The Journal
It's easy to read between the lines with Magna
By Robert Cheasty

TECHNICALITY, schmecknicality? What is Magna Entertainment Corp. really up to?

Actually, the most significant event about Magna (owner of Golden Gate Fields racetrack) in recent weeks took place in Sacramento and not in the Alameda County courthouse. True, Magna has sued to kill the Albany Waterfront Specific Plan Initiative, but the real action was in Sacramento -- and it relates directly to the lawsuit.

Magna had a bill introduced in the Legislature that would greatly expand gambling in Albany by allowing 1,800 slot machines at the racetrack in Albany (reported in The Journal, West County Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times.)

Of course, Magna does not call them slot machines. But they look like a duck and quack like a duck. Magna, however, wants them called anything else to duck the state laws against slot machines -- by a technicality.

There is that word again, technicality.

Magna wants to promote expanded gambling at the Albany waterfront by a technicality -- redefining a machine that has the look and feel of a slot machine by calling it anything but a slot machine.

Perhaps they should call it a duck.

But this is no mere technicality. They seek to circumvent laws prohibiting expansion of gambling in California. This is when a mere technicality is not a mere technicality.

On the other hand, in their lawsuit against the initiative, Magna seeks to thwart the actual intent of the law by trying to use a technicality. In that sense, they are doing what folks generally feel perverts the intent of the law by using a technicality.

In this case, the intent of initiative law includes the following:

• to facilitate public expression by initiative;

• to ensure at least minimal public notice by basically requiring a notice be published containing the title and summary of the initiative.

In this case, the public notice was published in the same publication used by the city of Albany for its legal notices -- the West County Times, the local daily with the widest circulation in Albany. (Never mind that nobody really reads these minuscule legal notices published in the nether pages of the papers.)

Equally important, this was the most covered subject in recent Albany history. Initiative proponents worked hard to get the word out.

The initiative was introduced at a public meeting, with the entire city of Albany invited, and it was posted on the Web (www.albanyshoreline.org.)

The initiative was agendized and presented before the Albany City Council, and was discussed at numerous follow-up Council meetings.

It was covered on television, Channels 2, 4 and 7.

It was covered in the Oakland Tribune, West County Times, Contra Costa Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Wall Street Journal, El Cerrito-Albany-Kensington Journal, East Bay Daily News, Berkeley Daily Planet, San Francisco Business Times, East Bay Business Times, Sierra Club Yodler.

Plus, the initiative was signed by more than 25 percent of Albany voters.

But Magna hopes to stop folks from talking about its underlying strategy to expand gambling by, among other things, killing the initiative. To shore up the steadily declining racetrack industry, Magna seeks new gamblers. Magna wants to add casino gambling and shopping malls at all its racetracks, including Golden Gate Fields. Magna seeks a new generation of gamblers.

The real conversation we need in Albany is what is a suitable use for Albany's shoreline and whether we, as a community, want to encourage our children to become gamblers by exposing them to a track/casino/shopping mall complex on the waterfront.

This is the conversation Magna, and its L.A. mall developer, want to stop.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Cheasty is chair emeritus, Citizens for the Albany Shoreline, which is a sponsor of the Albany Waterfront Specific Plan Initiative.