UNION — In a letter sent today to Governor Chris Christie (attached), Senator Raymond Lesniak (D-Union) quoted the Governor’s favorite artist, Bruce Springsteen:
Well now, ev’rything dies, baby, that’s a fact
But maybe ev’rything that dies someday comes back
Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty
And meet me tonight in Atlantic City.
Saying he could “skip the makeup and fixing his hair,” Lesniak asked if Christie would “rather walk the boardwalk past a rusting and decaying 53-story steel eyesore or past a completed building that employs thousands, puts thousands of construction workers on the job and is an international entertainment tourist attraction.”
S920 – legislation passed last month by both houses of the legislature and sponsored by Senator Lesniak – would spur investment throughout the Garden State and fuel the completion of the Revel Casino in Atlantic City. Revel would be a new complex with 1,900 hotel rooms; 150,000 square feet of gaming; 35,500 square feet of entertainment space; 170,000 square feet of convention space; 20 restaurants, and a 44,000 square foot beach. It was projected to open in 2011, funded by a $2.6 billion investment (80% private/20% tax incremental financing) and projected to produce $134 million in yearly state and local revenues, not including income/payroll taxes.
Calling attention to Christie’s promise that every New Jersey business will have its own concierge, Lesniak stated that a project of this magnitude requires that the governor himself be the concierge.
“I met yesterday with a group of ministers concerned about the need for jobs for their parishioners. The unemployment rate in Atlantic City is even higher than the communities where these ministers serve and higher still in the building trades. You can make Bruce’s words come true. Let’s do it,” wrote Lesniak.
He added, “We don’t want to hear Bruce’s other lyrics, ‘These jobs are going boys, and they ain’t comin’ back.’”