Our Western Heritage

Our Western Heritage
Front Street, Dodge City, circa 1879

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Butler National Services Gaming: Part Two: Donate Land

One other question that didn't get ask by the Dodge City commission of Butler National Service (aka, Butler Gaming) -- given that Why Not Dodge tax funds will be used to prepare the land up to fifty feet from the possible casino -- ie., $4-5 million or more to put in roads, water, utilities, et al. -- often the quid pro quo is that the private land is donated to the cities involved.

Why didn't Mr. Sowers or Mr. Lee or Mr. Lembright ask about that ? (Mayor Smoll and Mr. Sherer were not at the meeting, by the way -- seems odd that the meeting couldn't be scheduled with all the commission present, but did avoid the questions about Smoll being on the Boot Hill Gaming board until recently and Sherer being on Boot Hill Museum board, etc.)

Donating the 33 acres (out of 400 Butler said they purchased) to the City of Dodge City for the Event Center would be a great way to 'pay' Butler Casino's share of this millions of dollars for improvements, won't it.

Since the Events Center is to be built years before the casino, I guess that buying that 33 acres from Butler would be much better for their cash flow, so no doubt not an idea that Butler Gaming wanted to talk about. However, the lack of any questions of meaning after the presentation -- is the casino going to be built with 'green' design elements, for example -- or with reduced water usage -- those also went unasked.

And no questions were asked at all about this new unnamed foundation Mr. Thorpe talked about that promises to help 22 counties, etc., and Boot Hill Museum, too. Seems like foundations make fees for managing money. That is a good question, also -- who will make money from this or will it be done volunteer with no fees?

1 comment:

uncle george said...

Guess that a foundation, managed by some bank or other foundation would be one way to pay back the work of the (? former) Boot Hill Gaming Inc. crew. Joe Bogner, of course, has/is paid for the land -- how much is currently private. I wish Jeff Thorpe would state clearly what his financial, if any, relationship is now with the Butler National Services Gaming group. That has not been made clear or stated in public meetings, as far as I know. With the state of Kansas sold on re-adding Ford County to the Gaming Law in large part based on that nice "Boot Hill Museum Inc. owns Boot Hill Gaming Inc. and money will go to the museum and to Wild West Country, the already existing 22-county non-profit group" -- to bad that is now shifting -- to currently unnamed (unincorporated?)foundation, and no information on membership.