Pitts: Casino gambling could fund sewers
Fulton County District 2 At-Large Commissioner Robb Pitts said Tuesday that Georgia lawmakers and business leaders should consider casino gambling "a key element" in financing Atlanta's sewer system.
Pitts said that casino gambling would generate an independent pool of revenue that could be dedicated, among other uses, for the sewer projects. Casinos could provide particular benefit to low-income households, including senior citizens, who will be hardest hit by Atlanta's sewer rate increases, he said.
By committing to allow two full gaming casinos in Georgia, the state could receive more than $300 million in up front licensing fees from casino developers, providing ready capital for the sewer project, said Pitts, a former president of the Atlanta City Council.
"The two casinos we envision should produce sufficient net revenues to amortize the costs of the City of Atlanta's $3 billion sewerage system improvements without an increase in sewerage rates," he said.
Can't fund sewers? Build Casinos
Started by
Guest_donaltopablo_*
, Dec 09 2003 07:52 PM
2 replies to this topic
#2
tocoto
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Hamlet
Posted 10 December 2003 - 03:43 PM
Gambling may be a volutary tax, but it has many social and economic pitfals. Addictive gambling, increased poverty from unwise gambling, loss of small entertainment venues like restaurants and theaters. In the end, they suck more money out of most local economies than gets put back.
#3
Allan
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Metropolis
Posted 10 December 2003 - 03:57 PM
It's a different solution to the problem. There are costs to gambling though...it might bring in money, but it causes a lot of other problems.
We have the exact same problem around here with our sewer & water lines. Development is occuring way too fast, and the systems cannot be upgraded fast enough. Additionally, even if they could keep upgrading the system, there's no money left to do much. To cover the costs, we doubled the costs of the water & sewer tap in fees. Now to hook up to the water and sewer lines it's over $8,000 per house. The builders and developers are complaining like you would not believe, but that brings in a lot of money to upgrade the system for the population boom. It hasn't stopped them from building though...in fact, they are now building more houses than ever before
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We have the exact same problem around here with our sewer & water lines. Development is occuring way too fast, and the systems cannot be upgraded fast enough. Additionally, even if they could keep upgrading the system, there's no money left to do much. To cover the costs, we doubled the costs of the water & sewer tap in fees. Now to hook up to the water and sewer lines it's over $8,000 per house. The builders and developers are complaining like you would not believe, but that brings in a lot of money to upgrade the system for the population boom. It hasn't stopped them from building though...in fact, they are now building more houses than ever before
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