HEATHER BOA Bullet News CENTRAL HURON – A half-dozen mayors whose municipalities are home to slots and racetracks will ask a special panel to support plans tailor-made for their communities for how to spend a $50 million fund established by the province to help people make the switch from horse racing to other jobs when its slots-at-racetrack-program ends in March 2013.
Each of the communities has subtle difference in circumstances, including wording in their agreements with Ontario Lottery and Gaming and ownership of the building that houses the slots, but they are all drawn together by an interest to save the horse racing industry, said Jim Ginn, who is mayor of Central Huron, which is home to Clinton Racetrack Slots, after a meeting of the half-dozen mayors by conference call yesterday morning.
“Everyone agrees that we want to try to preserve the racing industry as best we can, even though some realize that in their municipalities they’re probably going to be closing. It’s the feeling amongst all that it’s an important agricultural industry and for the sake of rural Canada, it’s important that it remain strong,” he said.
“Some of us want to see the money going into sustaining the race industries and others are looking for transitional funding to move those people into something else,” he said.
Windsor Raceway has announced that without help from OLG the raceway will close Aug. 31. and so Windsor’s mayor, Eddie Francis, is expected to ask for funds to help those in the industry find other jobs. Even then, some horse people will continue operations and race elsewhere. Dresden Raceway is expected to move to Chatham, so the mayor of Chatham-Kent, Randy Hope, may ask for funds to help the agricultural society, which owns the slots facility and will be left to pay taxes on a building with no tenant. Ginn expects in his time with the panel, he will ask for funds to give to the Clinton Raceway, which owns the slots facility, so that it can buy into the partnership with whoever takes over operations of the more than 100 slots machines.
In March, the Liberals announced an end to the slots-at-race-track program as part of the 2012 budget, which was passed into law recently.
The $50 million transitional fund announced by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs was one of the concessions the opposition New Democrats wrestled from the Liberals in exchange for not voting against the budget and thereby keeping the minority government alive.
An expert panel has been appointed by the province to oversee the $50-million transition fund. The panel’s membership is composed of three former cabinet ministers: Elmer Buchanan, John Snobelen and John Wilkinson.
Clinton Raceway built the $3-million facility on Beech Street in Clinton to the province’s specifications in an arrangement that saw 20 per cent of revenue split between raceway operators and horse people’s purse accounts. The raceway has no outstanding debt on the building, which sits on municipally owned land, but it pays $50,000 annually in municipal taxes. It has temporarily shelved a $3-million grandstand project to replace the grandstand with offices and bathrooms and redevelop the trackside area is on hold. Its $750,000 funding commitment over 10 years to the Regional Agricultural and Equine Centre of Huron is also in jeopardy.
Five per cent of Slot revenue has gone to host municipalities but the province announced it will also change the fee model for municipalities hosting gaming sites. In 2001, which was the first full year of operations, the Municipality of Central Huron received almost $444,000 from slot revenue. That number has fluctuated in an upward trend and the municipality received $641,000 from the Slots in 2011.
