Petersburg senator denies claim she interfered in city’s casino process

State Sen. Lashrecse Aird (D-Petersburg), shown here at an election night party in 2023, disputes pressuring Petersburg city officials. Photo by Parker Michels-Boyce

Sen. Lashrecse Aird, D-Petersburg, says it’s “revisionist history” for city officials to accuse her of inappropriately meddling in the city-run process of picking a casino developer, but she hasn’t offered her own explanation for a casino letter Petersburg council members say the city manager was coerced into signing.

Petersburg had been seeking General Assembly permission to pursue a casino project that would only move forward if city voters approve it in a ballot referendum. As the state legislature was about to take an April 17 vote on whether Petersburg should get that permission immediately, city officials claim they received a “demand” from Aird to sign a letter saying Petersburg intended to award the project to Bally’s Corporation, a national gambling company based in Rhode Island. 

The city didn’t appear to truly intend to select Bally’s, because the Petersburg City City Council voted unanimously a week later to select The Cordish Companies, the same Baltimore-based developer it had already chosen in 2022 as its preferred casino partner. 

In a statement released Friday night, Aird disputed the characterization that she pressured Petersburg into issuing the Bally’s letter by telling city officials the General Assembly would vote the project down if they didn’t comply.

“To have what was an honest collaboration characterized as ‘demands’ and that actions taken by the council were made under ‘duress’ is a blatant and transparent revisionist history aimed at distracting from council’s original intent – as demonstrated in previous years – to christen an operator that met their personal priorities while deprioritizing positive outcomes for the city,” Aird’s statement said.

Two dueling narratives are emerging about the Petersburg casino controversy, but many questions remain unanswered.

In the city’s telling, Petersburg did what it had to do to comply with improper political demands from the General Assembly in order to lock in its status as a casino-eligible city. After that goal was achieved when the legislature approved a Petersburg casino bill earlier this month, the city is suggesting it took action to defend its local authority to choose what type of casino project works best for Petersburg. 

Aird and other General Assembly members feel they were tricked into believing a city with a reputation for dysfunction was conducting a fair competitive bidding process, only to see Petersburg abruptly change course once it got what it needed from the legislature and revert back to its original plan to partner with Cordish.

The Petersburg council has indicated the Bally’s letter was not legally binding because the council never voted at an open meeting to authorize the city manager to sign it. The council has not outlined what discussions it may have had on the letter in closed meetings about the casino.

Petersburg will officially become eligible to host a casino when the bill takes effect July 1. The city will then let Petersburg residents take an up or down vote on the project in a November ballot referendum. 

The controversy over how the casino developer was selected could cast a cloud over that process, raising questions about possible legal challenges from companies that lost out on the project. There also could potentially be a change of heart at the General Assembly, which could still try to scuttle the Petersburg casino when lawmakers return to Richmond next month for a special session on the unfinished state budget.

No comments, no records

In a statement Monday, House of Delegates Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, said Aird “took the lead on this project.”

“After relying on all the representations made during committee hearings, my colleagues on both sides of the aisle supported her,” Scott said. “She trusted that the Petersburg City Council was operating in good faith, but unfortunately, she now alleges that they misled her. As this project moves forward, I trust my colleagues in the General Assembly to do their due diligence to ensure the best outcome for Petersburg and the Commonwealth of Virginia.”

In a response to an April 24 Freedom of Information Act request seeking records in Scott’s office related to the Petersburg casino project, the speaker’s office said it had no records of written communications with Aird from April 1 through April 18.

For much of that period, the General Assembly was weighing a recommendation from Gov. Glenn Youngkin to remove language from the Petersburg casino bill that would’ve required the state to reapprove the project later in order for the city to win full permission to proceed. That language was added to the bill in the House, without an explanation for why the legislature was looking to slow down the process or preserve the ability to block the Petersburg casino. 

Youngkin’s office hasn’t responded to requests for comment on the latest developments in Petersburg.

Though Aird sponsored the Petersburg casino bill, Scott and Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, are widely seen as key legislators involved in the issue at the state level. Lucas didn’t respond to a request for comment Monday.

Aird’s statement didn’t fully address the origins and purpose of the Bally’s letter, which Petersburg officials appeared to give to Aird after City Manager John “March” Altman Jr. signed it. Though Petersburg hasn’t directly identified Aird as being behind the letter, the city council said the letter was returned to its “original sender.”

In response to an April 18 FOIA request, Aird’s office said it had a document matching the description of the Bally’s letter, but said the senator wouldn’t release it due to an exemption in the state’s transparency laws allowing General Assembly members to shield their “working papers and correspondence.”

The Mercury obtained a copy of the letter from another source, and city officials released a version of the letter after the Mercury inquired about it. 

Aird hasn’t granted the Mercury’s requests for an interview, and her office didn’t respond to emailed questions Monday about her interactions with city officials and how the Bally’s letter was used once she received it.

Unite Here’s role

When the Petersburg City Council voted last Wednesday to pick Cordish, the body passed a lengthy resolution going public with the potentially explosive allegations against Aird and the General Assembly, accusing state politicians of essentially holding Petersburg’s casino effort hostage in order to assert control over a process that was supposed to be run locally. In the city council’s explanation, Altman only signed the letter to keep Petersburg’s casino hopes alive in the state legislature. Though the letter was addressed to Bally’s, Petersburg never sent it to the company

Bally’s had a labor deal in place with Unite Here, a hospitality workers’ union whose PAC spent more than $800,000 in 2023 to help Aird defeat former Sen. Joe Morrissey in a Democratic primary and go on to represent Petersburg in the Virginia Senate. The union was Aird’s largest campaign contributor by far, more than doubling the $317,000 she received from the Clean Virginia Fund, the deep-pocketed advocacy group that’s become a major source of money for Democratic candidates.

Even though Petersburg had previously indicated it wanted to partner with Cordish on its casino project, Unite Here has criticized Cordish as being not particularly friendly to unions.

In response to a FOIA request, Scott’s office gave the Mercury a copy of an April 14 letter Unite Here Local 25 had sent to Petersburg officials, Aird, Lucas and the speaker that said it had labor peace agreements with Bally’s and Rush Street Gaming, a casino company that operates the Rivers Casino Portsmouth in the hometown of both Scott and Lucas. The union also said it was “close” to inking an agreement with the Warrenton Group, another developer vying for the Petersburg casino.

“These agreements provide workers with a fair process to decide on unionization should the casino ultimately open, and protect employers, customers and the city from the disruptions that can arise during labor disputes,” wrote Samuel Epps, political director of Unite Here Local 25.

The union’s letter, which didn’t recommend a particular casino operator, said nothing about Cordish.

Aird’s statement criticized the Petersburg City Council’s decision to select Cordish, saying the events that have unfolded in Petersburg “demonstrate the ongoing struggle within the city’s governance in the pursuit of what the citizens of Petersburg truly deserve.”

“Choosing to move forward with a developer without receiving a public commitment to good jobs is deeply concerning,” Aird said. “Any economic development project of this scale proposed in the City of Petersburg, or our Commonwealth, should bring wealth and good jobs to the workers in our community. No labor group or organization has forced my thoughts on this position, this is a core value that I have held my entire life.”

Aird’s suggestion the city she represents made the wrong choice by picking Cordish is at odds with an initial recommendation from a consultant Petersburg used to vet casino development concepts it received under a request for proposals (RFP) the city issued Feb. 12. Davenport, a consulting firm that serves as Petersburg’s financial adviser, told the city it needed to do more analysis to make a final recommendation. But the consultant indicated it saw Cordish as the best option based on its early review of the proposals.

“While privately held, The Cordish Companies, which are based in Baltimore, Maryland are well known in the gaming industry for operating first class casinos and entertainment venues,” Davenport wrote in its initial recommendation. “Davenport, in particular, has direct experience over time with senior leadership at The Cordish Companies and is most impressed with their financial strength, stability and operational follow-through.”

The report raised concerns about the finances of Bally’s due to recent credit rating downgrades involving the company. 

Cordish, which has partnered with Virginia native and NFL Hall of Famer Bruce Smith on its plan for Petersburg, envisions a $1.4 billion mixed-use development centered on gambling and entertainment.

Smith, now a real estate developer after a storied football career that started at Virginia Tech, seemed to be under the impression it was the House speaker who was standing in the way of the Petersburg casino. In an interview with Virginia Business, Smith said “now’s not the time to play politics with the people of Petersburg” and made it clear he was directing those comments to Scott, according to an article that ran on April 12.

Competitive process for future casinos?

Sen. Jeremy McPike, D-Prince William, who chairs the state Senate’s subcommittee on gambling, said it was “extraordinarily disappointing” to see Petersburg officials cancel a competitive process he and other General Assembly members were led to believe was sincere.

“It’s just absolutely crazy that they would turn this whole thing on its head and cancel an RFP process,” McPike said in an interview.

McPike said he felt it was “reasonable” for Aird to ask the city to follow a fair and open process for awarding a valuable casino project, but said he didn’t have enough context or understanding of the Bally’s letter to comment on that element. However, he made it clear he feels Petersburg has botched the process and “failed to follow through on their representations to the Senate committee.”

“The commonwealth deserves answers and the residents of Petersburg deserve answers,” McPike said. “I think this thing has been absolutely fraught with peril in how they’ve approached it and how they’ve executed it.”

Other lawmakers have said the power struggle over the Petersburg casino highlights a major flaw in legislation the General Assembly passed in 2020. That bill opened the door to casinos in select cities but didn’t require a full competitive bidding process governing who would get to build and operate those casinos. That process also allows the General Assembly to decide which cities and counties will and won’t be allowed to have casinos.

Del. Paul Krizek, D-Fairfax, who chairs a House subcommittee dealing with gambling and alcohol, said he intends to draft a bill requiring a competitive process for any future casino projects in Virginia so that the selection is based on “neutral, objective criteria” and doesn’t lead to the types of allegations emerging in Petersburg.

“Any casino process needs to be conducted in as public a manner as possible with competition from the industry so that the public gets the best product,” Krizek said. “That takes care of these problems.”

The Petersburg City Council has scheduled a meeting for Wednesday with casino-related matters on the docket again. The agenda for that meeting indicates the discussion will take place behind closed doors.

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