Cedar Rapids mayor asks lawmakers to reject casino moratorium

The mayor of Cedar Rapids is making a last minute appeal to lawmakers considering a moratorium on new casinos.

The Iowa House appears poised to vote on a moratorium today that would doom the proposed $275 million Cedar Crossing project in Cedar Rapids. A similar bill cleared initial review in the Senate early this morning. Cedar Rapids Mayor Tiffany O’Donnell said the legislature should let the Racing and Gaming Commission decide whether the Cedar Rapids casino is built.

“They’ve done the yeoman’s work, poured over a 1000 pages of documents. They’re basing their decision on facts, not fear which is what we continue to hear regarding cannibalization from other casinos, which frankly has been predicted in the past and not materialized,” O’Donnell said. “We will just keep beating the drum here at the legislature that we simply want a fair shot.”

O’Donnell was one of the speakers at a Senate subcommittee hearing early today, then she spoke to reporters. O’Donnell was asked if a moratorium on new casinos would be the end of the Cedar Crossing project.

“No, that’s not it,” O’Donnell said. “I don’t want to talk about hypotheticals right now. We are really focused on this battle right now and making sure there is no moratorium.”

During today’s Senate subcommittee hearing, Michael Triplett, a lobbyist for the Black Hawk County Gaming Association, said Waterloo’s casino would lose customers to a Cedar Rapids casino and the amount of grant money the casino generates for groups in the area would decline.

“You’re negatively impacting us,” Triplett said of a Cedar Rapids casino. “That’s why we feel a moratorium is valid and justified in this sense.”

Matt Hinch, a lobbyist representing Elite Gaming — which operates the Riverside Casino. said a Cedar Rapids casino would have a “catastrophic” impact on the business.

“We have 19 commercial casinos and four tribal casinos in the state of Iowa,” Hinch said. “The market is absolutely saturated.”

The casino moratorium that unanimously cleared a three-member Senate subcommittee early this morning is scheduled for a midday vote in the Senate Local Government Committee.