Rizzo reflects on 2014

REVERE – A tornado ripping down the city’s main street, a family feud that left an 80,000-square-foot supermarket ready, but empty, and the failed attempt for a casino at Suffolk Downs – things didn’t go quite as planned this year for Revere Mayor Daniel Rizzo.Yet, he remains positive.”Those are all things that, looking back, I’m clearly going to say, if I could have changed it all, I would have absolutely done that,” Rizzo said earlier this week. “But you know, as I sit here today and I think about those three things ? as I try to find the silver lining in all of those, in particular those three issues, a lot of good things happened last year as a whole.”Revere was in the state, regional and even national news this year, and Rizzo was the city’s most visible champion.The biggest story was the saga of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission selecting a site for the Boston-area casino license. The field was narrowed to two by 2013: A proposal by Mohegan Sun to build a casino on land owned by Suffolk Downs in East Boston and Revere; and a $1.6 billion proposal by Wynn Resorts to build a casino in Everett on the site of a polluted former chemical plant along the Mystic River.Revere appeared knocked out of the running at the end of last year. Revere voters in November 2013 approved the casino, but East Boston voters did not, seemingly dooming the proposal. Mohegan Sun returned with a $1.3 billion proposal to build a casino solely on Suffolk Downs land in Revere, which local voters overwhelmingly approved in a Feb. 25 vote.Rizzo and other city officials touted the Suffolk Downs plan as a way to not only create jobs and inject money into the local community, but also as a way to save Suffolk Downs racetrack from closing.A host agreement signed in December 2013 between the city and Suffolk Downs would have guaranteed the casino employ local residents in at least 20 percent of the estimated 4,000 jobs; that casino operators pay the city $25 to $30 million a year during the first four years of the casino’s opening; and that future annual payments could exceed $40 million.The agreement also guaranteed that the Revere casino operators would annually dedicate $1 million to local schools. The casino would also dedicate $4 million to local police and fire departments, and pay for a new athletic field and community center.But the agreement was contingent on Mohegan Sun being selected for the license. The Massachusetts Gaming Commission voted 3-1 to award the license to Wynn Resorts in mid-September, citing Wynn’s resort’s better finances and more lucrative job offers.Rizzo said that – months after the decision – the Everett casino building still has to be redesigned and there is no traffic study completed, while the Revere proposal would have broken ground by now.”It is the most bizarre conclusion of any board that I can recall, with respect to any decision,” Rizzo said. “I spent three years going through this dog-and-pony show with the Gaming Commission only to come to the conclusion that it was a foregone conclusion; that all of our pleadings and all of our discussions about how we wanted to make this flagship casino special and make it make the Commonwealth and Gaming Commission proud, fell on deaf ears.”But Rizzo said he has decided to look on the bright side.Rizzo said the city has filed and is actively pursuing a lawsuit against the commission, asking Suffolk Superior Court to vacate the commission’s selection of Wynn and order the commission to award the license “in accordance with the Gaming Act.”And whatever happens, he retains high hopes for the future of Suffolk Downs, as well as Wonderland Greyhound Park, which closed in 2010, calling them, “arguably, two of the most valuable pieces of property in the metropolitan Boston area.””I really believe in my heart of hearts, that something really special is going to happen there,” Rizzo said. “If not anything else, these properties, and in particular, Suffolk Downs, has had a spotlight put o