The spokesman of the New York Gaming Facility Location Board Lee Park announced that the board was going to extend the contract with Taft, Stettinius & Hollister LLP.
The latter is a company that provides gaming advisory services and it has been working closely with the board members during the past year. Back in March 2014, a contract between the Gaming Facility Location Board and Taft was signed and the sum for the contract was estimated to be almost $5 million.
Yesterday, the aforementioned one-year agreement expired, which means that both parties have to ink a new one, otherwise the board has to start seeking for another gaming consultant.
Anyway, Mr. Park said that the decision of the board was extending the contract with one year but he did not specify when the extension will be finalized.
According to the clauses the previous contract contains, the agreement can be extended twice for a 6-month period.
The board is supposed to sign a contract with an outside consultancy company and review the casino applications together with company’s consultants. The contract extension that is currently in progress needs to get the approval of the NY attorney general and state comptroller.
However, a report from January states that Taft has been related to the three casino bidders that were selected a few months ago.
Back in December 2014, the Board backed applications for casinos in Seneca County, Sullivan County and Schenectady but key political figures from Southern Tier opposed the casino project, which made the location board accept a new Request for Applications that is to be reviewed on Monday (March 23rd) in Brooklyn.
In case the so called Request for Applications is approved by the Gaming Commission, new bidders for the Tier-based casino will be enabled to submit their applications.
Actually, Tioga Downs, which could not stand a chance against Lago, is said to be the only investor willing to submit a second bid.
Speaking of Taft’s involvement in the application process, the consultancy company assisted in making summaries out of applicants’ submissions. In addition, it collected data related to the future economic condition of the regions but later it became clear that five out of all sixteen bidders suspected a conflict of interest concerning the casino applications.
In order to bring the speculations to an end, representatives of the Gaming Commission reassured local communities that Taft had no direct impact on the final selection of applicants.
