Where is Gaming Commission heading?
By Josh Resnek
With Everett’s place in the ongoing Steve Wynn sexual harassment fiasco in limbo, the mayor’s silence on Wynn’s resignation and how it effects the future of the project for Everett remains deafening.
Last week, the mayor gave a letter to the editor or a statement as he called it, to a local publication thanking the Gaming Commission for continuing its suitability review and for acting quickly.
“My hope is that they can move as efficiently as possible to ensure the resort opens on time as one of the largest employment in the region,” the mayor wrote.
This is a bit short shrift given the high stakes game being played by all the parties to the Wynn Boston Harbor Resort project.
Not only has the mayor not made any statements consistent with the harsh reality of the new situation and what is at stake for Everett, neither have Wynn Boston Harbor officials said anything meaningful that adds insight into the present situation, which is believed to be uncertain at best and tenuous at worst.
In fact, the entire project and its future has been placed in the equivalent of an intensive care ward due to Wynn’s shocking and untimely resignation, which was caused by appalling revelations that Wynn is not a suitable leader of the corporation owning the license.
A Wall Street Journal investigative report revealed Wynn as a serial sexual degenerate who treated many of his female employees as sexual objects and who forced them to have sex with him or to face the consequences.
The Gaming Commission is now apparently considering the suitability of Wynn’s successor, his 12 year understudy, Matthew Maddox.
Maddox was profiled in the Boston Globe last week.
Maddox has many questions to answer about his relationship with Wynn and what, if anything, he knew about his boss’s proclivities, according to insiders familiar with how the Gaming Commission will investigate and ultimately rule.
One such casino expert is Suffolk Downs President Chip Tuttle.
Tuttle said determining what exactly the Commission will do is anyone’s guess.
He said nuance is what to watch.
“It is too early to tell what the Commission will do but they are signaling a way forward,” he told the Leader Herald.
The Commission’s public expression that the Wynn board has been “doing the right thing,” is a sign, he said.
“Wynn has to sell a bunch of his stock and get it down to 5% ownership in order to achieve suitability by the Commission’s standards – that’s the ownership level for suitability qualification under the gaming law,” Tuttle added.
“I’d be surprised if the Commission forced a sale, though it is well within its purview to do so,” he said.