Posted: 7:00 pm Sun, April 18, 2010
By Liz Farmer
Daily Record Business Writer
The Maryland Jockey Club spent nearly $660,000 in signature gathering efforts, legal fees and other services in its drive to place a referendum on the ballot this November allowing county voters to decide whether a slots casino near Arundel Mills should go forward.
While the jockey club said it’s doing what it needs to do to help Laurel Park remain a player for slots in Anne Arundel County, others question the organization’s judgment in its spending.
According to petition funding reports, nearly $400,000 of the jockey club’s money went to FieldWorks LLC, a Washington, D.C.-based firm the jockey club hired to assist in the signature-gathering process. The reports were filed with the Anne Arundel County Board of Elections and obtained by The Daily Record through the Maryland Public Information Act. The reports cover services and payments made from Jan. 31 through March 5.
Approximately $190,000 was spent on legal services provided by three firms, with all but about $23,000 going to Rifkin, Livingston, Levitan & Silver LLC, the jockey club’s Annapolis-based law firm.
Tom Chuckas, president of the jockey club, whose parent, Magna Entertainment Corp., is in bankruptcy, said the expense was worth it.
“Because we gathered approximately 40,000 signatures and close to 23,000 were validated and we believe it’s going to be put on the ballot in November and it’s going to be successful,” he said.
But Stuart Pittman, president of the Maryland Horse Council, said he questions whether spending that much money was “a wise use of resources at a time like this when the race tracks are in such trouble.”
He also wondered if the expense really benefits the horse industry.
“We worry about the prospect of losing the amount of money [the Arundel Mills slots site] would be to the industry,” Pittman said. “Delaying that referendum … is going to cost the industry a lot of money.”
In January, the jockey club teamed up with Stop Slots at Arundel Mills and Citizens Against Slots at the Mall to form a coalition aimed at halting the slots casino planned by Baltimore developer David Cordish. The horsemen believe Cordish’s slots facility would hurt business at Laurel Park, which lies about 13 miles south of the site.
Chuckas said the petition effort, while delaying slots proceeds, is still better for the industry.
“We believe if we are successful with the referendum and bidding reopens, we’ll rebid, and Laurel will be the best site,” he said. “It’s better to do it right for the long term rather than for the short term and have it not be what it could.”
The club submitted a slots license application last year for Anne Arundel County but was disqualified for not including the $28.5 million license fee.
Cordish was awarded the county’s only slots license last year.
By early March — and after more than $661,000 in total contributions from several groups — Citizens Against Slots, which was acting as the umbrella group for the coalition, had enough signatures verified by the county elections board to put the zoning for Cordish’s slots site up to a county-wide vote in November.
But not before Cordish filed a law suit against the elections board alleging the signatures were collected illegally. That case is slated for trial in May in Anne Arundel County.
Cordish said Friday he believes the case will make its way up to the Maryland Court of Appeals because it addresses whether the elections board had a duty not just to verify voter signatures for petition drives but to determine fraudulent signatures.
“Forget completely whether you’re for or against slots,” he said. “What standard are we going to hold election boards to?”
He added that the money the jockey club spent on the petition drive was “outrageous.”
But Chuckas pointed out that Cordish hasn’t had to report how much his company may have spent trying to quash the petition effort.
“Our report is totally transparent — we reported everything down to a pizza delivery,” he said. “I have yet to see how much Cordish has spent.”
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