Donna Taggart

My name is Donna Taggart, and I am the Community Outreach Liaison for the Sands Casino Bethlehem. When the Sands was looking to bid on one of the licenses in Bethlehem, they realized that they were going to need somebody on the ground to help them with community outreach, knowing that our community was probably not as much in favor of the casino and were going to need some help in building those partnerships.

So in order for the Sands to get a license in Bethlehem, we had to do some re-zoning in order to create a class for the casino. There were a series of public meetings that were held as part of the re-zoning process. A lot of the community came out because the community was very divided on this issue. I think they were fearful of the unknown, and they had kind of a preconceived notion of 00:01:00what a casino and the negative impact that was going to have on the town. Things like, you know, prostitution and theft. There were just a lot of concerns around that.

During one of the long public hearings that was held, we took a break at one point and I went to the ladies room. During that time there were kind of two sides on this issue, and you know the little buttons that people wear when they're involved in a project or if they're against the project? There were buttons that people wore, and my button said, 'Build BethWorks Now.' And there was a kindergarten teacher that had just testified in the hearing on the negative impact that she thought the casino was going to have, and she had a button that had the red line through it for no casino. And when she saw my 00:02:00button, she just sort of looked at me and said, 'how could you?' And it was a very difficult time in my life where I felt very strongly in favor of the project and the the positive things that it was going to bring to the valley, but, you know, she just was very much concerned of the negative impacts that that was going to bring.

I never had any doubt in my mind that this was a very good thing for the town. My professional background is economic development. I knew that all the jobs and all the real estate taxes and all the positive things that were going to come from it was going to be good for our community. My challenge was the folks that 00:03:00did not have the same vision as me, but I felt very confident that if we just moved forward and built the best project we could for the town that others would see the value in it, as well.

The Sands was probably the best operator that we could have asked for. They cared about what the community thought about this development, and preserving the heritage of the Bethlehem Steel plant was very important to people. So incorporating that industrial design in the design of the casino was important 00:04:00to the community. It fit into the community, you know. It blended in with with our heritage.

We had been working on trying to get this site redeveloped for over 20 years, and it's very expensive because it's an old brownfield site with a lot of environmental contamination and just old industrial buildings. And nobody had the financial wherewithal to do that. And so it was exciting--never did I think gambling was going to become part of our redevelopment plan, but it was one of the only industries that would have the financial wherewithal to redevelop the site in the way that the community wanted to see it developed and the building preserved.

Concerning the Sands corporate philanthropy philosophy, our focus is South Side 00:05:00Bethlehem. There's so much need there that we really haven't had to go much beyond that. One of the very strong partnerships that I'm very proud to have been part of is the partnership with Donegan Elementary School. The Sands has sort of adopted that school and provides annual support to them, which mostly provides busing for field trips that the students wouldn't get to go on if they did not have the busing to go with that. A lot of food because again that school is 92-3% poverty, and so, you know, there are a lot of children that could use more food. So we provide snacks and things and dinners for families.

Another strong partnership that has come out of their corporate philanthropy has been that with the Hispanic Center. The Hispanic Center provide social services 00:06:00to folks trying to lift them out of poverty. And one of the most important things you can do for folks like that is to get them a job. So a couple of years ago we set up a satellite location for CareerLink, and folks can come right into the Hispanic Center and apply for jobs. That's another thing that's important to the Sands. The Sands has job openings all the time, so to be able to train workers and get them jobs right there at the Sands within the same couple of blocks has been a great partnership.

The partnerships within our community are so important to the Sands that we meet regularly with key community stakeholders to just update them on the progress 00:07:00that the Sands has been making, what changes have taken place since we met last, as well as listening to them and what is important to them, what issues they see in the community to determine whether or not we can help with any of those.

I had some friends when I was going through this who I had known for years, and they were not convinced that this was going to be a good project for Bethlehem. But they said things to me like, 'Donna, we know you. We trust you.' And they did, and I think that almost 10 years later most everyone has seen the benefit of this project to the town and has a very different viewpoint on it today.

I don't think it has. You know, I mean gambling itself has become so widespread, we're just one of, you know, the kind of destinations for gambling. So I don't think that that's become part of our identity.

When the thought of a casino coming to the community was posed, I think folks were fearful of that, and I think in their mind they envisioned Atlantic City or Las Vegas. We knew this would never become that because those areas are multiple 00:09:00casino areas. This is one casino. So the issues, the problems, anything; we're not going to become a gambling city. It's just going to become part of the rest of our city.

Born and raised in Bethlehem so I've lived here my whole life. There was a time when I was fearful my children would never come back here from college because there really wasn't much for them to come back to. And I think over the last fifteen years we've all worked very hard to change that, so there are jobs and there is a future here in Bethlehem. And it's very diverse, you know. At one point in time we were a big steel town, and that was our driver. Now there's 00:10:00lots of different companies driving that, but the population hasn't gone down, you know, real estate values. I mean everything has held because the community has kind of pulled together and redeveloped itself.