Casino money helps create 'game changers' in communities

For close to 40 years, there had been a lot of failed efforts to build a community activity center in Wellman until a new key player in Washington County stepped up with a $2 million grant.

The Washington County Riverboat Foundation, a not-for-profit organization formed to sponsor and hold the gaming license for the Riverside Casino and Golf Resort, was the catalyst to secure the remaining $4 million needed to construct and equip the Parkside Activities Center, which opened in January 2010.

The Wellman project is a prime example of the economic impact on residents of communities surrounding Iowa's casinos. More than $17 million has been distributed by the Washington County Riverboat Foundation for about 400 projects since the Riverside Casino and Golf Resort opened in September 2006.

"I was a kid when I was aware of the first attempt to do it and that was probably 35 years ago," said Tom Buckwalter, owner of Buckwalter Motors in Washington and president of the Wellman Foundation. "It was a project that took a change in public sentiment over a period many years.

"The Washington County Riverboat Foundation was the huge impetus to get things going. They came to the table with $2 million of the $6 million that we needed and it was a huge leveraging point to get $800,000 fromVision Iowa, a USDA Rural Development grant/loan for $800,000, community money from 230 local businesses and individuals, $350,000 in Community Development Block Grant funds and $1 million of city money.

"It took all those entities working together to make it happen."

The Parkside Activities Center in Wellman has been a "game changer," according to Buckwalter and other residents of the community of 1,400.

The 38,400-square-foot, two-story facility includes a gym and fitness center, elevated walking track, exercise equipment, a banquet hall that can seat 320 people, kitchen, early childhood center, a preschool operated by the Mid-Prairie School District and commercial space leased by a physical therapy clinic.

"The early childhood center has attracted a lot of young families," Buckwalter said. "We're hoping to attract 200 new families to the community.

"The activities center gets a lot of use by the local school district as well as people in the community. We have everyone from infants to our senior citizens taking advantage of the facilities it provides the community."

In Dubuque, Central Alternative High School has very few real physical education facilities, such as a gymnasium, so Principal Greg Moore tries to get students outside as much as possible.

"We like to take them bicycling, but we badly needed bikes for that class, as well as a trailer to bring the bikes to the trails," Moore said.

In 2006, the Dubuque Racing Association, a nonprofit corporation that operates Mystique in Dubuque, gave Central Alternative $4,500 for bikes and a trailer. Moore says his next grant request will be centered on science equipment.

"The building budget will not support anything like this," Moore says. "Without grant funding, it couldn't be happening. We're constantly searching for different sources of funding.

"Without the Dubuque Racing Association funding stream, we would be hard-pressed."

In 2007, the Dubuque Racing Association and Mystique gave the high school $25,000 to purchase new computers for its computer lab, as well as math and web production software. Since 1996, the Dubuque Racing Association has given Central Alternative more than $127,000 to meet the educational needs of students.

In Waterloo, Mayor Buck Clark said the Black Hawk County Gaming Association, sponsor of  the gaming license for the Isle of Capri Casino Hotel, has stepped up to make a number of major community projects a reality.

"They have had a major influence on our community in terms of the things we've been able to do with gaming money," Clark said. "The Isle does not fund any operational aspect of any project, but it has contributed millions of dollars toward structures that we would not have were it not for the gaming money it provides the community."

Clark gave two examples of projects that needed additional funding provided the Isle of Capri and the Black Hawk County Gaming Association.

"They gave us $1 million to go toward our new public works building that will put our street department, maintenance garage and sign department all under one roof," Clark said. "We got a $5 million grant from the I-Jobs program under Gov. Culver, but we were a little bit short in terms of what we wanted to do. They stepped up to fill the gap and help us build it out the way we wanted to do it.

"They gave us $500,000 for a drainage project at one of our city golf courses. The money they have provided for a number of city projects has been hugely appreciated.

"These projects would have had to be done eventually and we would most likely have used general fund tax money."

Education has been a major recipient of gaming money from the state's casinos. Chris Armstrong, superintendent of the Highland Community School District, said the Washington County Riverboat Foundation provided a $200,000 grant for an expanded wrestling room and multipurpose room at Highland High School that grew into something much larger.

"Our sports boosters felt we needed a much larger wrestling room, so they contributed $50,000 and asked for a $200,000 matching grant from the Washington County Riverboat Foundation," Armstrong said. "We had some other needs on campus, so we decided to take the $250,000 and turn it into a little bigger project and really meet the needs of the district.

"It ended up being a $3.2 million project. We funded the rest of the project that we didn't have with SILO (school infrastructure local option) tax money."

The expanded project included a new larger library for the high school and administrative offices and a front entrance for the high school as well as computer labs. Every classroom in the district is equipped with a computerized "white board" that translates drawing into computer text for storage.

The 18 counties where there are licensed casinos are not the only ones benefitting from gaming revenues.

Iowa law requires that a portion of gaming tax revenues will be directed to the 84 Iowa counties that do not have a licensed casino through qualified nonprofit organizations. In 2010, more than $10.4 million was distributed by the Iowa Department of Revenue to the counties community foundations and/or affiliate organizations, with each receiving approximately $123,000.

The Washington County Riverboat Foundation also has awarded a grant to an organization outside of Washington County. The St. Luke's Child Protection Center was awarded a $50,000 grant to develop and construct a new facility on North Center Point Road in Hiawatha.

"We wished that we could have given even more to the St. Luke's Child Protection Center," said Ed Raber, a member of the Washington County Riverboat Foundation board of directors.