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Trustees talk about gambling addiction, TIF funds
By ROBERT CONNELLY
AUSTINTOWN
Township officials talked about gambling addiction Monday as the Sept. 17 opening of Hollywood Gaming at Mahoning Valley Race Course approaches.
“Remembering that the racino is coming here because it is a profit organization ... but they’re also an employer. But like anything else, whether it’s eating too much or buying things too much or gambling too much, we always have a percentage of people that overdo themselves,” Trustee Ken Carano said. “It doesn’t benefit Austintown or the racino or anyone else.”
A proclamation, signed by trustees July 28 and presented to Penn National’s Hollywood Casino Toledo location Friday, was part of “Responsible Gaming Week 2014.” Penn National’s slogan for this year’s event was “Ensure Responsible Gaming with Safe Bets.”
“We want the racino to be successful,” Carano said, “and we want it to be around for a long, long time, but we don’t want it to be a problem for people.
“Mahoning County is a gambling area. Anyone that tells us that we didn’t have gambling and shouldn’t have gambling in the state of Ohio isn’t from Ohio.”
The proclamation said that officials from the racino and the township “urge citizens to call the Problem Gambling Help Line at 800-589-9966 if problem gambling is suspected with themselves or someone they know.”
David Ditzler, chairman of the Mahoning County commissioners, attended Monday’s trustee meeting and spoke about the racino’s tax increment financing (TIF) district. He explained that the county issued bonds through a bonding agent to get money in advance for road improvement at the racino entrance.
Once the tax increment financing begins for the district, the bonds will be paid back. That starts when the TIF district begins collecting 50 percent of the racino’s real-estate taxes over a 10-year period starting in 2016. Ditzler said that amount comes to $8 million, which will be collected over that 10 years.
The cost of the racino’s entrance was estimated at $1.8 million, but the project came in closer to $1 million. Ditzler explained how the remaining $767,000 is being used in Austintown:
$40,000 for an engineering study for placing a traffic light at Victoria Road and Mahoning Avenue for truck drivers coming from the Victoria Road industrial park.
$285,000 for a sewer construction project on Pineview Drive.
Engineering studies for two three-road sections — Ohltown Road, Dravis Drive and Hood Street; and Meander Drive, Bowman Avenue and Abbott Avenue — for other sewer projects.
The commissioners sent out to bid the paving of about a half-mile on Victoria East and East Webb roads.
“Not only does [TIF funds] help the area directly surrounding the racino, but those projects aren’t funded through normal sanitary or county engineering budgets, so therefore those [county] monies are freed up to do projects elsewhere and in other parts of the county,” Ditzler said.