying overnight. Of course if this resort has more to offer, or better payouts, that might be different. No matter, the auxiliary effects (like South Point) will more than make up for that loss anyway.

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