| DC churches rally against slots bid By John Coleman Jr.
UMCONNECTION STAFF United Methodists fighting a proposal to introduce slot machine gambling in Washington, D.C., feel they may have derailed that effort for now, but they know the fight is hardly over. The city’s Board of Elections and Ethics renewed in late September its rejection of a petition to place the proposal on the Nov. 2 election ballot for voters to decide. That decision went back to the D.C. Court of Appeals, which had instructed the board to reconsider its earlier decision because of First Amendment concerns about free speech. Those concerns were prompted by the board’s rejection of signatures hurriedly obtained in July by petition circulators who allegedly made “false statements” to persuade potential signers. Citing multiple reasons for invalidating thousands of petition signatures, the board said even if the signatures in question were judged valid, it would still leave sponsors short of the number needed to place the petition on the ballot. The slots initiative would allow for the installation of 3,500 slot machines, or video lottery terminals (VLTs), on a 14-acre site in Northeast Washington, near the busy intersection of New York Avenue and Bladensburg Road. Its financial backers, based in the Virgin Islands, reportedly have spent more than $2 million to support the measure, much of it in payments to local law firms, consultants and petition circulators. As the UMConnection went to press, the court of appeals ruled in favor of the decision to remove the slots proposal from the November ballot. “But this is not going away,” said Carol Colbeth, an attorney and former legislative advocate for the Baltimore-Washington Conference. “There’s every indication that if they fail this time, they’ll be back. With enough time, the VLT folks would have gotten it on the ballot. So if people want to stop this from happening in the future, they’d better come forward to help us now.” Colbeth, who lives in Silver Spring but attends Foundry UMC in Washington, is part of D.C. Against Slots, a group opposing the slots proposal. With about a dozen members, it includes participants from Foundry, Metropolitan Memorial, Congress Heights, Emory, Brightwood Park, Community and McKendree-Simms-Brookland UMCs. The group formed in June after a public hearing because “people were confused about the slots proposal,” according to its chairman, the Rev. Dean Snyder, pastor of Foundry. He was asked to lead a discussion and help build a coalition of churches and other groups against the proposal. “We’re concerned about the economic fallout in the community,” Snyder said. “This industry really damages people’s lives and families.” As evidence, he cited bail bonds businesses next door to off-track betting parlors and rampant poverty, despair and violence in the shadows of glittering casinos in Las Vegas and other cities. “The proposal itself, for a local referendum, is atrocious,” he said. “If it passes, some (non-D.C.) business people would make enormous profits at our expense.” Willa Kynard, Washington-Columbia District liaison to the conference Board of Christian Presence in God’s World, agrees. “It’s been proven that slots attract poor people, not high rollers. They think people in D.C. are really ignorant,” she said. Kynard complained about the already congested area intended for a slots emporium, the inevitability of more crime requiring more police, and the likelihood that any jobs created would be low-paying at best. D.C. Against Slots will meet again Oct. 13, at 7 p.m., at Foundry UMC to review the status of the slots petition and to consider next steps and long-term strategies in its fight. Depending on the appeals court’s ruling, one of those next steps may be to file a formal complaint against sponsors of the slots proposal for violations of the city’s petition process. “It’s important to ask the VLT people to reimburse the city for the cost of this fraud,” said Colbeth, citing the expense of elections board meetings and hearings on the petition, as well as the work of city attorneys and staff to assess the validity of the signatures. Another strategy may be to examine and advocate for changes in a flawed city petition process. “It’s too easy to get new laws through,” said Snyder, without adequate intervention by the city government. | 
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