GAMBLING INTENTIONS PROCEED

SCOTT CITY -- As far as the Scott City Council is concerned, it's on a non-stop trip to opening a riverboat casino within the city limits.

Having recently given Lady Luck the nod for a Scott City operation, the council's gambling committee announced Monday its intentions to move forward with plans to acquire the services of an attorney to enter into negotiations with the selected operator.

The Las Vegas-based gaming corporation has proposed building a riverboat casino complex just east of the Rhodes Travel Center off Nash Road. The riverboat itself would be moored in the waters of the Diversion Channel.

On Saturday, a Missouri Gaming Commission official said that under the state's gambling law, riverboat casinos cannot float in the channel.

According to gambling committee chairman John Rogers, that matter is between Lady Luck and the state.

"You hear all kinds of things," said Rogers. "In one paper you'll read that you can't have a boat in the channel, but someone else is saying you can. That's a matter for the courts to decide."

Lady Luck representatives have stated that they plan to seek a declaratory judgment from the state on current provisions, allowing riverboats to cruise in the Mississippi and Missouri rivers only. Lady Luck plans to prove that the Diversion Channel should be classified as part of the Mississippi River itself.

In the meantime, the city will move ahead with its own negotiations with the company.

"Lady Luck offered us one amount in its proposal, and now we're just trying to get it down on paper in contract form," said Rogers. "Some of the projects may change a little since games of chance will not be allowed on board, but the company should pretty well honor its original proposal after a state amendment is passed."

Two people interested in at least one facet of Lady Luck's proposal came before the council Monday asking for consideration, when the time comes.

Elizabeth Link, regional director of the Riverside Regional Library, and Theon Schlosser, a Scott County representative to the regional library board, asked the council to include library space in a community center Lady Luck has offered to build for the city.

The Scott City Library is currently housed in a building on Second Street East, remodeled for the library's use. Members of the library's board have been considering moving it to the Tupperware Home Parties Building at 2106 Main Street.

"Right now, the Scott City Library has about 2,500 square feet of space," said Link. "That is without a community room or a place for reading or studying.

"We would have a little more space in the (Tupperware) building, but nowhere close to what we could really use," she said. "We need to have a building designed specifically for library use. That's something this city has never had."

Link said that if the city could provide the space, rent-free, along with major maintenance and street services, the Riverside Regional Library would provide the staffing and books to best serve the area.

"We feel we could have a really goood library in a building such as the one being proposed for the city by the gambling company," said Schlosser. "We could include a community room, more resource materials, extend the hours of operation and have reading space."

Schlosser said the board will most likely go ahead with plans to move the library for the time being.

"We're kind of in limbo now," he said. "From the sounds of it, this gambling thing could take years."