A crapshoot in our city's center

Helen Gym

is a board member of Asian Americans United

There's something ironic about the use of the term

casino culture

to describe the recent Wall Street meltdowns. Everyone is lambasting our desire to gamble on high-risk deals with little public oversight.

Ironic because, virtually overnight, we're looking at a casino on Market East - the very heart of our city - and "casino culture" might be a fair characterization of how public officials are handling the decision to move Foxwoods from its planned waterfront location.

Legislation has been introduced to rezone Market East to a casino district even though there's no state gaming license for the site, no proposal, no impact studies, no cost assessments, and no design concepts. The waterfront communities had 16 months to review plans before the Planning Commission would even hear Foxwoods' proposal. For Market East, the Planning Commission will hold its first hearing Tuesday and the public has nothing to review.

Clearly Market East is a good site for both Gallery investors and the financially troubled Foxwoods, which laid off 700 employees earlier this month, including its CEO. But their self-interest isn't our public interest. Regardless of whether people agree casinos ought to be in Philadelphia, we make a mistake in rushing to rezone the Gallery, sidestepping a cost-benefit analysis and failing to build the case that a slots parlor is good for Center City.

We do know that an urban casino of this size is unprecedented in the nation. A 2007 report by the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority warned that not assuming any costs from the casinos created a "financial risk for the city," referring to experts who said potential costs could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

The city has an opportunity to get this issue right. On a risk this great, why wouldn't we take the time to get the facts?

Why wouldn't the city assess potential criminal-justice costs, or the negative economic impact on nearby small businesses, or the ripple effect of blown wages, bankruptcies and foreclosures? The rate of gambling addiction rises in relation to the proximity of a casino - and Chinatown is 50 feet away. What has the city done to assess the potential costs of child abuse, child neglect and domestic violence often associated with gambling addiction?

No matter how much marble and crystal architects install, a slots house is a slots house. Officials have yet to show what investors are lined up to spur Market East development. Until then, it is merely speculation and a gamble. In a shrinking economy, with regional casinos reporting their lowest profits in decades, how do we know that we won't be left with a cheap slots parlor on Philadelphia's central corridor?

The city does itself and its citizens a disservice in failing to disclose the full costs of the Market East location before it moves forward. At the least, we lose bargaining power with both the state and Foxwoods to offset potential problems. At most, in rezoning the Gallery, we potentially give Foxwoods leverage to appeal for a site license change.

Councilman Frank DiCicco's decision to prematurely introduce zoning legislation risks an important bargaining chip for possible controls on design, impact studies, and - most important - the speed of the process. Instead, he enables the casino juggernaut to forge ahead with Foxwoods in the driver's seat.

Considering the difficult economic times, the feigned powerlessness around the re-siting process sets a dangerous precedent. It's a serious dereliction of duty by city leaders, many of whom have publicly stated that casinos are no model of economic development. Citizens are left in a perilous place when government abdicates its role as guardian of the public good.

Mayor Nutter, seize control of this issue. Slow up the process now. The casinos are the governor's raw deal, but the decision about the Market East location falls squarely on the city's shoulders. We can't afford to gamble with our future.