The city's getting geared up for the slots licenses coming down Wednesday. So we thought it was time to take a look at the mayoral candidates -- and what ties, if any, they might have to the casino applicants.
The short answer: Very few ties, frankly.
The Daily News' Dave Davies and Catherine Lucey spent a while looking at the applicants, and basically there are only minor or tangential connections to the candidates. (There are far stronger ties to the owners of the Daily News. Brian Tierney, the CEO of Philadelphia Media Holdings, put together a group that owns more than 7.1 percent of Donald Trump's proposed TrumpStreet casino in Nicetown/East Falls.)
Jerry Mondesire, the president of the Philadelphia NAACP and a supporter of Dwight Evans, has a tiny fraction - 0.2 percent - of the half-owner of the Riverwalk Casino. And after that, the connections are even more tenuous:
Fattah: No significant ties, though he and BET chief Robert Johnson -- who is a recent addition to the Pinnacle project, so recent that his name is not part of the application that the gaming board is considering -- did both go on a trip to Africa in 1998 that was organized by the Clinton administration.
Evans: Besides Mondesire? The closest tie might be to Bill Miller. He's part of the Northwest Alliance, which is tied to Dwight. And Miller is also part of Riverwalk. Other than that, we're talking connections at this level: In 1997, he gave a $1,000 personal check to Ahmeenah Young, executive vice president of the Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority, for her black women's empowerment effort, "Ain't I a Woman." (That factoid was unearthed by Catherine.)
Nutter: Has a much clearer link to Young, a longtime Convention Center exec, since he is the Center's chairman. He met with Trump in December 2005, when he was still in City Council, on the casino matter, though Nutter said later that he thought Trump needed to do more for the neighborhood.
Brady and Doc: Besides general labor ties? (Municipal workers union president Pete Matthews has a role in Pinnacle). Gee. Does it count that Dougherty introduced professional PR guy Frank Keel to Richard Sprague, who is a part of the SugarHouse deal?
Knox: We couldn't find any direct connections, though a businessman's cronies are usually less public than a pol's.
Know of something we missed? Please comment and we'll update...
And if you want a no-casino point of view...check out the PSAs done by the Media Mobilizing Project in concert with Casino Free Philadelphia.
The videos can be viewed here on YouTube.
Thanks to Aaron of the Philly Independent Media Center for the tip.
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