Fumo: Offered $ to casinos to move

State Sen. Vince Fumo said that he had offered operators of the proposed Foxwoods and SugarHouse casinos $50 million and $20 million, respectively, last year to abandon their waterfront sites.

Fumo spoke of his efforts to relocate the casinos yesterday in a wide-ranging interview in which he addressed his fears and hopes about his forthcoming corruption trial, doubts about the Convention Center expansion, and national threats to civil liberties.

Fumo said that the cash he offered to the casinos - which would have helped to offset relocation costs if they had moved - would have come from state gaming revenues, but the casinos refused the offer.

Spokeswoman Maureen Garrity said that the president of Foxwoods recalled Fumo mentioning $30 million, not $50 million, last year, but never pursued the idea.

Spokesman Dan Fee said that the first SugarHouse officials knew of Fumo's alleged offer was when Fumo mentioned it to reporters in a July 3 news conference in Harrisburg.

Both casino representatives said that they were committed to their Delaware River sites. Fumo, who did not run for re-election this year, and likely will not return to the Senate chambers before his term ends in January, said that he remains committed to moving the casinos.

On other subjects:

* Fumo said that escalating costs for the Pennsylvania Convention Center expansion, for which a square city block has been razed, are "getting more and more out of control . . . maybe sometimes you have to face the truth and the reality." He stopped short of saying that the project should be scrapped.

* Fumo said that he'd loved his 30 years in the Senate but that it had imposed a personal cost. "I've been through two divorces," he said. "I wasn't there for little league and that kind of stuff."

* Fumo said that, despite his success as a political fundraiser, he "absolutely" favors campaign contribution limits, and would support public financing of elections. "Republicans won't let it happen because they raise more money than we [Democrats] do," Fumo said. He said Philadelphia will benefit from its campaign finance law in reduced special-interest influence over the government.

* Partisanship has poisoned the work of the Legislature, Fumo said, with Democratic and Republican leaders obsessed with the spoils of control. "Control means too much," Fumo said. "It's an all-or-nothing-game. We ought to be seated alphabetically."

* Fumo said he's increasingly worried about the erosion of civil liberties in the United States, calling the Patriot Act "the most obnoxious piece of legislation ever passed in the country." Fumo said that citizens don't value their individual rights enough. "I could not pass the Bill of Rights on the state Senate floor today," he said.

* Of his September trial on corruption charges, Fumo said, "I'd be stupid if I wasn't scared. We're ready, and we're optimistic . . . I have no plans past September. I will be totally out of cash. I've sold all my investment real estate. I have one property left I'm trying to sell." *