Chutzpah

What Esmonde says:

We saw another reason why this week. The Senecas want our pauper city to spend $6 million on sewers, signs and better roads around its proposed downtown casino. There may not be much we can do about it.

The 2001 tribal-state compact says that the city’s meager cut of the casino take is partly reimbursement for “costs incurred in connection with services provided to [the casino].” Like, say, fixing the roads around it.

It’s another reminder of how little say the public had in so big a deal. George Pataki signed the Indian casino pact and lawmakers OK’d it. Albany gets a nice cut of the gambling take, the Senecas rake in the winner’s share and the city slowly realizes it got the short end.

Now the guy with the short stack has to fix roads for the high roller. Talk about busted.

The State gets most of the (non-Seneca -ed.) casino money.

Let. The. State. Fix. The. Bloody. Road. Its. Damn. Self.