By Josh Resnek
We’ve got a casino coming but there are some problems along the way that might change the final outcome. The lawsuit claiming sexual harassment by a former employee at Encore Everett by an Encore employee who apparently acted outrageously is, by itself, an outrage.
Not just an outrage to the woman who filed the law suit, but an outrage to all of us trying to understand what exactly is wrong with Wynn Resorts?
We welcomed Wynn Resorts as a savior of the city.
In fact, Wynn Resorts and Steve Wynn were welcomed as geniuses, successes,and as money makers supreme.
If we knew then what we know now, would Everett voters have approved the gaming referendum here?
I doubt it.
The embarrassment Steve Wynn’s degenerate behavior – and the company’s efforts to cover up nearly everything having to do with systemic sexual harassment – made us uncomfortable and put the eyes of the world on us.
The media glare was ugly. It remains something reverberating inside many of our minds.
We are left to wonder, did the city do the right thing welcoming this giant misfit company into our midst?
Last week’s revelation that a lawsuit has been filed against Encore Everett by a former employee claiming all kinds of inappropriate sexual harassment by a co-worker will not sink the boat.
It may not cause even a ripple in the waters in front of the casino now taking full shape and form.
But for the Gaming Commission, this is another complicating mess that highlights what is at stake with the suitability ruling they are about to make.
That suitability issue is believed to be the final outcome of the long awaited Gaming Commission investigation into what went on at Wynn Resorts during the application process.
Did the company lie?
It appears it did.
Did the company omit important documents and knowledge of wrongdoing by its officers?
Yes it did.
Has it been revealed that Wynn Resorts was something way less than everyone believed it to be?
Yes it has.
What will the Gaming Commission do?
At this point, with the report due to come out shortly, it is anyone’s guess what the Commission is going to rule.
In a world where everything is equal, the Commission would revoke the Wynn Resorts license and say this: “The company is unsuitable according to our rules and regulations and according to its misdeeds which are all public knowledge at this point.”
No it won’t.
Unless…the preponderance of information it is weighing makes suitability for Wynn Resorts a joke it can’t ignore.
The Gaming Commissioners don’t want to be considered jokers.
They can’t escape the heat caused by the glare of the lights.
On the other hand, these Commissioners hold the key that unlocks the door to the smooth completion and opening of this gambling facility.
Too much is at stake to pay attention to rules and regulations.
If the facility does not open on time and with positive energy, it will not be the success it needs to be to keep the lights on in the City of Everett and to feed the state treasury the hundreds of millions in tax revenues the state is relying upon.
These are likely trying times for the Gaming Commission.
The City of Everett shares these trying times.
If the law really means anything to the Gaming Commission, then Wynn Resorts doesn’t get to hold the license.
If the law of the jungle prevails with the Commission, well then, everything will by OK, because only the strongest get to survive in the jungle.
We await the ruling of the Gaming Commission on Wynn Resorts suitability with interest, and with an eye toward figuring out what the Commission is going to do.
The ruling can be an atomic bomb.
The bomb might fail to explode.