Illinois regulator delays Waukegan casino license amid rejected bidder’s allegations versus the course of action | Yogonet International

The Illinois Gaming Board has postponed the voting session to award a Waukegan casino license right after a rejected bidder alleged metropolis officers “rigged” the range method to favor a previous point out lawmaker.

Gambling regulators have been established to give preliminary approval for the venue on Thursday to either Comprehensive Property Resorts or North Position Casino. On the other hand, the system will now be delayed as the Forest County Potawatomi Neighborhood alleges that both of those the previous Waukegan Mayor Sam Cunningham, along with Town Council allies, have rigged the election, reports Chicago Tribune.

The tribe, whose bid for the Waukegan casino was turned down, claimed in a new federal court docket filing that officials improperly favored North Point’s bid, which is led by previous condition senator turned movie gambling government Michael Bond. In accordance to them, allies whose campaigns Bond bankrolled are striving to gain his firm.

At a Prepare dinner County Circuit Court docket hearing on Wednesday above the Potawatomi hard work to block a choice from staying taken, a state law firm introduced the board will be keeping off on a vote till a federal court mediation amongst the town and the tribe, scheduled for afterwards this thirty day period.

Lawyers for Waukegan Potawatomi Casino LLC, owned by the tribe, have for more than two yrs been looking for to reverse a Town Council conclusion taken in October 2019 of not forwarding its casino proposal to point out gaming regulators for consideration, reports Patch.

Courtroom filings expose the tribal country thinks the course of action was manipulated and that Cunningham secretly directed the Metropolis Council to exclude their bid in a discriminatory way. Also, it is claimed the town violated the Illinois Open up Conferences Act and the state’s gambling enlargement law as city officials have allegedly unsuccessful to report some communications with Bond to regulators.

According to sworn testimony from 6th Ward Ald. Keith Turner, cited by the tribe, on October 17, 2019, in a particular City Council meeting, Cunningham advised him: “These are the 3 that we want to deliver to Springfield.” The Potawatomi have also pointed to economical contributions Bond has allegedly supplied to council users who voted in line with Cunningham’s ask for.

“Cunningham’s top secret directive was the end result of a rigged course of action — a process Cunningham manipulated to realize the consequence he desired,” the Potawatomi community alleges in its argument versus the city’s ask for for summary judgment in the ongoing lawsuit, further more reports Chicago Tribune.

Former Mayor Cunningham responded on Wednesday to the claims staying leveraged towards him, calling Turner’s sworn account “a flat-out lie.” He further outlined the bidding system as “open, reasonable and transparent.”

Meanwhile, the town argues in court docket paperwork that “the tribe’s inside communications and historical past of litigation reveal this scorched earth lawsuit is factually suspect.” The submitting also statements the tribe is making use of federal courts “as zoning and licensing boards of appeal,” in an attempt “to invoke the federal court’s jurisdiction as a indicates of appealing” Waukegan’s licensing decisions.

In accordance to the Potawatomi court docket filings, Bond directed a lot more than $50,000 to Cunningham’s mayoral marketing campaign in 2017. This was supposedly followed up two decades later on with $266,000 in contributions to 4 productive aldermanic candidates to the 9-member Waukegan City Council.

The tribe is also professing an associate of Bond, who was in charge of a online video gambling field affiliation established by the previous senator in 2016, “set up a joint marketing campaign office” for the Bond-backed candidates, delivering assistance which include coordinating mail courses and mobile phone financial institutions, between other steps.

Communications allegedly even continued immediately after Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the measure to create the on line casino license for Waukegan, in June 2019. This needed communications with candidates for the license to be disclosed to the Gaming Board inside 30 times.

North Level has also been accused of making an attempt to attain an unfair gain. The metropolis legal professional at the time, Robert Long, failed to disclose to the Gaming Board an electronic mail sent by the agency to the metropolis in Oct 2019.

In the e mail, the enterprise instructed that if Waukegan determined to ahead many casino purposes for thought, the developer could enter a new arrangement to reduce its preliminary supply to match the phrases of the challenge staff “offering a lessen economical contribution to the city.”

The tribe even further statements town officers also picked Neil Bluhm’s Rush Road Gaming/Rivers Casino for consideration as a outcome of Rivers’ teaming up with Waukegan Gaming LLC, the entity that experienced been selected by the metropolis in an unsuccessful 2004 work to deliver a casino to city and had submitted a accommodate looking for the new license.

“Rivers punched its very own ticket in the kind of harmful information it unearthed in the Waukegan Gaming litigation,” claims the tribe. Also, it is becoming alleged the metropolis also favored Full Household “as a reasonably weak competitor” that could ‘quash’ “the notion of bias towards North Issue.”