It's history vs. gambling in latest battle of Gettysburg
By Robin Acton
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, April 9, 2006
GETTYSBURG -- James Getty stroked his beard Wednesday as he wondered what Abraham Lincoln would say about a gambling casino near one of the Civil War's bloodiest battlefields.
"I'd have to think Lincoln would come down against this."
Getty, 74, of Gettysburg, looks like Lincoln, dresses like Lincoln and recites the Gettysburg Address as though he wrote it himself. Since 1977, the Civil War buff and former teacher has been making schoolchildren and tourists across the country gasp just by walking onstage to portray Honest Abe in a one-man show.
And now, the lanky man with the stovepipe hat and folksy, Midwestern drawl said he's thinking like Lincoln, so he's "terribly depressed" about the possibility of Chance Enterprises developing the Crossroads Gaming Resort & Spa on Route 30 in nearby Straban Township, about three miles from the battlegrounds.
"I just think it's a degrading type of thing. I don't think it has any place here," he said.
Critics charge that gambling will insult the Civil War dead and tarnish Gettysburg, which is visited by 2 million people annually, according to the National Park Service. Supporters see it as a savior for the rural area in Adams County that depends largely on tourism for survival.
In Gettysburg, history is for sale.
It is a place where tour buses jockey for space on narrow streets that lead to rolling fields of stone monuments, where nobody blinks when a man dressed as Gen. Robert E. Lee walks into a restaurant and orders coffee, where hotel clerks and waitresses wear long, cotton dresses ripped straight from "Gone With the Wind."
Here, signs advertise nightly haunted soldier ghost tours and T-shirt slogans read, "If at first you don't secede, try, try again."
Some visitors make a pilgrimage to remember the more than 50,000 soldiers who died here on July 1-3, 1863. Others come to research their heritage and learn about the murderous confrontation that turned the tide in the Civil War.
Many simply want a Civil War vacation experience, complete with $54.95 guided museum and battlefield tours on double-decker buses, souvenir shops that sell 350 varieties of screen-printed T-shirts and the General Pickett's all-you-can-eat $9.95 dinner buffet.
The downtown and areas adjacent to the Gettysburg National Military Park are part of a commercial enclave that beckons to tourists, with a well-maintained landscape marked by antiques stores, art galleries and gift shops that sell everything from authentic Civil War artifacts and history books to plastic refrigerator magnets and toy swords. There are ice cream parlors and fudge shops, clothing stores and restaurants like Hunt's Cafe, where a featured menu item is "Battlefield fries."
Getty noted that some of the businesses already detract from the area's historic significance. A casino, he said, would make matters worse.
"I'm commercial myself," Getty admitted, "but in a way, hopefully, that enhances what went on here. I hope I sell history positively."
New battle raging
The area's rich history is central to the debate over the proposed casino that will include 3,000 slot machines, a 224-room hotel, restaurants and a spa. Absent the Civil War's gunfire and bloodshed, this battle similarly has split families, wrecked friendships and divided communities.
Proponents, including the Pro Casino group, salivate over the potential for financial benefits they believe will stimulate the community's economy: payments promised by the casino developers, tourism dollars, tax revenue and jobs.
Opponents, such as the No Casino Gettysburg group, believe it will strain municipal services, ruin a national treasure, desecrate sacred ground and send many tourists elsewhere.
Both sides collected signatures on petitions, contacted lawmakers, put signs in their windows and printed shirts and lapel buttons with messages to support their positions. They've talked in the newspapers, on television and radio programs, on street corners and in shops and diners and public meetings.
And on Wednesday and Friday, they waited hours at Gettysburg College for a few precious minutes and a microphone to make their case during the first two of 16 public hearings before the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, which will determine whether Chance's proposal for a stand-alone casino license is approved.
Additional hearings statewide include three in Pittsburgh on April 18 and 19 and May 10.
"Ethically, it's wrong to turn to gambling as a way to avoid raising taxes," said Adams County Commissioner Lucy Lott, who said the sixth-class county of 100,000 residents received no guarantee as to how much money it would gain.
Council seeks guarantee
Pennsylvania's gambling law sets aside 4 percent of slots revenue for the host municipality and county, while surrounding areas also will receive an undetermined share. Two days before the first hearing, Gettysburg's council voted to support the casino in exchange for Crossroads' guarantee that if the borough of 7,400 residents does not get at least $1 million annually, Crossroads will make up the difference.
Dr. Walter Powell, the borough's director of planning and development, said he is against the casino because it "sends the wrong signal to the public," but he understands council's decision.
"They've wrestled with the problem of diminished revenue, a shrinking tax base and increased costs of doing business," Powell said. "They felt like they couldn't pass it up because if this casino goes through, they wouldn't get a piece of it, and $1 million is more than a quarter of our budget."
The law may not permit the casino. State Rep. Steve Maitland, a Gettysburg Republican, drafted an amendment to bar free-standing casinos in sixth-class counties that won unanimous support in the House and is part of a bill pending in the Senate.
Adams County Commissioner Thomas J. Weaver told the board the casino would be "well outside the view" of the park, while David LeVan, chief executive officer of Chance Enterprises, said the venue would create hundreds of jobs.
Lost in the controversy are the few voices of the neutral, those business owners, civic leaders and assorted residents who don't want to meddle in such a hot-button political issue.
Diane Kramer, 49, who works at the busy Avenue Restaurant in Gettysburg's downtown, said diplomatically that she's not bothered by the casino because it will be outside the borough.
Officials at Gettysburg College, where students in the Civil War Club gather weekly to talk about history, opted to stay out of the political quagmire. However, faculty, students and parents told the board "gambling would destroy the sanctity of the battlefield" and "ruin the college's image."
"Nationally, the perception will be 'what were they thinking?' to put a casino in Gettysburg," said Richard Jordan, of Gettysburg, the president of the parents' group who has sent three sons to the college.
Professor Leonard Goldberg, speaking for the faculty, told the board a casino will "interfere with the educational mission of the college."
Potential funding source
Preservationists and historians are divided.
Kathi Schue, president of the Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association, said "no significant major battle" occurred on the site.
"But I bet that when troops were there, they weren't playing cards and rolling dice," she said. Schue said she looks at casino patrons as possible resources to fund costly preservation efforts.
Countering those remarks, Barbara Finfrock spoke to the board on behalf of thousands of members in the Friends of the National Parks.
"Establishment of a casino here is inappropriate, insensitive and detrimental to the hallowed ground our members are dedicated to preserve," she said.
But some people don't care about things like that, Getty said.
"If these people come here for a casino, they're probably not the people who are going to come here for the battlefield in the first place," he said.
Getting ready to go to the theater -- this time to perform for a group of Canadian high school students -- he put himself in Lincoln's shoes.
"I would like to think he'd be in favor of history being written and sold here. Let the positive things be where it happened.
"But a casino? No, I don't think he'd approve."
By Robin Acton
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, April 9, 2006
GETTYSBURG -- James Getty stroked his beard Wednesday as he wondered what Abraham Lincoln would say about a gambling casino near one of the Civil War's bloodiest battlefields.
"I'd have to think Lincoln would come down against this."
Getty, 74, of Gettysburg, looks like Lincoln, dresses like Lincoln and recites the Gettysburg Address as though he wrote it himself. Since 1977, the Civil War buff and former teacher has been making schoolchildren and tourists across the country gasp just by walking onstage to portray Honest Abe in a one-man show.
And now, the lanky man with the stovepipe hat and folksy, Midwestern drawl said he's thinking like Lincoln, so he's "terribly depressed" about the possibility of Chance Enterprises developing the Crossroads Gaming Resort & Spa on Route 30 in nearby Straban Township, about three miles from the battlegrounds.
"I just think it's a degrading type of thing. I don't think it has any place here," he said.
Critics charge that gambling will insult the Civil War dead and tarnish Gettysburg, which is visited by 2 million people annually, according to the National Park Service. Supporters see it as a savior for the rural area in Adams County that depends largely on tourism for survival.
In Gettysburg, history is for sale.
It is a place where tour buses jockey for space on narrow streets that lead to rolling fields of stone monuments, where nobody blinks when a man dressed as Gen. Robert E. Lee walks into a restaurant and orders coffee, where hotel clerks and waitresses wear long, cotton dresses ripped straight from "Gone With the Wind."
Here, signs advertise nightly haunted soldier ghost tours and T-shirt slogans read, "If at first you don't secede, try, try again."
Some visitors make a pilgrimage to remember the more than 50,000 soldiers who died here on July 1-3, 1863. Others come to research their heritage and learn about the murderous confrontation that turned the tide in the Civil War.
Many simply want a Civil War vacation experience, complete with $54.95 guided museum and battlefield tours on double-decker buses, souvenir shops that sell 350 varieties of screen-printed T-shirts and the General Pickett's all-you-can-eat $9.95 dinner buffet.
The downtown and areas adjacent to the Gettysburg National Military Park are part of a commercial enclave that beckons to tourists, with a well-maintained landscape marked by antiques stores, art galleries and gift shops that sell everything from authentic Civil War artifacts and history books to plastic refrigerator magnets and toy swords. There are ice cream parlors and fudge shops, clothing stores and restaurants like Hunt's Cafe, where a featured menu item is "Battlefield fries."
Getty noted that some of the businesses already detract from the area's historic significance. A casino, he said, would make matters worse.
"I'm commercial myself," Getty admitted, "but in a way, hopefully, that enhances what went on here. I hope I sell history positively."
New battle raging
The area's rich history is central to the debate over the proposed casino that will include 3,000 slot machines, a 224-room hotel, restaurants and a spa. Absent the Civil War's gunfire and bloodshed, this battle similarly has split families, wrecked friendships and divided communities.
Proponents, including the Pro Casino group, salivate over the potential for financial benefits they believe will stimulate the community's economy: payments promised by the casino developers, tourism dollars, tax revenue and jobs.
Opponents, such as the No Casino Gettysburg group, believe it will strain municipal services, ruin a national treasure, desecrate sacred ground and send many tourists elsewhere.
Both sides collected signatures on petitions, contacted lawmakers, put signs in their windows and printed shirts and lapel buttons with messages to support their positions. They've talked in the newspapers, on television and radio programs, on street corners and in shops and diners and public meetings.
And on Wednesday and Friday, they waited hours at Gettysburg College for a few precious minutes and a microphone to make their case during the first two of 16 public hearings before the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, which will determine whether Chance's proposal for a stand-alone casino license is approved.
Additional hearings statewide include three in Pittsburgh on April 18 and 19 and May 10.
"Ethically, it's wrong to turn to gambling as a way to avoid raising taxes," said Adams County Commissioner Lucy Lott, who said the sixth-class county of 100,000 residents received no guarantee as to how much money it would gain.
Council seeks guarantee
Pennsylvania's gambling law sets aside 4 percent of slots revenue for the host municipality and county, while surrounding areas also will receive an undetermined share. Two days before the first hearing, Gettysburg's council voted to support the casino in exchange for Crossroads' guarantee that if the borough of 7,400 residents does not get at least $1 million annually, Crossroads will make up the difference.
Dr. Walter Powell, the borough's director of planning and development, said he is against the casino because it "sends the wrong signal to the public," but he understands council's decision.
"They've wrestled with the problem of diminished revenue, a shrinking tax base and increased costs of doing business," Powell said. "They felt like they couldn't pass it up because if this casino goes through, they wouldn't get a piece of it, and $1 million is more than a quarter of our budget."
The law may not permit the casino. State Rep. Steve Maitland, a Gettysburg Republican, drafted an amendment to bar free-standing casinos in sixth-class counties that won unanimous support in the House and is part of a bill pending in the Senate.
Adams County Commissioner Thomas J. Weaver told the board the casino would be "well outside the view" of the park, while David LeVan, chief executive officer of Chance Enterprises, said the venue would create hundreds of jobs.
Lost in the controversy are the few voices of the neutral, those business owners, civic leaders and assorted residents who don't want to meddle in such a hot-button political issue.
Diane Kramer, 49, who works at the busy Avenue Restaurant in Gettysburg's downtown, said diplomatically that she's not bothered by the casino because it will be outside the borough.
Officials at Gettysburg College, where students in the Civil War Club gather weekly to talk about history, opted to stay out of the political quagmire. However, faculty, students and parents told the board "gambling would destroy the sanctity of the battlefield" and "ruin the college's image."
"Nationally, the perception will be 'what were they thinking?' to put a casino in Gettysburg," said Richard Jordan, of Gettysburg, the president of the parents' group who has sent three sons to the college.
Professor Leonard Goldberg, speaking for the faculty, told the board a casino will "interfere with the educational mission of the college."
Potential funding source
Preservationists and historians are divided.
Kathi Schue, president of the Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association, said "no significant major battle" occurred on the site.
"But I bet that when troops were there, they weren't playing cards and rolling dice," she said. Schue said she looks at casino patrons as possible resources to fund costly preservation efforts.
Countering those remarks, Barbara Finfrock spoke to the board on behalf of thousands of members in the Friends of the National Parks.
"Establishment of a casino here is inappropriate, insensitive and detrimental to the hallowed ground our members are dedicated to preserve," she said.
But some people don't care about things like that, Getty said.
"If these people come here for a casino, they're probably not the people who are going to come here for the battlefield in the first place," he said.
Getting ready to go to the theater -- this time to perform for a group of Canadian high school students -- he put himself in Lincoln's shoes.
"I would like to think he'd be in favor of history being written and sold here. Let the positive things be where it happened.
"But a casino? No, I don't think he'd approve."
