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REPRINTED FROM THENEXTMAYOR.COMFebruary 20, 2007 press release, (submitted via e-mail) |
CASINO FREE PHILADELPHIA
For Immediate Release
Contact: Daniel Hunter, 267-825-0807
What: City Council Hearings on casinos
Where: Room 400, City Hall
When: Session begins at 10am on Wednesday, February 21st
PHILADELPHIA, PA: On Wednesday, February 21, 2007, City Council's Committee on Rules will hold public hearings. Citizens with very different perspectives will testify on their reasons to oppose both Sugarhouse's and Foxwoods' casinos.
Many of those are citizens who recently helped gain 27,254 signatures (in 20 days) to support Casino-Free Philadelphia's City Charter referendum.
As a special speaker, Casino-Free Philadelphia has brought Jeff Benedict to come and testify. Jeff Benedict is an award-winning investigative journalist, lawyer, historian and best-selling author of 7 books. Based on his book Without Reservation, How a Controversial Indian Tribe Rose to Power and Built the World's Largest Casino (2000 Harper Collins), and his widely published work on the social impacts of gambling, Jeff will talk about the hidden costs of casino gambling to cities and municipalities and his work to thwart Foxwoods attempts to penetrate other markets.
Jeff is past president of Connecticut Alliance Against Casino Expansion, Inc., the first state-wide non-profit corporation to oppose casino expansion, consisting of civic, religious and business leaders from the state of CT. He and CT Attorney General, Richard Blumenthal helped craft a new law that banned new casino development and led the lobbying and grass roots effort to get the bill through the state legislature. CT became the first state to pass such a law. In May 2004, Congress called Benedict to testify before the House Government Reform Committee investigating the influence of money and lobbyists on the U.S. Interior Department's decisions to grant tribal recognition status to groups backed by casino moguls. There he discussed how Americans now spend $600 billion on gambling, versus $400 billion on food and how U.S. Bankruptcies rose from 770,000 to 1.3 million people due to compulsive gambling.
Jeff Benedict holds a J.D., an M.A. in Political Science and a B.A. in History. He is licensed to practice law in CT. He has worked as a private consultant for communities in ME, MA, CA, WA and has given speeches around the country. Without Reservation was the subject of a 60 Minutes segment, prompted a Congressional investigation and is currently being made into a motion picture film. Benedict's latest book THE MORMON WAY OF DOING BUSINESS is based on exclusive interviews with top corporate executives at Dell Inc., JetBlue Airways, Deloitte & Touche USA, American Express, Madison Square Garden Corp., Life Re Corp., and Harvard Business School, all of whom are Mormons. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Sports Illustrated, Village Voice, Hartford Courant, Chronicle of Higher Education and ESPN's on-line magazine. He has appeared as an expert on ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, HBO, ESPN and Court TV. Jeff is 40. He and his wife and four children live in CT. For more information visit Jeff's website: www.jeffbenedict.com
For more information about Casino Free Philadelphia, please visit our website: www.CasinoFreePhila.org.
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