Rendell's other office
Gov. Rendell moved a meeting about relocating casinos to his old law firm. Should he have done it?
When Gov. Rendell gathered Mayor Nutter and a trio of state legislators Aug. 21 to encourage Foxwoods Casino to seek other sites for its planned $670 million slots parlor, he purposely kept the meeting away from his local office in The Bellevue.
Instead he found a welcome mat out at his former law firm, Ballard Spahr Andrews and Ingersoll.
But why hold such a high-profile, controversial confab at an ultra-connected firm that not only employed the governor himself as a $252,000-a-year partner, but also represented Donald Trump and company in its failed bid for a local casino license?
“There was concern that there would be a large number of people doing business in the Bellevue,” Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo said, “and this was an attempt to minimize the disruption.”
Ballard Spahr was not involved, Ardo said. Adrian King, Rendell’s former deputy chief of staff who now works at Ballard Spahr and represented the Trump project, said he didn’t even know about the meeting until he ran into reporters outside.
Committee of Seventy President Zack Stalberg said Rendell has been using Ballard Spahr as neutral turf for years. Still, “It seemed like an odd place to have it,” Stalberg said. “There’s got to be a lot of other neutral territory around town other than a highly influential, connected law firm. They can always come to my office.”
State Rep. Michael O’Brien, (D., Phila.), who will be part of a second summit with SugarHouse Casino, said grousing about the location of the meeting was “looking for bogeymen under the bed.”
“The important thing is that the meeting occurred,” O’Brien said.