Mayor defends accusations in Petersburg casino-choice resolution: 'We told the truth'

PETERSBURG – Mayor Sam Parham vowed Wednesday that the city was moving forward with getting its casino referendum on the November ballot despite political “sideshows” from one of Petersburg's state legislators and a casino union who he says have tried to derail that progress.

Parham’s comments came during an impromptu news conference after City Council amended and re-enacted, Wednesday night, a resolution picking The Cordish Companies and Bruce Smith Enterprise to build a multi-use casino-centric resort on 92 acres off Wagner Road. That resolution was originally adopted last week, but Wednesday's meeting was called to correct a clerical error.

The resolution is at the center of a political squabble between City Council and Sen. Lashrecse Aird, the chief sponsor of legislation setting up the November referendum in Petersburg, over that choice of vendor. In Wednesday’s 20-minute meeting with reporters, Parham defended the resolution that said Aird cashed in on a political debt to a major casino-workers union that donated $800,000 to Aird’s successful state Senate campaign last year by trying to steer Petersburg toward Bally’s Corporation, which the union considers to be a more labor friendly vendor.

That same union, Unite Here Local 25, announced it will sue the city over last week’s decision on the basis the discussion and vote violated Virginia’s laws mandating government transparency in public-business transactions.

Aird has denied the accusation in the resolution.

Parham, who on Tuesday called out the union over the suit threat, said council remains united behind the resolution.

“We have a council of seven that is unified on the fact that we told the truth,” Parham said. “And everything that we provided in [the resolution] is definitely the truth, and we stand by that.”

In some not-so-subtle digs at Aird, Parham said the city was not choosing a vendor “to appease any groups or take any type of favors or take any slanted deals out of Richmond.

“We do this for the city of Petersburg,” the mayor said. “And right now, council is unified on moving this proposal forward. We’re not interested in any of the sideshows that are going on. It’s about giving the citizens an opportunity, and we’ve been asking that for three years.”

Asked if he thought more legislators than Aird were pushing for Bally’s or any vendor other than Cordish, Parham played coy.

“You know what? If I was in Richmond, I’d be able to tell you,” he said. “But I just know it was pressure.”

The letter cited in the resolution was dated April 17 – the same day that the General Assembly met in reconvened session to go over Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s vetoes and amendments to legislation adopted this year. The letter, signed by City Manager March Altman, said Petersburg was picking Bally’s contingent on the action taken by the Assembly agreeing to the governor’s amendment to the Aird bill.

Council’s resolution points out that the letter was not submitted to Bally’s, a fact confirmed by Bally’s officials who said they never saw it. Instead, the resolution said, the letter was returned to the “sender” who was believed to have written it on the city’s behalf.

Petersburg is set to become one of five cities picked by Virginia to nurture the state’s foray into the casino industry. Bristol, Danville, Norfolk and Portsmouth are the other four. Petersburg replaces Richmond as the fifth location after that city’s voters twice rejected referendums.

Unlike the previous attempts when local leaders were more vocal, this year’s successful move was steered almost completely by Aird with Petersburg content to sit on the sidelines. Even then, legislators seemed like they did not completely trust Petersburg to handle the casino in a completely transparent manner, and Parham was asked Wednesday night if he sensed any distrust.

He chalked it up to Petersburg trying to flex some political muscle in Richmond.

“You see it all the time. There’s a lot of power in northern Virginia, and there’s a lot of power in Tidewater,” Parham said. “By us being a smaller locality, we’ve never had a type of political horsepower to move things through. Even when you look at things like our roads here, the [Virginia Department of Transportation] studies to redo Washington Street or Rives Road or Crater Road, we all get in the study. But occasionally, there’s always a project in northern Virginia or the next Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel that comes, and they say, ‘Oh, we need to suck the Petersburg money out to get those things done. I think it’s just finally our time.”

The next step on the road to the referendum is getting all the paperwork ready to get the Virginia Lottery Board’s stamp of approval on Cordish as a casino builder, then a Circuit Court judge to agree to the November referendum. All that must be completed by August.

Wednesday’s unanimous fine-tuning by council on the resolution fixed the date for Aird’s town hall meeting from March 22 to April 14.

Bill Atkinson (he/him/his) is an award-winning journalist who covers breaking news, government and politics. Reach him at batkinson@progress-index.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @BAtkinson_PI.

This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Petersbrg mayor defends claims in casino-choice resolution