Timothy Mason’s presentation to the annual meeting of “The 1000s Friends of Iowa” held at the Royal Amsterdam Hotel, Pella Iowa January 17^th, 2004

Good Morning

I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to your group. I would also like to thank Ed and LaVon for traveling to our corner of Iowa and listening to our story last fall, and inviting us here to Pella.

My wife Sara and I live outside Marquette & McGregor. These two little Clayton County towns are situated on the banks of the Mississippi River in the extreme Northeast corner of our state. Clayton County is a hilly rural area of breathtaking beauty and wonderful natural resources. The population of the entire county is just over 18 thousand. My family emigrated from Ireland in the mid 1800’s and settled into railroad work there. That was six generations ago. I have two adult daughters who grew up in Marquette. Sara and I live in a beautiful farmhouse which we rent on a lonely quiet gravel road. The area is partially wooded farmland interspersed with trout streams. Some folks say we are poor. Quite the contrary! We are very rich, rich in the things that are important. Family, friends and a peaceful rural life style that is the envy of many urban people. I and many other locals have a 20 year history of going into action when our home’s integrity is being threatened by ruthless development. Those threats have been forest ecosystem impacts, highway construction through virgin territory and wetland filling. The reason we are here today is the most recent threat to Clayton County. I will try to give you a concise overview of it. It all started approximately 9 years ago when a high stakes gambling riverboat casino set up shop in the little village of Marquette. This “Plastic House of Greed” has changed corporate ownership 5 times in this period. It is now owned by the gambling giant, Isle of Capri Corporation out of Biloxi, Mississippi. This corporation’s principal owner and CEO is Bernie Goldstein. He was an early lobbyist for gambling in Iowa. They operate 13 casinos from Las Vegas to the Bahamas. Needless to say I’m an outspoken opponent of this predatory industry. I will save you all a lengthy speech of the social evil which we find our state involved in. Remember however, for every dollar that our government receives from gambling, it pays out 3 in social costs. It is the root of the environmental, financial, social and cultural impact for which I speak of today. The town of Marquette’s population is about 400. This gambling barge has sucked every bit of local charm and river town personality from it. It has replaced it with a purple neon facade of blind greed and a gambling mentality which is very ugly and destructive. We have witnessed a phenomenal increase of bankruptcies, embezzlements and divorce in our area thanks to this casino. Gambling casinos are dependent upon two basic groups of losers. The compulsive/ problem gamblers within 50 miles of its rein of influence and the “retained visitor”. Well beginning back in 1995 the local casino entered upon an agreement with the nearby community of McGregor to begin to put together a “hotel water park/ golf course resort with a housing development” to retain visitors. Now you must understand this parasitic industry not only preys on the individuals for their gambling revenue but like in this case upon public funds. “The corporate hogs feeding at the public trough”. I might add at this juncture if anyone of you or anyone for that matter cares to challenge any statement I may make her today we have literally hundreds of pounds of public and private documents to sustain our credibility. To continue, the casino’s lead public relation’s man was given orders in 2000 to begin a very active process to obtain the new Vision Iowa funds  to build The River Bluff Resort, a destination legacy park on rural farmland just west of the towns of Marquette and McGregor. This man had the casino’s corporate resources behind him. His marketing staff, a fleet of vehicles, office space, telephones, fax machines, computers and a war chest of cash. The casino began by writing a $10,000 check to MSA consultants of Dubuque to put together a grant application to the Vision Iowa Board asking for 5.1 million dollars. Here it is. It was dated and submitted in April of 2001. Almost 3 years ago. What these savvy casino employees did was run around Clayton County and got community leaders to sign letters of support for the construction of this “Northeast Iowa Destination Super Park”. They also got all our county, state and federal elected officials to do the same. Now what they actually proposed was the construction of a destination hotel/ convention center, water park, golf course country club with a private gated housing development of 150 tract homes. This resort for the wealthy would be one of the largest communities in the county. With hotel guests and the private housing development, it would account for more than 1300 people. The casino’s strategy was to show the Vision Iowa Board strong local support, so they wrote into the grant application some small town projects around our county. Historic streetscapes in several of the towns and a fishing pier for Marquette. Just to add to their own pot, they also included another project entitled, “The Trail of Two Cities”. This would be a walking/biking trail along the river connecting the towns of Marquette and McGregor. This little trail sounds innocent enough and a great resource for the locals. Keep in mind the way Vision Iowa works, is all or none of a grant gets funded. Well this particular component of the application was obviously self serving. We refer to it as

“The Sidewalk to the Casino”. The trail would end at the casino’s front door. If built it would be one mile in length, be constructed on riprap rock which would have to be placed as fill into the main channel of the Mississippi River. To the tune of a 2 mile rock train. This particular location contains habitat

 for the federally endangered Higgins’s Eye Pearly mussel. The proposed route runs adjacent to a very busy railroad mainline. The railroad company has just recently agreed to give easement for the construction of this proposed sidewalk. The conditions for this easement agreement are basically they want in exchange 9000 feet of switch track to be built in a nearby rail yard, a no liability wavier and the railroad could cancel the easement at their own choosing. The cost to the taxpayers? Oh, about 2.2 million dollars. To this date not one community, state or federal environmental permit has been applied for nor issued. This would be the most expensive trail per mile in our nation. We have proposed an alternative site for this trail. We call it the Heights route. It already exists and traverses up over the hills between the two towns. It is very scenic, safe and quiet. This real estate is all publicly owned. However the Vision Iowa Board is still considering the very expensive casino sponsored route. Well after we began to learn about this larger ill conceived, ill planned scam to fleece the state’s coffers for the benefit of the Isle of Capri a number of us began to meet and call for public records and research this folly. In a nut shell we learned that the casino PR men had met with two developers and brought them into the fold. Well one of our neighbors had an earlier business arrangement with these same developers in Lacrosse Wisconsin. Having done some commercial drywall work for them. He said these guys were very shady and the City of Lacrosse and the little town of Necedah, Wisconsin had lost a great deal too their similar development schemes. We then formed a group we call the “Concerned Citizens of Clayton County” and took them to task. Members of our organization begin by traveling to these other communities and interviewing their public officials, lawyers and newspaper reporters who had been investigating these guys and their dealings. We then informed Governor Vilsack’s office, the Attorney General and Michael Gardner. The state then hired a private investigator to complete a lengthy due diligence investigation on Mr. Seymour and Mr. Daughtry. The findings where alarming. These two have been involved in questionable business practices from California to Wisconsin. The Vision Iowa Board finally, due to this and the resort’s own feasibility study, months later dropped the resort component from consideration and had the applicants re-apply with the trail and town items in a new CAT grant. (Community Attraction and Tourism). Now please, bear with me. These two con men then convince our 3 county supervisors to go ahead with the resort hotel/ water park/country club housing development, trying to fund it with a 20 million dollar TIF bond. Sound familiar? This entire process has been going on for nearly 3 years. Myself and neighbors spend anywhere from 1 to 4 hours daily trying to keep on top of this urban sprawl scam. We have created an informational website. We retained a noted environmental attorney, Mr. Wallace Taylor. We currently have two active lawsuits. One against Mr. Gardner and his board for a violation of a open meeting in Sioux City a year ago where 3 vehicles full of farmers had traveled 6 hours and they kicked several of them out of a closed door meeting with Vision Iowa Board members, our supervisors and the casino paid consultants. The other one is against the county supervisors for their violation of the county’s comprehensive plan and how it relates to the funding of this private resort with this TIF bond and the zoning. The proposed resort’s marketing campaign is targeted at the upscale urban populations of Chicago, Milwaukee and the Twin Cities luring them to build recreational second homes. When you begin to get into the fine print of their own feasibility study you will notice the local wage for employees of the resort would be 6 dollars per hour. Their consultants have boldly stated “We will be the largest water user in the county”. To this date they have no water well or wastewater permits approved by the DNR. The site for the resort is 5 miles from any town, set on isolated agricultural land. This is not what Clayton County or rural Iowa is about! In closing we have come here for two reasons. # 1, To share with you folks the background of our fight to preserve our home from greed and urban sprawl. #2, To ask you if you care to make a monetary donation to our group’s legal defense fund. Over the last 3 years we have traveled thousands of miles to attend monthly Vision Iowa meetings held around the state. Racked up home telephone bills and spent thousands upon thousand of hours on this battle. If you or your group or anyone you know would care to make a small or large contribution we could sure use it as our legal bills continue to mount. We go to trial in Polk County in February and Clayton County in September. Does anyone have a question or comment? Thank you all for your time.