Anti-casino Group Demands Debates With Springfield's Mayor

WAMC Northeast Public Radio | By Paul Tuthill

Published June 6, 2013 at 5:06 AM EDT

An anti-casino group in Springfield Massachusetts is demanding debates with the city’s mayor before next months’ casino referendum.

Citizens Against Casino Gaming joined by representatives of the anti-poverty group Arise For Social Justice, called on Mayor Domenic Sarno to publicly debate the pros and cons of the proposed casino complex. Springfield voters will give the $800 million development proposed by MGM Resorts an up or down decision on July 16^th. Sarno rejected an earlier debate appeal saying the anti-casino group should “take it up with MGM” Sarno has been featured in MGM ads and spoke at an MGM campaign rally.

The anti-casino organization plans a campaign rally on June 26.

New England News

Paul Tuthill

Paul Tuthill is WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief. He’s been covering news, everything from politics and government corruption to natural disasters and the arts, in western Massachusetts since 2007. Before joining WAMC, Paul was a reporter and anchor at WRKO in Boston. He was news director for more than a decade at WTAG in Worcester. Paul has won more than two dozen Associated Press Broadcast Awards. He won an Edward R. Murrow award for reporting on veterans’ healthcare for WAMC in 2011. Born and raised in western New York, Paul did his first radio reporting while he was a student at the University of Rochester.

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