Casino fever has been heating up all over the Bay State, and communities from across the commonwealth have been clamoring for a seat at the table. Tiny Palmer was one of the first Western Massachusetts towns to come forward with a proposal, having given the idea its stamp of approval as far back as the late 1990s — and Paul Burns has been there every step of the way.

Paul Burns
Title: Palmer Town Council President
Age: 51
Experience: Five years on council

Obviously you guys have been considering this for a long time. Were you around when the idea of a casino in Palmer was first floated?

I was on the finance committee, and [was one of the authors of] a study that the finance committee did not adopt, that was pretty favorable at that point in time. The only significant negative we saw at the time was increased auto insurance rates because of the increased traffic. And that whole system is changed now to make it more competitive, so it won’t have the same impact.

What’s made Palmer such a leading candidate, from the developers’ perspective?

I think it’s just our location — [we have] the Mass Pike exit, proximity to Connecticut and Rhode Island, proximity to Route 91.

What’s the feeling in town about the possibility?

I think consistently in Palmer we’ve been in favor. We first passed a casino referendum in ’96 or ’97, and it passed by between eight and 10 points at that time. I think now we’re closer to a 60-40 split, maybe even 65-35. It’s not a particularly controversial thing in our community, in terms of whether we want casino gaming. And I think we’re one of the few communities in the state that can say that. It’s like anything else — as you become familiar, people have gained a lot of knowledge. And we’ve lost a lot of manufacturing jobs in that time, too.

You sound pretty excited about the possibilities yourself.

I think in a lot of respects, we can drive a tremendous amount of economic growth and development across that Route 20 corridor from Worcester to Springfield. You create the need for the transportation infrastructure that will open up this part of the state. Right now, we have limited public transport in this part of the state, between Worcester and Springfield … it will certainly create the argument that we should extend the “T” out West. But it’s the jobs that are the big thing.

What about this makes it so appealing for the town?

Number one, it’s a tax-paying entity. We’ll receive somewhere between $9 [million] and $20 million dollars in tax revenues, depending upon the property tax, hotels tax, meal tax, et cetera. All of that’s going to spill over into the tax base, and that’s a great thing.

How much would that mean to your budget?

Our annual budget is $32 million right now. So, whether it’s $9 [million], $15 [million], $20 million — it’s a huge, huge impact on our budget.

Is there anything in particular the town is hoping to do with the money?

Well, the town is looking to build a police station right now … hopefully we’ll be able to get it done before the casino comes. But, as with so many communities, there’s an awful lot of infrastructure issues that need to be done. There are things that we haven’t repaired — I mean, we’re making our best effort; we just put some new roofs on the schools, some new boilers, hopefully we’ll get the police station done. But if you look around town — we need a new [Department of Public Works], there are some bridges that are starting to deteriorate, and, of course, road improvement. Any community in Western Massachusetts … we’re all having those issues. It’ll certainly allow us to set some priorities and accelerate some improvements in our infrastructure.

Obviously there are some costs involved as well — having a casino in town might require more police presence, for example. Are people worried about that?

The estimate that we have is that [law enforcement costs] double. So we’d go from about $1 million a year to $2 million a year, for police and public safety.

Are people worried that having a casino will change the town’s character? After all, in Connecticut. the Foxwoods complex has three huge towers down there now — would something like that be acceptable?

Well, what we’re considering is about a half-a-billion-dollar casino — about a third and a half the size of what exists now in Connecticut. I guess ultimately that could change depending on what the market will bear — I’m a little concerned when I hear [State Gaming Commission Chair Stephen] Crosby talking about, well, maybe we’re going to scale back the number of casinos. I think it’s pretty evident from developer interest — the casino companies themselves certainly seem to believe that three casinos are viable, or they wouldn’t be competing for these three licenses. The competition is pretty intense anywhere you go — well, I guess maybe not on the Southeast coast since that’s going to be a tribal casino and it’s pretty much a done deal at this point. But certainly Boston and Milford, certainly, and then out here, there’s two definite proposals and I believe there may be two more coming.

Are you worried about Palmer’s chances? There does seem to be more interest in Western Massachusetts — Springfield has its proposal out.

Well, Springfield may have three [proposals]. And I think that ultimately we benefit us because you have to have a referendum on each proposal. And also, Springfield has never passed a casino referendum. So I suspect — well, they may be presuming they’re going to win. But you have to step up and win.