Casino mogul Steve Wynn and Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh reignited their public dispute Wednesday, as Wynn decried the city’s latest legal effort to block his proposed $1.7 billion casino in Everett as a counterproductive ploy that “will serve no one.”
Wynn lashed out at Walsh for filing a suit days after the two feuding sides appeared to be moving toward common ground in a meeting that the mayor called “productive.”
“It has become clear the mayor has decided that litigation is his way of being ‘productive,’ ” Wynn said in a statement provided to the Globe. “If this is what the mayor believes a good working relationship should be, his experience is clearly different than ours.”The suit “will serve no one, least of all the citizens of Boston,” the statement said.The city’s suit, filed Monday, challenges the validity of an environmental certification granted to Wynn to allow him to begin construction. The suit restates one of Walsh’s longstanding arguments against the casino, saying that Wynn and state environmental officials ignored substantial concerns about the increased traffic the gambling resort would generate. Continue reading it below City of Boston files new lawsuit to block Wynn casino Boston’s lawsuit challenges the environmental certification recently approved by the state for the casino in Everett.“It’s more about making sure that the people of Charlestown and Boston, that we are doing everything we can as a city to make sure that we can come up — if there is a solution here, that it’s a good solution for everyone,” Walsh said Wednesday, answering a reporter’s question about the latest suit.
The city has already spent at least $1.5 million on a separate lawsuit charging that the state Gaming Commission’s award of the casino license to Wynn Resorts was “the product of a corrupt process.” Last week, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Janet Sanders questioned the city’s legal grounds for the lawsuit and suggested it wasn’t her prerogative to second-guess the commission.
Reeling from that apparent setback, Walsh met quietly with two key Wynn executives at City Hall last week in what was widely viewed as an easing of tensions.
Wynn, in his broadside in response to the latest lawsuit, bemoaned the apparent reversal in the direction of his relationship with the mayor. He said the complaint was peppered with “unfounded accusations’’ and he warned that Boston residents may ultimately pay the price.
Mayor Carlo DeMaria of Everett, who strongly supports a casino in his city, on Wednesday echoed Wynn’s umbrage at Walsh’s legal strategy, which he described as “running to the courthouse when I don’t get my way.”
Whatever its legal merits, the new lawsuit over the environmental certification could give Walsh legal and political cover if the first lawsuit is dismissed and could buy him time in his effort to resist Wynn’s casino, according to interviews with lawyers who asked not to be named for fear of alienating Walsh.
The mayor, speaking to reporters Wednesday, brushed off the suggestion that he was resorting to a new lawsuit out of desperation, saying “I’m not a lawsuit type of person.”
He said going to court a second time was a necessary step toward forging an agreement on traffic and other issues.
“I think that, again, the last resort I want to do is lawsuits,” Walsh told reporters. “But I think, as we work down here to come up with some solutions, that would be helpful.”
Any solution to the dispute would likely involve an agreement by Wynn to fund a substantial upgrade of the roadways that converge at Sullivan Square in Charlestown, a crossroads rotary that is now considered one of the worst traffic bottlenecks in the state.
Wynn estimates that a casino, slated to open in 2018, would generate up to 23,000 new automobile trips per day by patrons and employees and that many of them will travel through Sullivan Square.
A deal would also likely include a commitment from Wynn to pay Boston an annual cash amount to compensate the city for the effect of a 24-story casino and hotel complex built on the city’s doorstep.
In its latest lawsuit, the City of Boston asserts that Wynn and the state’s top environmental official, Matthew Beaton, glossed over or ignored those concerns.
The bad blood between Wynn and Walsh preceded the Gaming Commission’s award of the coveted Greater Boston casino license to Wynn.
Walsh had negotiated a deal with the developers of a rival proposal for a casino in Revere. That agreement with the partnership of Mohegan Sun and Suffolk Downs would have paid the city a one-time payment of $30 million and $18 million a year. Wynn had offered Boston a one-time payment of $6 million and $2.6 million a year, which Walsh rejected.
After the Gaming Commission chose Wynn’s proposal, the City of Boston, joined by Somerville and Revere, filed its suit that alleged that the commission deliberately favored Wynn by violating state statutes, gambling regulations, and codes of ethics.
In that lawsuit, Walsh’s lawyers sought to subpoena two former State Police troopers who were allegedly allowed into a secure room in the attorney general’s office to review confidential files.
The city asserted that those two retired troopers were working on behalf of Wynn and were given access to investigatory files related to Charles Lightbody, a felon who owned a piece of the property where Wynn Resorts is planning to build the casino.
Judge Sanders denied the subpoenas and Wynn threatened to sue Walsh for defamation over the lawsuit and the subpoenas.
Sean P. Murphy can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Follow him on Twitter @spmurphyboston. Andrew Ryan can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Follow him on Twitter @globeandrewryan.| < Prev | Next > |
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