The bill to allow a Las Vegas-style casino in Fairfax County has passed the state legislature and is sitting on the governor’s desk. County supervisors asked Gov. Abigail Spanberger to veto the legislation.
The casino proposal changed in about a dozen ways over the past couple of months, but now it’s effectively back to where it started: with a proposed location in Tysons.
The process is that the governor would approve, the Board of Supervisors would ask the courts for a ballot referendum and voters would decide.
The funds would be split 70% to the state and 30% to Fairfax County.
Supervisor Walter Alcorn, of the Hunter Mill district, opposes the plan.
“This is not a casino we asked for. We don’t want it, and it’s unfortunate the General Assembly has moved forward with this,” he said. “But we’re hopeful the governor will veto it.”
‘Do you think somebody in Augusta wants to be represented in Congress by somebody from Fairfax?’
The bill had little support from lawmakers who represent Northern Virginia.
“We’ve had enormous local opposition for this,” state Sen. Barbara Favola, a Democrat from Arlington, said in the legislature late Friday.
Republican state Sen. Mark Peake, of Lynchburg, snapped back. He said Northern Virginia Democrats pushed redistricting on the rest of the commonwealth and called out the hypocrisy of objecting to the state making big changes that don’t have local support.
“Do you think somebody in Augusta wants to be represented in Congress by somebody from Fairfax? And you have the gall to talk about us passing a bill to put a casino in Fairfax when we’ve got four or five in the rest of the commonwealth,” he said.
The proposed casino deal would be a revenue generator for the state. A 70-30 revenue split is what current casinos in Virginia operate with.
When News4 sat down last week with Fairfax County Board Chairman Jeff McKay, he said it wasn’t enough.
“Anything short of at least a 50-50 mix isn’t even worth looking at,” he said.
McKay and Alcorn both said that if the deal didn’t get much better for the county, they wouldn’t allow it to get to voters. It didn’t get better, but it’s on the governor’s desk.
News4 reached out to Spanberger’s office to see if she plans to sign the casino bill. The governor’s office said she will consider any legislation that makes it to her desk. There’s no timeline on when she may take action on the bill.
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