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Friday, March 18, 2005

Ind. Gov't. - Gov. Daniels makes appointments to Gaming Commission

The Louisville Courier Journal reports today, via the AP, that:

Four new members of the Indiana Gaming Commission are expected to be in office by the time the commission starts considering a new developer for the planned Orange County casino.

Yesterday Gov. Mitch Daniels appointed three people to the seven-member board, which he had criticized for its selection last year of Donald Trump's troubled gambling company to build and operate a casino in French Lick. * * *

The new appointees are:

Timothy Fesko of Dyer, an insurance agent who served five terms as a Republican state representative from Lake County.

Bryan Robinson of Greenville, who owns real estate and auction companies in Southern Indiana.

Harold Calloway of Evansville, who withdrew in January as Daniels' pick for state insurance commissioner, saying he would take too great a financial loss to give up his State Farm Insurance agency.

Calloway will not need to give up his private business to serve on the Gaming Commission, which is a part-time job, said Jane Jankowski, a spokeswoman for the governor.

As a story today by Jennifer Whitson in the Evansville Courier& Press notes:
The Indiana Gaming Commission will have two members from Evansville after Gov. Mitch Daniels announced the appointment of businessman Harold Calloway on Thursday.

Daniels asked all seven members of the commission to resign by late January. Four complied with the request. Evansville attorney Don Vowels, who had served as the commission's chairman, did not.

Vowels' term runs through August 2007. Calloway will take over the term of Robert Barlow and will serve through August 2005, but could be reappointed to the seat.

Vowels' chairmanship is most likely over because that position is appointed by the governor. Daniels' spokeswoman said he had not yet made a decision on whom to appoint to the last vacant seat or as chairman.

Earlier this year, Daniels chose Calloway to run the Department of Insurance. Calloway at first accepted, but later turned down the position because leaving his insurance company early would have cut his pension benefits.

But Calloway said Thursday that he was looking forward to getting up to speed on the Gaming Commission assignment, which he first heard about early this week.

The Governor of our sister state to the west, Illinois, is also revamping a gaming board, as reported here in the Chicago Tribune. Some quotes:
Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Thursday announced a long-awaited revamp of the Illinois Gaming Board as an Illinois House committee set the stage for a floor debate over whether riverboat gambling is an overall drain on public resources and should be abolished.

The gaming panel is supposed to have five members but has lacked a quorum for more than six months as Blagojevich dragged his feet on replacements for three departed members.

Now he is proposing to start with a clean slate of new members--three beginning next week and two in July. If the state Senate ratifies Blagojevich's choices, the panel will be headed by former state lawmaker and retired Circuit Court judge Aaron Jaffe and will include Sheila Simon, the daughter of the late U.S. Sen. Paul Simon.

Blagojevich also proposed a number of new restrictions on the activities of Gaming Board members, including an extension from the current 1 year to 5 years for the time gambling regulators must wait before they can take casino industry jobs.

The governor's announcement comes one year after the board came under attack from Blagojevich and Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan for its decision to award the license once held by the bankrupt Emerald casino to a company that, like Emerald, planned to open in Rosemont.

Madigan has linked the town and its longtime mayor, Donald Stephens, to organized crime, an accusation that Stephens and village officials deny.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 18, 2005 08:27 AM
Posted to Indiana Government