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Southland's last economic hope? No one asks residents of proposed casino towns if they want gambling Sunday, January 18, 2004 By Allison Hantschel Staff writer Leaders of south suburban towns vying for a casino say they don't need to ask their residents if they want a gambling hall in town. Just look around, the mayors say. We can see our referendum in the vacant storefronts, the barred windows and boarded-up entryways, the rusted, out-of-date art deco signs. And the dingy streets where no one walks at night, not if they're smart. The office parks that companies build in Libertyville instead of Lansing, Rolling Meadows instead of Riverdale. Those are referendum enough. We count our votes in the number of "For Sale" signs on the lawns, the Southland's civic leaders claim, and in the number of times we've been promised a business rebound only to see great plans die on the drawing board. For three decades and counting, the Southland has been the economic also-ran of the Chicago area. With the dying of the steel mills came the dying of towns that never imagined a day when their homes would be vacant and shopping strips deserted. With that history, town leaders now say, why question the first shred of a chance people here have of regaining their former prosperity? "There's nothing here, nothing east of I-57 anyway," said Dwight Welch, mayor of Country Club Hills. "In the heart of the original south suburbs, we need jobs. The old blue-collar towns are dying, and the towns around them aren't doing much better." Country Club Hills is one of two south suburban towns that will bid on a 10th gambling license Monday. For months, two others ‹ Crestwood and Calumet City ‹ joined Country Club Hills and Summit in trying to band south suburbs together to seek a casino that would provide hundreds of jobs and pump millions into the communities. In northwest suburban Elgin, the hugely successful Grand Victoria riverboat ‹ the state's most profitable from the day it opened in 1994 ‹ paid for an overhaul of the disadvantaged river city's center. Downtown streets and buildings were remade. The city budget grew flush with cash. And today, there stands a new library, police station and recreation center. In Joliet, casino revenue helped build a minor league baseball stadium and renovate the city library, as well as make smaller improvements like increasing programs for senior citizens. With so much at stake, in all the months of planning in Crestwood, Country Club Hills, Calumet City and Summit, no one approached the citizens of these towns to ask if they wanted a casino. In Elgin, a 1993 referendum showed that residents favored casino gambling by a 2-to-1 margin. In Palos Hills, residents rejected floating a casino in the Cal-Sag Channel, and the idea died. In Country Club Hills and Summit, the mayors say, there's no doubt what people want. "A lot of people are opposed to gambling," Welch said. "But when you look at the economics of this, it will make the south suburbs a destination. It will give us the appreciation we deserve down here." 'Why can't we have nice things, too?' Michele Cacciato's salon is the one bright window in a dark strip mall on a dingy stretch of Archer Avenue. Inside, enveloped by shampoo scents, Cacciato answered a casual question about Summit's casino bid by crossing her fingers and closing her eyes. "I hope, I hope," she said. "We need a casino. We need something. Look out the window. There's nothing here." Nine years ago, Cacciato moved her hair salon from Chicago's Garfield Ridge community, where she grew up, to Archer Avenue in Summit. She waited in vain as numerous improvements to the area were promised. A casino, she said, could jump-start development and provide jobs for the people who've been laid off in manufacturing's steady decline. Her city and suburban customers were quick to agree. "I go once a month to Harrah's in Indiana, and I go to Joliet," said Marie Kubik, a native of the Archer Heights neighborhood. "Senior citizen buses from my church go all the way to Wisconsin. Why shouldn't we be able to come right over here?" Cacciato said a Summit casino would show out-of-towners that the South Side and its inner-ring suburbs could support upscale businesses. "We need some good restaurants here, where I can go out for dinner on a Saturday night and take my family," she said. "We need a Borders. We need a Starbucks. We deserve those things here. We're not poor. The houses around here cost $200,000 or more. Why can't we have nice things, too?" 'We don't need it here' Before Crestwood's casino dreams fizzled ‹ the town could not secure land along the Calumet Sag Channel to dock the gaming barge ‹ Ken Darnell spent six months knocking on doors, trying to convince people gambling in Crestwood would be a bad idea. The self-professed Christian formed the Concerned Citizens of Crestwood when he heard efforts were afoot to bring a casino to his town. "We've done a door-to-door survey, a written survey, a telephone survey, and they all showed overwhelming majorities opposed to it," Darnell said. "Crestwood is not economically depressed. We don't need it here." He can counter all the arguments Mayor Chester Stranczek can make, ticking them off as if counting on his fingers. "The money will not go back into the community," said Darnell, who gathered more than 700 signatures to put an advisory referendum on the ballot March 16. "A few people will get very rich at the hands of the middle class. The jobs that will be created will be low-paying jobs with high turnover, and the good jobs will go to people the industry people will bring in." And the cost, he said, would be higher because of increased police protection for the area and increased need for social services by addicted gamblers. In the hair salon in Summit, Kubik disagreed. "If you have a gambling problem, you're going to find a place to gamble," she said, tilting back her head so Cacciato could finish highlighting her blonde hair. "I don't think people are going to stop gambling just because the casino isn't here in Summit. The casinos are all over the state. They'll just go somewhere else." That's what worries Summit Mayor Joseph Strzelczyk. He said a referendum supporting gambling in town would pass overwhelmingly, so there's no need to even ask. "I go into restaurants, and all anybody talks about is going to Indiana," he said. "The park district sends people to gaming things. The seniors' clubs go. Why send them there when they can come here? It would be a great shot in the arm, something we've needed for a long time." 60,000 jobs lost, and counting When recessions hit in the 1970s and 1980s and early 2000s, crushing steel mills and refineries, they rolled through South Side neighborhoods like wrecking balls. In the past three years of economic downturn, the Southland lost 15,000 manufacturing jobs, said Kevin McNulty, president of the Southland Chamber of Commerce. And for each of those jobs, another three service jobs were lost as well. In the face of such defeats, town leaders clung to the promise of an economic savior. First, a third airport that, despite more than a decade of political struggle, is still talked about in messianic terms. Now, a casino. In Summit, the median income is $38,000. Crestwood's median home value is $149,000. In 39,000-person Calumet City, which has long talked about casino gaming, the biggest business employs just 400 people. "It's easier to sit back and speculate about one big action that brings in a quarter of a million jobs," McNulty said. "A casino of some size will bring 4,000 to 6,000 fairly good-paying jobs, but the real value will be in what else comes with the casino, what kind of ancillary development there is." An entertainment complex, like the one Country Club Hills is considering around its casino, would be a bigger boost to the area than would a simple boat. "It's not uncommon to look for the home run and not remember that the game needs to be won daily," McNulty said. "We need singles and doubles and squeeze plays as well as that home run in the bottom of the ninth." In Country Club Hills, now the acknowledged front-runner for the casino license, the largest employers in town are the school districts. The high school district employs nearly 450 people; the grade school district 130. Mayor Welch said his constituents trust him to make decisions about what kind of businesses to bring to their town. They elected him, and he thinks a casino is the best hope for the south suburbs. Last Wednesday, Welch publicly upbraided an alderman who questioned why people had not been allowed to vote on the proposal. Ald. Willie Smith said the matter should have been put to a binding referendum, saying the casino would create crime, suicide and broken homes. "This isn't California. The city isn't run by referendum, it's run by the people," Welch said after the meeting. "There's a billion and a quarter dollars going to Indiana that could be staying here," Welch said. "That's money that could be distributed throughout the region. South suburbs, especially the older ones, need the money that's going elsewhere." Casino gaming, village officials say, is the only way this economically depressed region has left to turn itself around. Proposals to build a third airport have come and gone, shopping center ideas have died on the table. "In the 1960s, this place was the mecca for the Southwest Side," Strzelczyk said. "We had the Jewel, the A&P. Corn Products employed 3,000 people. Now they employ 300. All this has happened around us." Like Welch, Strzelczyk envisions a future where, almost every day, people come to the Southwest Side and suburbs from all over the Chicago area. They'll be drawn by the casino, Midway Airport and the major league soccer team considering a new home in Bridgeview. "This is not Palos Heights," Strzelczyk said. "This is not Des Plaines. This is a town where people don't have a heck of a lot of money. If a casino came here, people here would appreciate it." The girls in Cacciato's salon would, for certain. "I think people in the other parts of the city don't think we're educated or they don't think we have enough money, but look at what's been done in some of these poorer areas," Cacciato said, citing the streetscape improvements near Midway Airport. "Archer Avenue needs some of that attention, too." |
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