Purcell, Rakow, and Sterrett have done this community a great injustice by deciding to not even try for a percentage of slots income.

That's your opinion, Joe, and you are entitled to it. 

First of all, the 20% and 10% of whatever may be coming to the County and automatically passed on to Ocean City and Berlin inserted into the Bill was WRONG.  There is no justification whatsoever for that, and it was done as a politically motivated move to obtain votes in the next State elections. 

Secondly, after studying and talking to all sorts of people, I do not believe OPA would have been added to the bill at this late date.  Possible?  Anything is possible, but highly unlikely.  In my judgement, we would receive lip service from those politicians and nothing more.  They are not going to fight with their fellow delegates on this issue.   So, we would have fought some battles, attempted to present some phoney rationale for local impacts, and then what?  Made you happy that we at least tried?

Thirdly, we do need to work with our elected officials at the County too obtain proper grants from real impacts.  Had we "won" and gotten a % based on "BS" because we put political pressure in Mathias or Conway, would there be justification for the county to cut the funding we receive now for our police when the slots impact money would be provided for that?  We could have lost in the long run.

So, for me, I did not take some "easy way out";  I read the Bills, talked to the senator, both delegates, and our two commissioners and decided for myself what I think is the proper thing to do.  Your proposal to make two wrongs a right is what is "patently absurd." 

Should you and others who only see one side of this issue want to pursue this, be my guest.  All citizens have the right to lobby their elected officials if they believe they have a sound argument.  BTW, after you read the Bill, what justification or "sound argument" are you going to base your request for OPA to be added to the Bill?  Is it because two politicians modified the bill for political motives, we should have our share too?  Lame.  You know that there is no legal, proper way to have us added.  There is a process of submission of a multi-year plan that provides the local impacts on which such grants are to be based.  What you should do is "attack" the improper inclusion of the OC and Berlin percents.  That would be a proper thing to do.

The way to do it is to follow the provisions of the law, get good representation on the 15-member Local development Council (we need to get our fair share of the 11 slots that are open for people in the immediate proximity to the slots facility), and represent OPA's case before our County Commissioners. 

Bill