The art literally came off the walls yesterday at the Independence Seaport Museum to make a point about why the Foxwoods casino project in South Philadelphia should be sent to the General Assembly for review.
State Reps. Bill Keller and Michael O'Brien, Democrats from Philadelphia, were using museum prints from 1838 and 1850, as well as a city map from 1830, to show how the Foxwoods site was actually under water in the 19th century - and, therefore, under the state's control today.
The lawmakers argued at a special hearing held in Philadelphia that the Commonwealth has "riparian rights" to more than 20 acres of land proposed for Foxwoods. To transfer those rights, they said, would require the approval of the General Assembly.
"This is what we're going to be arguing about for years to come," Keller said.
"The land still needs an act of legislation in order for you to build," Keller told Jeffrey Rotwitt, a lawyer representing Foxwoods.
Keller and O'Brien, members of the House gaming oversight committee, want that to happen. They said sentiment toward gambling had soured in the General Assembly.
State Rep. Paul Clymer, a Republican from Upper Bucks, who opposes gambling, agreed. "There is a dark cloud today over the entire gaming industry in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania," he said.
Rotwitt rejected the lawmakers' argument about riparian rights. He testified that the federal government - through action taken by the U.S. secretary of war in 1940 - defined the state's riparian land on the Delaware as extending from bulkheads on the riverfront to the farthest pierhead.
The bulkhead-to-pierhead standard, he added, has been applied to other transfers of riparian rights to developers along the waterfront.
"Almost every conveyance along the river has only been for land from the bulkhead to pierhead," he said later.
Keller and O'Brien want to stop the Foxwoods project because they say it will exacerbate traffic problems and lower the quality of life in adjoining neighborhoods.
City Solicitor Romulo L. Diaz Jr. testified that the state's approval process for riparian rights is not warranted for all three phases of the Foxwoods project.
Diaz noted that the Foxwoods investors have received approval from the city planning commission to proceed with the first phase: a building for 3,000 slot machines, parking for 4,556 vehicles, retail space, and restaurants.
