Gambling Minute
Gambling
Germantown Monthly Meeteing
2006
On behalf of the 400+ members of our congregation, Germantown Friends Meeting, I would like to advise you of our strong and deeply felt opposition to the slot-machine casino business proposed for the former Budd Company factory site which borders our Germantown neighborhood. We believe that a gambling business would do serious damage to the life of the community as a whole and to many individual lives within it.
Jobs, affordable supermarkets, social services, home ownership, and safe streets are kept out of the reach of families in too many neighborhoods. Without other means of support, casino revenue has become an enticing way proposed to meet these needs.
However, gains from deals with companies looking run gambling businesses would be short-term. Families living next to these businesses would be left with longer-term, community-eroding problems including a rise in addictive behavior, noise and air pollution, real estate speculation, and crime.
A casino would be a bad neighbor.
We support ways of working with communities to identify their needs and provide more positive, life-affirming ways to meet them. We urge you to seek less exploitive ways to bring economic opportunity to our neigborhood.
We are aware that many community groups have organized to oppose this project and, after considering the matter, we feel that our religious community must join in this effort and encourage people to oppose casino plans.
Thank you for your thoughful attention, sincerely,
Deborah Frazer, Clerk of Germantown Monthly