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I know we've hashed this before and I don't usually cut and paste, but I just found this article from a paper from 2003. Thought y'all may enjoy.

DANNY MCKENZIE: There's more to Tunica these days than gambling
12/10/2003 5:07:17 PM
Daily Journal




TUNICA - While this Mississippi Delta town proudly bills itself as the "The South's Casino Capital," gambling isn't the only thing going on around here.


No one disputes the nine casinos in Tunica Resorts - a.k.a. Robinsonville, just up the road from downtown - are the main drawing card, they are no longer the only attraction.


It's not necessary to spend all day and all night on a casino floor, feeding the machines or feeding faces (there are more than a few restaurants around). There are plenty of non-gambling spots to leave cash behind.


Make no mistake, though, it's the gambling that has made Tunica ... well, Tunica. Consider:


- A $38 million expansion of the airport (with more to come).


- A $26 million state of the art (and beyond) Tunica RiverPark. (You won't believe this thing.)


- A soon-to-be-open $12 million Tunica National Golf & Tennis Center. (A public facility to go with the two other resort golf courses.)


- Not one, not two, but five - count 'em, five - community centers for public recreation and meetings ... worth $7 million.


- A soon-to-be-open $5 million Tunica Aquatic Center (Olympic size pool and diving towers ... can you spell "training site"?)


- Tunica Arena & Expo Center ... a $4 million expansion of the existing $24 million facility is up and running.


- A $2 million Tunica Museum.


And let us not forget more than $36 million spent on education (new schools, teacher salaries and support programs); more than $30 million on water and sewer improvements; more than $6 million on law enforcement (including a nifty '57 Chevrolet police car); $50 million worth of new four-lane roads; a library expansion valued at nearly $2 million; $2 million spent on beautification of the Historic Highway 61; and a $1.7 million Tunica County services building to make sure all of the above is taken care of properly.


Let us not forget the improvements to downtown Tunica, including an exquisite Veterans Memorial Park and a U.S. Post Office, built by the city for the feds. (Think about it.)


All of which is not to suggest Tunica, Tunica Resorts (or Robinsonville, if you prefer) and Tunica County combined have become a Mississippi Camelot. It's not. Some attitudes die hard, and they seem to die harder in the Mississippi Delta. The sentiments toward public and private schools still run deep, and that seems to be Tunica's biggest hindrance right now.


But gain is being made on the racial front as well, and it's amazing how, with the right mindset, economic prosperity can affect social progress.


A decade ago, no one ever would have thought Tunica would be economically prosperous. So who's to say what the next decade will bring in terms of social progress?



Danny McKenzie is associate editor of the Daily Journal. His e-mail address is danny.mckenzie@djournal.com.
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Seems like around here , we would like to have this stuff, but the local leaders want for us to pay more and more taxes to get it.
Maybe our leaders should be looking for some Indians and give them a reservation around here. I bet you would see this area grow like crazy. Our kids could find jobs, and we wouldn't have to pay for it ourseoves with more gas tax. (of course Lord Bronner would oppose it)
How VERY true that is!!!

And vote in the dang lottery!!! People who don't WANT to buy a ticket don't have to. As it stands, people who DO want them give Tennessee all their tax dollars buying theirs!!!

And the rest of the Alabama dollars are going to improve Mississippi...

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE!!????????

Roll Eyes Roll Eyes Roll Eyes
bluesman, it isn't about where we would take our families... it is about the revenue our State is losing each year for NOT having those sorts of things.

Tunica has the Casino's... Tenn. Georgia and Florida all have the Lottery... and they are making so much revenue from Alabama people it is unreal.

You might be surprised at just how much money Tuncia put into the State to KEEP gambling out of Alabama... because they KNEW if we passed something THEY would lose our business...

And I am not a Tunica addict, been there one time, 3 years ago, and never been back. But I do go to Tenn. and buy Lottery Tickets when I get time.

It is sad that people are so closed minded, really!!!!
The main issue here is conveniently and consistently overlooked. That is the difference between Alabama and the surrounding states. Namely the structure of the cash flow. Things were put in place, long before the lotteries and casino gambling that surrounds us, that would insure the revenues raised would go where they were intended. Can you imagine putting those kinds of revenue in the hands of Alabama's elite elected body and trusting them to manage it. Not me.

Consider Tunica County, MS for instance. Just a few short years ago they were the single poorest county in the nation. Right now they would qualify as one of the richest. Mississippi overall has benefitted from the influx of money from casino gambling. Mississippi is the only state in the nation that has computers in every classroom of every school. The only state doing worse in any category than Alabama is Arkansas to the best of my knowledge and I wouldn't testify to that. There's no doubt we're a joke. Not even a good one either. There's no doubt gambling revenues would help that to some extent. But it is only a patch, not a cure. Other things need fixing first. We need a new bottom in the boat, not a bigger bucket to bail water with.
with me being a mississippian i think the state should tax the casnions a little more so the wealth can spread to some of the poorer counties in the delta. the extra money though has really helped. the state seems to move a lot quicker with highway projects then alabama does. Take US 78 for example the new part of the road has been done for nearly ten years but alabama is still 2 or 3 years from being done.

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