CITY STEP CLOSER TO FINAL OK OF RIVERBOAT CASINO

Cape Girardeau has moved a step closer to getting its own riverboat casino.

The City Council Tuesday night unanimously approved a development agreement with Boyd Gaming Corp. after company officials promised to assist in counseling and treatment programs for compulsive gamblers.

The Cape Girardeau Ministerial Alliance had pushed for the provision.

Mayor Al Spradling III said the actual wording will be worked out prior to final council action on the development plan next month.

The Ministerial Alliance had originally wanted Boyd to pay $50,000 annually to a compulsive gamblers fund set up by the city.

But lawyer Mark Grimm, who negotiated the agreement for the city, recently told city officials that state law requires the Missouri Department of Mental Health to develop programs to treat compulsive gamblers.

The programs would be funded in part from money paid by casinos.

Grimm told the council Tuesday night that Boyd officials are committed to helping treat people with gambling addictions.

At a study session prior to the regular meeting, Boyd official Tom McPherson said the company and other riverboat gambling operations in Missouri are committed to addressing the problem.

Boyd has training programs for its employees and a telephone hotline manned 24 hours a day by counselors.

McPherson, a regional vice president for the company in Memphis, Tenn., said Boyd and the gambling industry have set up a foundation in Kansas City to pay for research and treatment of gambling addictions.

Councilman Melvin Gateley said he was proud of "the corporate citizenship" of the Boyd group.

In a Feb. 4 letter to the Rev. Kim Ferguson of the Ministerial Alliance, a Boyd official stressed the company's commitment to dealing with gambling addictions.

"We recognize the compulsive behavior, whatever form it takes, often leads to the destruction of individual and family values," wrote Robert Bougher, chief operating officer for Boyd Gaming.

Boyd officials told the council that the company is still in a holding pattern on its gambling venture here as the state gaming commission hasn't said when it will start taking new applications.

The commission is expected to begin accepting new applications sometime between May and November, McPherson said.