Mayor: Gambling is a Longshot
A meeting between Parkville officials and interested developers does not necessarily mean that the gambling issue is rearing it’s head in town again – but the cards have been on the table recently.
When Luminary staffers chanced upon Mayor Kathryn Dusenbery and Ward 1 Aldermen Deborah Butcher and Jim Brooks meeting with three Colorado businessmen for a recent lunch at The National Golf Club, research showed that the men were developers with eyes on the undeveloped, recently annexed land along the I-435 corridor in western Parkville.
While it is not an out of the ordinary occurrence for city officials to meet with interested developers, one possible component of the proposal proved too hot to stay under wraps for those at the luncheon – gambling.
“There is no reason to overreact,” Dusenbery told The Luminary on Tuesday. “We talk to developers all the time. People propose stuff to us all the time.”
Dusenbery confirmed to The Luminary that developers were interested in a possible gambling component as part of possible hotel and convention center development, but mainly because riverboat gambling is legal in Parkville.
“It has no legs to it, though. There is no casino operator. The developers aren’t even in the casino business,” Dusenbery said. “If they were, it’d be a whole different animal.”
Parkville was split in a bitter, multi- election battle beginning in 1993 that finally saw a pro-gambling ordinance pass. And while the interested parties – perhaps shying away from the controversy in town (Parkville was the only city to make both a pro and con presentation to the Missouri Gaming Commission when gambling became legal in
the state). While casinos have been built in Riverside, Kansas City and are now being considered at Sugar Creek and Wyandotte County, Parkville To this day, the foot of Main Street bordering the Missouri River is zoned for riverboat gaming.
Though Alderman Deborah Butcher echoes the sentiment of the mayor – the discussion over gambling is in the infancy stages and may never be formally proposed – her history with the gambling issue has surely fanned speculation. Butcher chaired the committee that was ultimately successful in getting the gambling issue passed in Parkville. Two years ago, at the beginning of her first term in office, Butcher proposed doing away with the riverboat gambling zone on Main Street, a move that briefly brought the gambling issue back into focus. Butcher never pursued the idea however and the idea was never brought to the board of aldermen for a vote.
While Dusenbery touts the environmental pedigree of the developers and describes the proposal as a “new urban” area in the vein of Zona Rosa or Parkville Commons, the prospect of another “gambling war” is not something anti-gambling residents want to revisit.
Lamenting the trail of broken friendships caused from the last go around one resident told The Luminary that they were “incredibly saddened” to read the news in last week’s Luminary.
“I don’t care if it out near 435 or not –- that business has tentacles,” one reader wrote. “It breaks my heart that people want to turn my hometown into a tacky tourist trap.”