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Oregon Secretary Of State Says Wood Village Casino Initiative Has Not Enough Valid Signatures To Qualify For Nov. Ballot

Posted on July 30th, 2010

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Two investors from Lake Oswego, Matthew Rossman and Bruce Studer who have been pushing for years for a proposal to put up a private casino in Oregon have sponsored two initiatives that would gather signatures of registered voters in Oregon enough to get the two initiatives on the November ballot. But only one of the two initiatives made it, although narrowly, with just 96 more signatures than the required number of 82,769. The initiative earmarks 25 percent of the monthly gambling revenues for funding schools and other public services for cities and counties.

The other initiative, one that amends the state constitution prohibiting a private casino in Oregon, did not garner the necessary number of valid signatures for it to be included in the November ballot. The office of the Oregon secretary of state announced Tuesday that the initiative had the second lowest validity rate acquired by a petition in the last ten years. Of the 172,136 signatures, only 61 percent were established to be from legitimate registered voters in the state. The required number of valid signatures for this initiative is 110,358. Even if the other initiative is passed by voters, it cannot be put in force because without the initiative allowing a casino, the facility cannot be built.

The proposed $250 million casino, whose site is planned to be at the closed Multnomah Greyhound Park in Wood Village, is projected to produce $147 million a year in revenues, help support public services and generate around 2,000 full-time jobs in Multnomah County. It would be Oregon’s first non-tribal casino. Justin Martin, a lobbyist for the Oregon Tribal Gaming Alliance said the proposed casino would pose a threat to Oregon’s nine casinos that are run by Native Americans who are the only ones allowed to operate casinos in Oregon. Martin, who is a member of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde said the state’s nine tribal casinos were willing to spend money to fight the initiatives and were happy upon learning about the findings of the office of the secretary of state.

Matt Rossman said the sponsors of the initiative believe that an error had been made during the verification process by the office of Oregon’s secretary of state. This was discovered by Democracy Resources, a petitioning firm commissioned by the sponsors to help collect signatures, after the firm re-examined the results from the verification process, according to Rossman. He added that the sponsors are planning to file a court case to compel Kate Brown, Oregon’s Secretary of State, to conduct a re-evaluation of the signatures.

According to Rossman, the statistical system used by the secretary of state’s office to scrutinize the validity of a signature is a new method in which not every signature is checked. Rossman said they have to question the process to protect the rights of the people of Oregon. Rossman said more than 300,000 Oregonians who wanted jobs and funds for schools signed the petitions. But past cases have proven that a legal case is useless unless the casino backers can present strong evidence to back up their challenge. Total contributions amounted to more than $2 million, $1.5 of which came from Clairvest Group, a Canadian merchant bank with casino investments in North and South America, said the sponsors of the initiatives

The initiatives started collecting signatures in May, which was rather late, considering that they had only until July 2 to get the needed number of signatures. Employees of the hired firm had to do their work quickly in order to get the maximum number of signatures in two months, and could have made mistakes. On the signature sheets were found repetitions of signatures and even bogus ones, like those who signed “Satan” or “Moe Szyslak, the fictional character from “The Simpsons.”

Secretary Brown’s spokesman, Don Hamilton said their office staffs were very careful and precise when validating the signatures. Rossman said after the initiative’s legal cases are settled, they are going to look for ways to pass the constitutional amendment. Casino opponents have raised concern that casinos will have a negative impact on the state-run lottery, which gives 84 percent of its revenue to the people of Oregon.