Arguing the Hub will bear the brunt of traffic and public safety woes from a planned Wynn casino in Everett, City Hall has filed a potential game-changing lawsuit, looking to block the state gaming panel's approval of the $1.6 billion gambling resort so Charlestown residents can vote on the deal.
"It always has been our belief that Boston is a host community to the Wynn-planned casino," Mayor Martin J. Walsh said yesterday, noting his administration failed to reach a deal with Wynn that Walsh considered fair compensation for the casino's impact on Boston. "My number one concern is making sure the people of Charlestown have an opportunity to vote on something in their backyard."
City Hall sources said that Wynn, who originally wanted to give the city $650,000, was ready to cut a $1 million check to Boston this week, but the Walsh administration considered that too low, and that Wynn lacked an effective plan to address traffic in Sullivan Square and other Charlestown arteries.
Richard McGowan, a Boston College gaming expert, said the city may be using the suit to get Wynn to "sweeten the pot," but "some irregularities" behind the sale of the Everett site to Wynn could give Boston legal ammo.
Indictments last fall charged three men with trying to conceal a convicted felon's onetime ownership stake in the polluted riverfront parcel that the group finally sold to Wynn Resorts yesterday for $35 million.
"They seemingly overlooked who was selling the land in Everett," McGowan said of the commission. "It could all be aboveboard, but who knows."
Commission spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said in a statement: "The Commission believes that we have reviewed these issues thoroughly, objectively and fairly, and that exhaustive review helped lead to the decision to award the Wynn license with appropriate conditions. The Commission continues to believe that our resolution was appropriate but also fully understand that parties who are disappointed in our decisions may want to test that belief through litigation."
Wynn declined to comment yesterday.
Boston's legal action follows a similar suit filed in October by Revere — whose mayor backed a failed bid by Mohegan Sun to land a casino at Suffolk Downs racetrack. That suit accused the commission of violating the state Gaming Act by granting the Greater Boston license to Wynn, and potentially benefiting criminal interests. The city of Somerville has also sued.
Thomas C. Frongillo, an attorney hired by Boston in its casino battle, called the land sale an "illegal contract" used by the sellers to "perpetrate a fraud."
"Under the gaming statute, all people with a financial interest in the gaming establishment have to be deemed suitable. They are not," he said. "We raised this issue back in May. And the Gaming Commission pretty much tried to sweep it under the rug."
Boston Corporation Counsel Eugene O'Flaherty also argued that Wynn failed to meet the requirement of getting access to its site through Everett within 60 days of being issued its license.
"The only legal way today into the Wynn site is through the city of Boston," O'Flaherty said. "They represented they were going to do is solely through Everett."
Frongillo said talks have "stalled" between Wynn and the MBTA to buy several parcels of T-owned land in order to create an entranceway through Everett, adding: "It's been our position that that's been a hypothetical road all along. It was represented to the Gaming Commission to avoid Boston's status as a host community."
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