By Mary Massingale   Illinois Statehouse News

SPRINGFIELD – Mayors of cities that could be affected by a potential gaming expansion showed up at the Capitol on Monday to voice their opinions: yes, no and maybe.

Residents and city officials packed a committee room, as the components of Senate Bill 3970 were laid out: five new casinos located in Chicago, Rockford, Ford Heights, Park City and Danville; slot machines at race tracks; the eventual re-opening of live racing at Quad-City Downs; and allowing the East Peoria boat to move to a land-based location.

So many people testified that senators didn’t vote on the proposal, choosing instead to ponder what they had heard.

Danville Mayor Scott Eisenhauer said he hopes committee members remember the original intent of the Riverboat Gambling Act. The influx of jobs from construction, the casino itself, a hotel, restaurants, and retail stores would bolster the community struggling with an unemployment rate hovering around 14 percent to 15 percent.

“If you go back to when the original legislation was passed in the ‘90s, the bill was passed to help disadvantaged communities,” Eisenhauer said. “That’s what we are.”

But Mayor Tom Hoechst of Alton said his community has the opposite problem with gaming options. Located across the river from St. Louis and its five area casinos, Alton has its own riverboat, and competes as well with the riverboat casino in East St. Louis.

Adding slot machines to Fairmount Park Racetrack in Collinsville would create an “over saturation” of gambling in the area, Hoechst said.

“You’re not creating any new jobs, you’re not creating any new revenue,” Hoechst said. “You’re just stealing from one pot to pay the other. You’re robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

Legislation to expand gaming beyond the state’s current 9 operating riverboats and five live horse-racing tracks usually pops up sometime during the legislative session as a solution to the state’s budget problem, now nearing a $15 billion deficit for next year. However, pleasing the differing factions of the gaming industry usually creates a proposal so large that it collapses.

This year, a report from the Illinois Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability highlighted the challenge of the state relying on gaming revenues. The report noted that state revenue from gambling is at a 10-year low, due primarily to the recession and the recent statewide indoor smoking ban, prompting Illinois gamblers to migrate to neighboring states without the smoking ban.

A proposal to exclude riverboat casinos operating near state lines from the indoor smoking ban passed a House committee on Monday. Kathy Drea, a lobbyist with the American Lung Association, said the measure is a step backward.

“Are workers at casinos now not as important as workers at bars and restaurants?” Drea said.

But gambling opponents added to the chorus against a gaming expansion.

"By doubling the amount and number of casinos we have, it will become the No. 1 gambling state in the nation,” said John Boryk of the organization Stop Predatory Gambling.

Mayor Larry Morrissey of Rockford said he’s more concerned with how a possible riverboat in Rockford would operate. Morrissey said he would want his city to have an ownership stake in any casino located in Rockford, as well as the option to hire a manager of the facility.

Acknowledging his city has an unemployment rate of 16 percent, Morrissey said local control of a possible casino is still key to any deal.

“We’re going be supportive of the right bill, but I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I’m going be a shill for anybody in the gambling industry who wants to get a bill done,” Morrissey said. “We’re going to be patient, we’re going to wait for the right solution and if this is the not the right time or the right bill, then we wouldn’t support it.”

But the mayor of Ford Heights said the 35 percent unemployment rate of his village calls for action now. Mayor Charles Griffin said a casino would offer “a glimmer of hope” to the community.

Dependent on a volunteer fire department and officers from the Cook County Sheriff’s department, Ford Heights would be able to stand on its own with revenue from a casino, he said.

“We would be able to not only hire a police department but we would be able to hire and staff a full-time fire department,” Griffin said. “We would be able to hire individuals to work in our planning department, our community development department, to help us organize and implement the type of services and be competitive with everyone else as opposed to being dependent on everyone else.”