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Text messages reveal behind-the-scenes details of St. Petersburg casino process • Virginia Mercury

Posted on by angelo

In mid-April, as the Virginia General Assembly was voting on whether to allow the city of Petersburg to open a casino, Senator Lashrecse Aird sent a text message to a top city official saying that she needed a document as soon as possible.

City Manager March Altman texted Aird the morning of April 17 to say he would send a signed letter of intent that the city was choosing Bally’s as its private sector casino partner. A week later — after Petersburg got what it wanted from the Legislature — city officials said Bally’s letter meant nothing, canceled the bidding process they had followed and chose a competing casino developer, Baltimore-based Cordish Companies.

But on the day of the General Assembly vote, according to communications documents obtained by The Virginia Mercury through the Freedom of Information Act, the letter was considered important to whatever the Legislature was preparing to do.

Altman told Aird that he probably wouldn’t be able to deliver the letter until “noon/early afternoon” due to a busy schedule.

“I understand but we kicked off at noon so I really need it at the latest,” Aird replied.

Eight minutes before noon, Altman told Aird the letter was in his email inbox.

“I understand that Jameson has upset you,” Aird replied, referring to his chief of staff Jameson Babb. “I apologize for cutting our time short. »

A text exchange between St. Petersburg City Manager March Altman (dark gray) and State Sen. Lashrecse Aird, D-Petersburg (light gray).

Bally’s letter that day from the city to the state senator sparked allegations of impropriety. St. Petersburg officials said they were being pressured to choose a casino partner in accordance with policy demands from the General Assembly, which appeared to prefer some groups over others. Several state legislators described the letter as an act of deception by a city government that hid its true intentions and repeatedly shrouded its casino ambitions in secrecy.

Despite controversy over how Petersburg obtained permission to host a casino, the city is moving forward with plans to put the issue on the ballot this fall for city residents to give the idea an up or down vote.

The text messages, which appear to be an incomplete record due to the city’s scattershot approach to FOIA compliance, do not definitively prove a story is true. Instead, they arguably give credence to both narratives.

“He agrees with the letter”

A day before his exchange with Aird, Altman sent a text to St. Petersburg spokeswoman Joanne Williams saying he had “issues” with the letter but was “asked to sign it.” .

Altman did not respond to an email asking who exactly asked him to sign the document. However, the text exchanges strongly suggest that the St. Petersburg City Council asked him to sign it as part of a closed-door meeting that took place the same day.

A text exchange between St. Petersburg City Manager March Altman (dark gray) and city spokesperson Joanne Williams (light gray).

Before the April 16 council meeting, Altman texted Williams to ask if Petersburg Mayor Sam Parham had a copy of the letter.

“Yes and he sends messages to Council members and makes phone calls to align votes. He agrees with the letter,” Williams said.

This flies in the face of claims by the St. Petersburg City Council in an official resolution that the letter was “never formally authorized by the City Council” and was only signed in response to a “request » that the city signs it under penalty of losing the vote of the General Assembly.

In an interview this week, Aird said the letter was essentially the city’s idea.

“They wanted to know how they could provide the General Assembly with an indicator of their intentions,” she said. “I remain convinced that ultimately the city came to me and said they wanted me to have something in hand in case questions were raised before the vote.”

Although textual records show that Aird urged Altman to expedite the process of delivering the letter, they do not show that she told him or anyone else to select Bally’s.

Aird said she kept Bally’s letter “on file” in case she needed it on voting day, but she acknowledged that union groups were also made aware of its existence. A PAC linked to a hotel union strongly interested in the St. Petersburg casino project spent more than $800,000 last year he helped Aird get elected to the St. Petersburg Senate. That union, Unite Here, had a labor agreement with Bally’s and several other companies vying for the Petersburg casino project, but not with Cordish.

Unite Here had sent a letter to House Speaker Don Scott, Democrat of Portsmouth, and Senate Finance and Appropriations Chairwoman Louise Lucas, Democrat of Portsmouth, highlighting the fact that the union had reached labor agreements with Bally’s and Rush Street Gaming, the company that operates Rivers Casino in Portsmouth and was bidding on a second Virginia casino in Petersburg.

The union sent the letter to Scott and Lucas on April 14, days before St. Petersburg officials agreed to notify the general assembly that they were choosing one of the companies that had reached an agreement with Unite Here.

“It won’t make any difference”

The text messages indicate that St. Petersburg officials viewed Scott and Lucas as key decision-makers who could determine the fate of the casino.

After Williams sent Altman a local news article on April 11 about potential casino developers preparing to make public presentations at an upcoming public meeting, Altman texted back, “It won’t make any difference.” »

“That’s right,” Williams replied. “I still think Lucas will tell L.A. it has to be Rush.”

The “LA” appears to be an abbreviated reference to Aird.

As the St. Petersburg casino bill moved through the Legislature earlier this year, it ran into a problem in the House of Delegates. A clause was added to the legislation requiring the bill to be reapproved a second time. It was widely seen at the Capitol as a way to give the Legislature more say in the process by blocking the casino and requiring the final go-ahead from the state later this year or next year.

On April 17, the General Assembly voted on a recommendation from Gov. Glenn Youngkin to remove that clause and allow St. Petersburg to ask its voters to approve a casino this fall.

As voting began, Aird sent Altman a photo from the Senate voting committee showing that the St. Petersburg casino bill had passed the chamber 32-8.

“Now, Don’s world,” Altman responded as the two men awaited a vote in the House, which approved the bill 80-19.

No text messages from the mayor

The Mercury requested email and text communications related to the casino project or legislation authorizing it involving Altman, Williams and Parham. The application period was April 11-18.

In response to the FOIA request, city officials provided only text messages from Altman’s phone, some of which showed text exchanges between him and Williams.

When asked why the text messages were not provided to the three officials identified in the FOIA request, city officials said the mayor had said he had not received any casino-related text messages that week. Documents show that a city official texted the mayor to ask if he had text messages responsive to the Mercury’s FOIA request, indicating that he conducts at least some public business via text message.

For the city’s FOIA response to be accurate, the mayor allegedly neither sent nor received casino-related text messages during an 8-day period in which the city held its casino town hall, held a closed-door council meeting on his casino plans and won. authorization from the General Assembly to proceed with the largest economic development project in the city’s history.

When asked by other city officials to provide emails in response to Mercury’s FOIA request, Parham returned numerous documents that fell outside the specified date range. For example, the mayor provided documents related to another FOIA request made by the Petersburg Progress-Index on May 14.

Other city officials noticed that some of the documents sent by the mayor did not match the parameters provided to him.

“Please ensure this is what was requested,” Tangi Hill, executive assistant to the city manager and city council clerk, wrote to city FOIA officer Shaunta’ Beasley. “It appears to be outside of the requested dates.”

Records show the city’s FOIA officer asked the city manager, city spokesperson and mayor to send emails and text messages they deemed relevant to Mercury’s request . City officials did not respond to questions about what steps they took to verify the responses were accurate and complete.

Many of the emails provided by the city were fully redacted under a FOIA attorney-client privilege exemption.

Williams, the city spokeswoman, initially said she did not have any text messages from the casino that were not already provided in the exchanges taken from Altman’s phone. However, in those documents, Williams mentions a separate text she received from Babb, Aird’s chief of staff, that shows she received at least one casino-related text message that was not provided.

After being asked repeatedly to explain the discrepancy, city officials provided additional text exchanges between Williams and Babb on Wednesday evening, nearly a month after the Mercury sent the first FOIA request. These posts weren’t particularly revealing, showing brief remarks between the two when the casino bill was passed.

The text messages also show discussions about who should be identified as the source of Bally’s letter, which came from Aird’s office, as it circulated among city officials.

“Jameson asked me to take ownership of writing the letter,” Williams wrote to Altman on April 16. “I’m fine with that. I’ve done some proof and made some suggestions.

When the Mercury requested a copy of Bally’s letter two days later, on April 18, Williams told the city manager his thoughts on how it could be kept secret even though a top city official had signed it and sent it to a state senator before a key public vote.

“I am not responding to the VA Mercury investigation,” she wrote to Altman. “We don’t have a completely executed document. At most, we would not have to produce any documents, if there was a complete document, for 5 days under FOIA.

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