Battle lines are drawn over proposed Slidell area casino as sides ready for Nov. 13 public vote
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A proposed Slidell area casino will go before St. Tammany Parish voters Nov. 13, and the prospect of an east St. Tammany/west St. Tammany divide has emerged as a key issue in what is sure to be an intense, months-long campaign.
That's how battle lines were shaping up this week, after a sharply divided St. Tammany Parish Council voted 8-6, mostly along geographic lines, to put a site-specific referendum on the ballot following a marathon meeting Wednesday that lasted until midnight.
If the referendum succeeds, Peninsula Pacific Entertainment, also known as P2E, will build a $325 casino resort near Lake Pontchartrain at the foot on the Interstate 10 twin spans outside Slidell. Parish voters will be asked if they want to essentially reverse a 1996 vote that banned casinos in the parish.
Council member Chris Canulette, whose district encompasses the city of Slidell, criticized St. Tammany legislators for the ballot language because it calls for voters to say yes or no to a casino in that specific location rather than a simple yes/not vote on casino gambling. That would have opened up the entire parish to the prospect of a casino.
"It's a terrible thing to put something together to try to split the parish east and west," Canulette said, adding that the host agreement forged between P2E and the parish's economic development agency includes money for every city in the parish.
"It ain't close to being fair," he said, turning to song lyrics, "There's a dead skunk in the middle of the road, stinking to high heaven."
Wednesday was a night for quotations, although most were more high brow, from Slidell area pastors and church members who cited Scripture to bolster the case against gambling to Councilmember Rykert Toldedano, who quoted Thomas Jefferson in his arguments for putting the measure on the ballot.
But while opponents decried the potential social ills that casino gambling could bring and cast skepticism on the promised economic benefits, the notion that the Slidell area is being sacrificed was one of the loudest complaints.
The Rev. John Raymond, a Slidell area pastor who filed one of two lawsuits seeking to block the election, said western St. Tammany would reap the financial rewards without bearing the brunt of the casino's negative effects.
Voters in the west should not "be allowed to pimp out their sister in Slidell for 5% left on the bedside table," Raymond said, referring to the 5% of net gambling revenue the casino has agreed to send to the parish, an amount the they've estimated at $7.5 million to $9 million annually.
Faith-based opponents were joined by St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Randy Smith and Slidell Police Chief Randy Fandal who said they fear an increase in crime. They asked for a delay for more study, as did the Slidell City Council and Slidell business owners who wanted a 60-day delay to allow an independent study on the casino's effect on them.
Real estate developer Chris Jean said he would commit $30,000 for an independent study, while restaurateurs Doug Reker and Chris Legrand said that the freebies offered by the casino will hurt businesses just getting back from the pandemic.
But the referendum also drew supporters from both sides of the parish.
Kendra Maness, publisher of Slidell Magazine and a lifelong resident of the city, told the Parish Council that she had not made up her mind about the actual casino but wants the chance to vote.
"Giving the people of St. Tammany the right to vote is an easy decision. It’s an easy job and it’s all you have to do tonight. It’s the people’s job to make the hard decisions and the majority wins," she said. "Please allow me to vote."
Ross Lagarde, chairman of the Northshore Business Council, said the organization supports the referendum. He said St. Tammany is already dealing with some of the social ills of gambling but isn't realizing any of the revenue, citing $255 million that a state-sponsored study estimates is leaking across the border into Mississippi.
When the vote finally came, council members Mike Lorino, Toledano, Maureen O'Brien, Jimmie Davis, Steve Stefancik, Martha Cazaubon, Marty Dean and Cheryl Tanner voted for the referendum.
Stefancik, who was the lone member from eastern St. Tammany to do so, said he had made an early commitment to allow the public to vote.
Voting against were members Jerry Binder, T.J. Smith, Canulette, David Fitzgerald, Jake Airey and Mike Smith. Fitzgerald, whose district is north of Covington, said that many people he's talked to who want the referendum actually want to vote against the casino.
"The quickest way to quash it is to not put it on the ballot," he said, adding that while the casino might bring revenue, the real question is its impact on health, welfare and safety. "Its about the character and nature of St. Tammany Parish," he said.
Lorino, the council chair, said Thursday that he was not surprised to see division on the Parish Council considering the division of opinion among those who spoke.
"To me, last night proved this is a divisive issue whether that's with the people of the council," he said. "The bottom line is, now we've passed it on to the people," he said.
