As of June 6, the two municipalities closest to Mountaineer Casino and Racetrack will receive 1 percent of video lottery revenue while the Hancock County Commission share drops to 1 percent. The bill was sponsored by Delegates Espinosa, Willis, Householder, Hardy, Criss, Zatezalo, Storch, Clark, Fluharty. Of those sponsors, Del. Mark Zatezalo of Weirton is the only local delegate who represents a portion of Hancock. Although Del. Pat McGeehan introduced a similar bill early in the session, he was not able to get support to move it to the Floor of the House for consideration and was not a sponsor of the Bill that passed.
The original legislation passed in 1994 and sponsored by the late Del. Sam Love and former Del. Tamara Pettit gave the 2 percent to the County. Mountaineer was the only one of the four racetracks which did not sit inside a municipality. “The original intent was to consider who provided fire and police protection, although it was our hope that the County Commission dedicate that money to water and sewer projects to spur economic development,” said Pettit. Legislation was then sponsored by Sen. Ed Bowman which took the revenue and divided it among all the municipalities in the County, meaning Weirton got the largest share of the funds,. That legislation died in House Finance, but it did spur the County Commission to arrive at an agreement with the Cities for funding of excess video lottery funding. Unfortunately, the lottery funding dropped below the amount necessary for the cities to get funding in the past few years as the economic downturn hit Mountaineer.
New Cumberland and Chester each received checks for $7.614.56 the first week and $8,123.38 the second as the take of the revenue. The checks issued from the Dept. of Tax & Revenue should remain in that range if the lottery revenue remains steady.
New Cumberland City Clerk Tammy Jenkins said Council will meet July 10 but street paving and storm sewers are pressing matters, Chester Council will also meet July 10. and have delapidated housing on their list as well as paving,
