……..Will the Hancock County Commission and the cities of Chester and New Cumberland be battling each other over racetrack video lottery net terminal income in the 2025 session. Will the City of Weirton get into the mix (two things you never want to see: how meat and laws are made….they are both ugly.) to get their share of the 1% the other two cities now receive? Thanks to a bill which Del. Mark Zatezalo (R-2nd) passed in 2023, the county lost half of the 2% revenue it received every month. Chester and New Cumberland received 1 percent which Mayor Will White said amounts to $7,500 per week. In a bizarre move, the City of Weirton, which is the District Zatezalo represents, gets nothing due to a stipulation that the municipality must be located “wholly” in Hancock County. It’s perplexing that a Delegate would sponsor a bill that puts the screws to his own District. It’s even more perplexing that there wasn’t an outcry from the City of Weirton administration and the voters didn’t make their feelings known at the ballot box.
………The whole situation frustrates me, actually it makes me mad! I know it’s been 30 years since the Racetrack Video Lottery Act of 1995 passed. The late Del. Sam Love and I were co-sponsors of that bill and it died and was brought back to life so many times, they called it the “Phoenix” bill. Since legalizing those machines required a Constitutional Amendment, it had to pass the Legislature and then be put to the voters in the counties which had racetracks. That legislation passed in Hancock, Ohio and Kanawha County, but failed in Jefferson County. Charlestown Racetrack had to go back to the voters to get the machines authorized.
……….I was on Finance Committee when they divided up the revenue. You think there’s a reason or a need for getting the allocation. There is, but not what it should be. You need the vote of a Delegate or a Senator or the support of a Union to get the bill passed and that impacted the distribution. . The other three tracks were located in a municipality, Mountaineer wasn’t. That’s why the 2% went to the County Commission. John Sorrenti was a County Commissioner at that time and there was no-one more adept at lobbying for the passage of the bill and I credit him with much of the success.
……..Here’s my gripe. Why does it have to be City vs County In Hancock County? I was there when they did the percentage pie and here’s the breakdown of some of it.
**The first $800,000.00 goes to the Breeders Classic in Charlestown and $500,000.00 goes to the West Virginia Derby;
Throughout the years, percentages would change as projects came up. That was where the money came from to gold leaf the capital dome. $500,000.00 would go to build a garage at the State Capitol. And, then there was the Workers’ Comp. deficit. Right now the purse fund receives 14 percent; the retirement fund for employees receives 1 percent; the Racing Commission receives 1 percent; Tourism (Convention & Visitors Bureau) receives 3 percent; and the licensee (Mountaineer) receives 46.5 percent.
………Those percentages weren’t chiseled in stone. They were negotiated with certain entities. Getting the bill passed meant Union support was critical. The parimutuel workers were unionized and were members of the AFL-CIO. In those days most of the Delegates and Senators depended on Union support and it’s president, Joe Powell was formidable. Jeanne Ann Chetock was the President of the Local and she suggested the convention & visitors bureau. She was the first director of the CVB and her salary was only $15,000.00 At the time, Mountaineer was headed into becoming a destination resort and it made some sense. When the lottery proceeds were at their pinnacle, the CVB s were swimming in cash and morphed into something that was not their mission. I would proposed reducing that percentage down to 2 percent;
………But what would be more equitable since it just involves Hancock County is reducing the licensee’s (Mountaineer) take to 45.5 percent instead of 46.5 percent and returning the County Commission to 2 percent. Mountaineer is a mere shadow of what is was when it was booming. The fitness center is gone. There is no food service trackside and no focus on enticing fans to attend the races; THE HARV is no longer the site of concerts and rumor is it will be the next to be torn down. The food service has limited hours and entire sections have been shut down in the casino. What I’m mostly sad about is the owners are not involved in the community nor do they engage with local mayors or commissioners. We only have Racetrack Video Lottery because the voters of the County approved the Constitutional Amendment and I think it’s time the local government gets their fair share.
……..Both the County and the towns need the money. Mayor White tells me the town used the revenue to buy the building where its new City building is now located. A second police cruiser was purchased (used) and water and sewage projects were addressed.
“It (the 1 percent revenue) has made a tremendous impact,” said White. I am confident Chester put good use to their funding as well.
…….. As the County looks for ways to meet their financial obligations, it’s imperative that their money be restored to its original allocation. I propose both the cities and the county have a meeting with their Delegate, Pat McGeehan, and Senators to sponsor a bill restoring the County to it’s previous level and reducing Mountaineer’s allocation by 1 percent.
………It just makes sense to me.
