Archer says Detroit will bypass casino zoning referendum

On Monday, the City Clerk's Office approved petitions for a referendum on a zoning change for one of the casinos. Under the city charter, that puts the zoning change on hold until voters can consider it.

MGM Grand needs the zoning change to move into a former Internal Revenue Service building downtown.

But Archer said city attorneys are looking at several ways to keep such a vote from slowing the opening of temporary casinos next year.

One proposal would ask the City Council to repeal the zoning change, making a referendum unnecessary, Archer told reporters at his annual media day.

He did not say how the casino would be able to open without a change in zoning at the site. Nor did he reveal any other details of the legal strategy.

"Our citizens would like to have the issue behind them," Archer said.

On Aug. 4, Detroit voters passed a ballot issue supporting Archer's choices of three casino groups. They rejected a rival proposal that could have given spurned casino bidder Don Barden another chance. Both votes were 55 percent to 45 percent.

Under the state's casino law, the casino issue now goes to the Michigan Gaming Control Board, which has the power to issue casino licenses in Detroit.

Archer said the city is "exactly on track" to open temporary casinos next year and permanent casinos in 2001 or 2002.

The state gambling board had been expected to hold hearings in February on the applications by MGM Grand, Atwater/Circus Circus and Greektown/Sault Ste. Marie Band of Chippewa Indians, Archer said.

But he said he hoped that might be moved up to late this year.

"You just have to be patient with this kind of stuff," he said.

The Community Coalition says it challenged MGM Grand because not enough Detroit residents are involved in that casino's partnership.

It filed 10,746 signatures - more than twice the 4,982 valid signatures required to hold a referendum.

MGM Grand's ownership "should be opened up to the brothers and sisters in the city," coalition president Ernest Johnson told the Detroit Free Press earlier this month.

Meanwhile, a Canadian official said he hoped a second casino in Windsor, Ontario, would open within two years. Casino Windsor, across the Detroit River from Detroit, includes a 389-room hotel and 100,000 square feet of gaming space.

A second Windsor casino should open "as quickly as possible," Ron Barbaro, chief executive officer of the Ontario Casino Corp., told The Detroit News in a report Friday.

Windsor Mayor Mike Hurst supports Barbaro's suggestion for a second casino. "It has to be major and it has to be capable of competing with proposals made and supported in Detroit," Hurst said.

On other topics, Archer predicted:

-Stalled efforts to merge the city's Department of Transportation and the suburban SMART transit system eventually will succeed, despite disagreements between city and suburban leaders.

"The business community continues to apply pressure on all of us concerned," he said. "We really need to merge the two."

-City demolition crews will tear down the Heidelberg Project junk art display as soon as the courts lift a Wayne County Circuit Court restraining order that prevents action before Oct. 2. The matter now is in U.S. District Court.

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