Jul 24, 2007

MIDDLEBORO, MA - As a Middleboro Town Meeting vote on a proposed casino draws near, a town group against the project today questioned the amount of campaign money being spent by the casino developers and called on them to release their campaign spending records. "These out-of-state casino tycoons, none of whom live near a casino themselves, are spending thousands to tell us that a mega casino will be good for us yet won't tell us how much they've spent or where they've spent it," said CasinoFacts spokesman James Reynolds. Reynolds pointed to several examples of unreported spending. Casino developers paid an out-of-state telemarketing firm for a twenty question poll two weeks ago which he estimated cost between $10,000 -$20,000. He said Middleboro residents have recently received thousands of persuasion calls from a self-identified South Dakota telemarketing firm with an estimated cost of close to $10,000. The casino developers have also been paying people to stand in front of the Town Post Office to hand out campaign brochures. Although state law has no provisions for Town Meeting campaigns, CasinoFacts-PAC released its own campaign spending records to the public today. It raised $6306 in donations and spent $3900.52. "You can't trust any of the promises made by the casino developers because there is no credibility," Reynolds said. "Since the beginning, this has been a backdoor rush job with very little citizen input. The massive campaign spending by the casino developers without any oversight is another example of the lack of transparency in this process."

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