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Did Fumo keep his promise?
By Ed Goppelt
Tuesday, 07/24/07
(1185302596286)
July 24, 2007
State Senator Vincent J. Fumo
545 Capitol Building
Harrisburg, PA 17120-3001
RE: Your legislation to protect neighborhoods from casinos (SB 1031 and SB 1032)
Dear Sen. Fumo:
As I understand it, you promised to introduce legislation designed to keep casinos out of residential neighborhoods and force the re-siting of the Foxwoods and SugarHouse Casinos to areas far away from neighborhoods.
“In retrospect, perhaps I should not have made a blanket promise to introduce the 1,500-foot buffer zone for the entire city. But I made the commitment and am honoring it now,” a press release quotes you as saying.
Do your two bills in fact cover all of Philadelphia? I ask because your office has declined repeated requests to answer this simple question. Maps I generated with Microsoft Streets and Trips and ESRI ArcMap software show that a large swath of the city is unprotected by either bill.
Your legislation establishes two protective circles in which a 1,500-foot buffer between casinos and residential neighborhoods would be required. However, most of Northern Liberties, Old City, East Falls, Manayunk and Roxborough fall outside both protective circles (green areas on the attached maps).
For example, according to the Microsoft maps, the site of the proposed Riverwalk Casino (501 N. Columbus Blvd) is not covered by your legislation. If either Foxwoods or SugarHouse were forced to relocate, which of your bills would prevent them from moving to the Riverwalk Site in Northern Liberties?
Will you provide the public with the maps your office used to draft your legislation so we can see for ourselves what neighborhoods it does and does not cover?
Sincerely,
Edmund Goppelt
Attached: Maps showing effect of Fumo Buffer Legislation