Encore Boston Harbor’s top government relations official spent most of an hour before the Everett City Council on Tuesday, May 26 answering for a casino that councilors said has cut its shuttles, hires few residents and spends almost nothing with Everett businesses. The council renewed the innholder license it had held up two weeks earlier, 7-3, with Councilors Guerline Alcy Jabouin, Michele Capone and Peter Pietrantonio voting no. The meeting ended with Councilor Wayne Matewsky announcing his retirement after 40 years.
What Encore said
Eileen McAnneny, Encore’s executive director of government relations, said the casino employs 3,343 people, 567 of them Everett residents, about 17 percent, with 76 in supervisory or management jobs. It paid the city $22,911,016 under its payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement last fiscal year and a $5,692,397 community impact fee, which with excise and other taxes comes to almost $35 million, or 9 percent of the mayor’s proposed budget. It contributes $250,000 a year to the Everett Citizens Fund and has given $13 million to nonprofits since opening, not all of them in Everett.
The free shuttles that once circled the city were dropped for low ridership, she said, replaced by a $54,000-a-year contribution to the Lower Mystic Transportation Management Association, which runs a shuttle through Charlestown and Everett. Live entertainment is limited by the impacted live entertainment venue agreement the casino was required to sign. A community relations employee who handled council requests left, she said, and some messages never reached her.
What the council said
Council President Stephanie Smith went through the vendor report Encore had sent. Of roughly $12 million it listed as spending with Everett vendors, she said, $7 million went to the transportation company the casino just dropped and $3.7 million to businesses that lease space inside the casino. “There’s not one Everett business that is in Encore today. They can’t afford the lease,” she said. Pietrantonio said the tenant spending should not count at all, because Encore collects rent from them, and when McAnneny cited the $35 million in payments he answered: “No disrespect, but that’s peanuts.”
Capone pressed on hiring. “Are you saying Everett citizens are not 5-star?” she asked, after McAnneny said the resort gives residents preference but holds applicants to the standards of a five-star property. Councilor Stephanie Martins asked Encore to help small businesses like Santana’s and Elm Street bakeries learn how to bid, and to send a table to the city’s vendor workshop Thursday. Matewsky said there has been “a missing link” between the council and the casino since it opened. McAnneny agreed to be the council’s point of contact and to provide the shuttle route, the gift card vendor list, and the date Wynn sold the building it now leases.
In public comment, Chloe Wade and Norma Umana of Unite Here Local 26 said the Sea Mark restaurant inside Encore closed after its subcontracted workers organized, and asked whether the city got the union jobs it was promised.
$6 million in borrowing approved
The council voted 9-1 to borrow $4 million to modernize the school department’s network and $2 million for the state-required feasibility study on a new high school. Jabouin voted no on both, asking why earlier feasibility studies cannot be reused. Smith said this is the first study aimed at the high school; earlier ones covered an elementary school and the middle grades. Pietrantonio said the committee was told the $2 million is eligible for 60 to 80 percent state reimbursement if a project goes forward.
Data center ordinance goes back to committee
Councilor Katy Rogers asked for a vote on her ordinance restricting data centers in the Docklands district, which the planning board had endorsed. Smith moved instead to send it back to Legislative Affairs, saying the 20,000-square-foot limit per data center is far larger than the server rooms of real Boston companies and sets no cap on how many could be built. “There can be 500, 20,000 square foot data centers,” she said. The referral passed 6-4 over the objections of Rogers, Martins, Vivian Nguyen and Anthony DiPierro, who said something on the books is better than nothing. Ben Masselink of the Davis Companies had asked for the referral; resident Stephanie McCullough noted the company’s own letter proposed 100 megawatts, “which is not small.”
Everett Square
Chief Development Officer Monica Lamboy presented a revised Everett Square park design: School Street squared off at Broadway, the bus stop moved toward the intersection with a lit shelter, fixed seating and four bench swings, a wood platform that doubles as a stage instead of the 2024 water feature, and 33 trees in place of 10. The project is about $4 million, $3 million of it grants, and $1.5 million must be spent by December 31. It adds no parking and may lose two spaces. Councilor Holly Garcia said she still leans no. Capone and Pietrantonio objected to cutting into the Parlin Library lawn and moving its flagpoles and memorials. Nguyen asked for a public restroom.
Also May 26
- Lt. Eric Keller was promoted to captain of the Everett Fire Department, 10-0.
- Joe and Jesse Polson of the Well Coffee House and Metro North Church received a council citation for youth sports and community work.
- Grants of $13,000 (SAFE), $200,000 for Commercial Triangle design, $10,000 for the FIFA watch party and $120,600 for GIS asset management were accepted, along with $1,000 from the Carmen A. Schiavo Association for veterans.
- Reappointments to the elections commission, the library trustees, the DPW and cemetery commission and the Council on Aging passed 10-0. New appointments of Kristin Foote as elections director and Thomas Abruzzese to the zoning board went to committee.
- Before entering executive session on Phil Colameta’s federal civil rights suit over his removal from the housing authority board, DiPierro recused himself: “Had you given the man due process, we would not be getting sued.”
Matewsky’s farewell
On a point of personal privilege just before the executive session, Matewsky said he was retiring effective that night. “It’s been a long run. I got elected at 20,” he said, citing recent health concerns, a serious health scare four years ago, and 20 years as his parents’ caretaker. He turns 68 Thursday. “That was definitely a surprise,” Smith said. Pietrantonio said Matewsky “gave every ounce of his bone and his blood to this city.” Under the charter the seat goes to John Hanlon, the runner-up in last fall’s at-large race.
Previous council meeting (May 12): Everett Council Puts Encore’s License Renewal on Hold Until the Casino Comes In to Answer Questions
