Meeting to explore impact from expanded gambling
BROWNSVILLE – The public is invited to a meeting today at the Christ Episcopal Church parish house to discuss the potential impact on the community should legalized gambling be expanded. Organizers said the 2 p.m. meeting, billed as an open community forum, will allow Brownsville residents to explore the consequences expanded legalized gambling has had on other communities. Mark Kovscek, the president of Ground Zero, a family-oriented ministry in downtown Brownsville, and the Rev. Stanley Burdock of Christ Episcopal Church are organizing it.
“I believe bringing a casino or riverboat gambling to Brownsville would be devastating to the community,” Rev. Burdock said. “It’s kind of hard to imagine it getting worse, but it could get much worse: increased crime, devastation to families through addiction to gambling and other things like spousal and child abuse, broken homes and broken marriages.”
Rev. Burdock discounts reports that gambling could bring money into the community.
“Study after study has shown that for every dollar gambling brings in, it spends three more just on law enforcement,” he said.
Rev. Burdock said the community meeting will begin with a brief PowerPoint presentation by Kovscek on some of the research he has done on the impact of gambling on communities. A question-and-answer period will follow, with the entire program expected to last about an hour.
“Our hope is to form a citizens committee out of this, a task force to study the negative impact of bringing a casino or riverboat gambling into Brownsville,” he said.
He said he would welcome gambling supporters to the meeting, as well.
“We hope that everyone who is interested in the facts comes out,” Rev. Burdock said.