Where is the casino money? Not here

As president of the Longford Glen Homeowners Association I find it amusing that Mayor Marty Moylan is concerned about losing the benefit of revenues from the Rivers Casino due to the addition of more Illinois casinos.

Mr. Mayor, we the residents of Des Plaines have seen absolutely no benefit from all that cash you’ve been getting since the casino opened.

Keep in mind the casino money Des Plaines gets is in addition to huge tax incomes from the multiunit residences and retail space in Metropolitan Square that were recently built on previously low tax based properties.

As the casino was under construction I contacted various city departments to have our streets repaved. A partial job done a few years back is completely deteriorated.

Each time I was told the city is waiting for the casino money so they can do things like that. Now when I call they tell me the casino revenues are not for the streets fund. Yet, I see a lot of street construction going on around Metro Square.

Longford Glen Homeowners probably pay the highest tax rate in the city — yet our streets, now 17 years old, have only had spotty, poor quality maintenance over the years.

By the way, on my last call to Public Works, I was told the problem with our streets is due to the poor job done by the builder on the base construction of the pavement. Hmm. Shouldn’t a city inspector have caught that?

Additionally, we’ve also had numerous sewer failures and poor drainage issues in Longford Glen — again problems that a qualified city inspector should have noticed in the construction stages.

Apparently the money to do good work wasn’t there before and now with all the new revenues it still isn’t there. So, Mr. Mayor, show us where the money went!

Bill Holtane

Des Plaines