Hi all,

Following Gaetano's lead, here's my Feb. 21 council testimony. I hope others post too - there was a good deal of powerful testimony yesterday. As with Gaetano's, what follows here is the gist of what I ended up saying.

[BEGIN]: My name is Matt Ruben. I am former President and a current Board member of the Northern Liberties Neighbors Association, or NLNA, which represents one of the two communities in whose boundaries the proposed Sugar House casino would be located. The NLNA is a member of the North Delaware Avenue Unity Coalition and the Delaware River Neighborhood Alliance, which collectively include more than 15 civic groups representing 200,000 Philadelphians.

While I have no moral objections to gambling, I am opposed to the proposed casinos in Philadelphia. But my personal views don’t matter today. I’m here to talk about the community, Northern Liberties, and the NLNA, on whose behalf I’m appearing today, as well as our riverfront and our city.

Northern Liberties is the fastest-growing community in Philadelphia, and perhaps the Commonwealth. From the last Census to the next, its population will have doubled or even tripled. We are not a Not in My Backyard Community. We are pro-development, pro-responsible development. We’re seeing 3,000 new residential units and 500,000 square feet of commercial space planned or under construction just along Delaware Avenue in our neighborhood, plus hundreds of other residences and commercial spaces in the interior of the neighborhood. We’ve crafted development agreements for projects with budgets as high as $800 million, roughly twice the budget of most of the proposed casinos.

The NLNA is also the only river civic association that has both officially opposed casinos and has tried, as part of the North Delaware coalition, to negotiate with them. With that development experience, and from that unique casino perspective, I am here today to tell you that in the current situation, we are not in a place where it is possible to sufficiently protect our interests and our quality of life. Let me repeat that: whether you’re against casinos, or you want them to be here with community agreements in place, the river communities are not in a position to sufficiently protect our interests and quality of life.