CHARLESTON -
If it seems like a bill introduced Feb. 20 in the West Virginia Senate is custom-made to bring a casino to Pendleton County, it's not just chance.
Senate Bill 664, sponsored by Sens. Walt Helmick, D-Pocahontas, Clark Barnes, R-Randolph, and Greg Tucker, D-Nicholas, is summarized as permitting a limited gaming facility at a rural resort community.
No specific rural resort community is named in the measure, but all signs point to Fisher Mountain Golf Club and Resort. Barnes told The Associated Press the resort wants to develop a casino.
The bill seems to take the shell of last year's Greenbrier Resort gaming bill, which only allows one gaming facility in a "well-established historic resort hotel," and adds "or rural resort community," as well as taking out the singular limitations.
The rural resort community, as the bill outlines for now, specifies a planned community with at least 1,000 planned home sites on no less than 1,000 contiguous acres.
That community must include a hotel or lodge with at least 150 rooms, which was the same requirement for casinos that added table games in 2007. This measure also calls for a planned development of at least 1,000 acres to include very specific amenities, such as green space, trails, tennis facilities and meeting space.
The rural resort community must be located in a county where there is an adequate economic base within the county from anything other than tourism, there is access to state and national forest land within the county and there is a population of less than 15 people per square mile and an overall county population of fewer than 10,000.
"Several people came to me, and they were particularly interested in Pendleton County," Barnes said. "The state invested several million dollars a few years ago into the investment or the building of a golf course over in Pendleton County, and the developers at that time did not complete the entire project, but they did complete a fantastic golf course with a great clubhouse on a beautiful site."
Barnes said the state did recoup its money, but the property, owned by LGI Land Development, is having a hard time making anything work.
The bill takes out the requirement The Greenbrier had to meet of voter approval, but it leaves in a requirement that 36 percent of gross terminal income from video lottery games go to the "Rural Resort Community Fund," which is a slight swap from the "Historic Resort Hotel Fund."
Barnes said he has opposed gambling expansions, but the specifics of this project have set the bar pretty high.
"We want something that is done very professionally, something where people can be proud of what's located in their community," Barnes said. "We have written the bill very narrowly, … but we didn't want to exclude any other counties that fill this bill."
Barnes said the jobs the project would generate, from construction to permanent positions at the resort, would more than offset most gambling opposition.
"Sometimes you have to put something together to make everything work together, and this is our opportunity," Barnes said. "We desperately need jobs in Pendleton County; the vast majority of people that are working in Pendleton County are working out of state, and we have one of the highest unemployment rates in the state.
"Here's an opportunity for us to take a pristine, prime property and turn it into something that can create jobs for the people of Pendleton County."
The bill will first be debated in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and if it makes it out of that committee, it will need to go to the Senate Finance Committee. All bills must make it out of committees in the house the bills originate in before Feb. 26 to make it through the 2012 regular session, which ends March 11.
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