According to yesterday’s New York Daily News:

“Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg Wednesday broke his silence on New York politics Wednesday —ripping Gov. Cuomo’s decisions to expand casino gambling and reject hydrofracking.” Bloomberg said:

Our strategy in New York State seems to be to open gambling casinos so we can rip the lungs out of the poor to subsidize upstate real-estate developers. That doesn’t help anyone in the area.”

(see New York Daily News, April 8, 2015, by Kenneth Lovett, “Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg slams Andrew Cuomo’s decisions to expand casino gambling, reject hydrofracking“)

When will other New York political, business, academic and community “leaders”, who have been either casino cheerleaders or cowering mute in the shadows, finally come forward to admit that casinos are very likely to harm many of the disadvantaged members of our society? When will they take the next step and start planning how to avoid those problems to the extent possible?

Perhaps Michael Bloomberg can help to finance and organize attempts to find solutions. It seems certain that individuals and groups who care about the social and economic fabric of our communities, and the fate of individuals and families, will have to start demanding that our public servants in Government take action. Better yet, because we have learned that we cannot count on help from politicians (even those whose Party purports to care about social issues), we need to start brainstorming, researching, organizing and fund-raising on our own to help prevent and remedy casino-caused problems.

Those with ideas on how to start the Problem-Solving Process, should leave a comment or contact members of Stop the Schenectady Casino directly. And, even if it seems futile, start telling or local politicos they need to take heed and take up this cause.