Bill Kuntze

Reverend Bill Kuntze. I am retired. I'm a part-time pastor at Cherry Lane United Methodist Church up in the Poconos and having a great time up there. Back from 1999 to 2009, I was the Executive Director of New Bethany Ministries, an agency on the South Side that serves the poor and homeless and hungry, mentally disabled. When I started there the place was in chaos and bankrupt and I rebuilt it. It's an agency that is serving well the poor in our community at this time.

I didn't reflect on gambling in the area for a good bit. It wasn't one of my primary issues. I'm concerned about poverty, homelessness, hunger, violence, 00:01:00non-violence, peace. Those are the issues I committed my life to. Gambling was kind of just off to the side, at best an annoyance in most of my career. But then it suddenly was about to come to Bethlehem and landed, as I put it, on my doorstep. And so I had to deal with it because I was serving people at that agency who have always got a variety of issues, many of them related to addictions, many of them past or even present issues with domestic violence, alcohol, drug abuse, poverty. And they're the exact people who one does not want to introduce yet another source of addiction, another source of sucking out life 00:02:00and well-being and what money people have.

And not only that, but when the casino started to develop and in the first period when it was open, at least when I was still working there, there were efforts-- whether intentional or unintentional--to focus on people like the people I was serving. They would never admit it. Maybe they didn't even intend it, but they certainly did. Because they're among the kind of people who get attracted to gambling--to the false promises of gambling-- and they can easily get caught up in it because it's so similar to the other addicting to behaviors that their lives are being destroyed by.

Well, a number of reasons. One is the kind of industry it is, period. Which is 00:03:00that it's an industry that produces very little economic effect in the community. Yes, there's the base communities that their governments get some money. That was supposed to solve all the financial problems of our local governments and didn't solve any of them. And it brings some jobs, though, initially, it appeared to me most of the jobs were to people from outside the community, who were already professionally trained, probably, to do those sorts of jobs. But it does not produce an economic multiplier effect, that is nothing 00:04:00is bought, nothing is made out of what is bought, nothing is sold to anyone else. Which is what happens, for example, if--what was in this area before--you manufacture steel. Rolled steel gets made into other products. Those products get put into other things, like cars. There are good jobs, skilled jobs all the way down the line out of something that produces an economic multiplier effect. This industry produces some entertainment, I suppose, for the moment for people and some jobs. And the dollar stops there, except the large amount that goes on to the owner--the rich owners--of the casino.

The second thing is that--why I always often use this term predatory gambling 00:05:00and it is used nationally by anti-gambling groups--is that it particularly focuses, even if not by the intentions of the owners and managers, on people who are particularly vulnerable, who have tendencies toward addictive personalities and behaviors, who are poor and are looking for the magic of winning a jackpot, who buy into the myth. I had a guy at the church I pastored a few years back. He went there every Saturday night or something like that, and he always won. Well he was lying. He had to be. He had deceived himself into thinking that he always wins, because they don't get rich if you and I always win. The house always wins. So it is like a vacuum cleaner sucking resources out of a community, like 00:06:00a bird dropping some here and there on spots for certain things like the local government. And bribing local charities to give their seal of approval, and taking all that money out and making an owner quite rich.

Well, I was not particularly a public speechmaker during that period because what I was doing and who I was serving. And actually my conflicts would turn out much more internal about resisting what could only be felt like bribes and what 00:07:00people were calling it around me. So I didn't go to speak at the City Council meetings. Others did. That was their thing. I was mostly more in the background talking with people, trying to convince people to change directions, which was futile with government people and so on. When it finally opened, some of us felt we had to do something public. The governor was going to be there. This was like to be the greatest thing to happen in this area, and so they were probably 50 of us-- mostly pastors-- who picketed the whole day of the Grand Opening. It was a beastly hot day. It was an uncomfortable day of picketing. And, boy, we got a 00:08:00lot of negative flak from a variety of people for just that little thing, just saying: 'some people believe this is a wrong move.' And, boy, there was great pressure not to do that. The night before I was getting pressure from middle persons that were getting contacted from government persons just not wanting this damp blanket thrown on their show. And I kept trying to expose the way the poor were being sucked into that.

It was twofold. A number of people were very positive and supportive, particularly people in local churches and many of the volunteers at the agency, 00:09:00which there were thousands, and many of the grassroots supporters and donors. There weren't many people who were speaking out, acting in a forceful way to try and resist this what became an irresistible force.

Some of it was positive indeed. The kind of negative reactions I got were typically from the government officials-- local government officials. From a few officers of the Board of Directors of my agency, who became personally convinced that the casino was a good that was coming here, that partnering with it would be a good, that it would bring in a flow of income--and income is always badly 00:10:00needed at such nonprofits.

It became for me one of the most tense times in my life. It was like every day a new little effort. A new little pressure. Many quite subtle, but it just kept expanding into more and more. And at one point I was threatened with the exact words by a board officer, 'You'll kiss up to the casino.' And I resigned.

It is irresponsible, and many of my friends and former colleagues would certainly feel differently, but I believe that it is irresponsible for those who 00:11:00either serve people who are involved in addictive behaviors or have addictive type personalities and tendencies to be seen in any way as promoting, approving, or benefiting from a force that is exactly like, and even became the force, that destroys lives of such people. It is very similar to hospitals, like one of our great local hospitals that will not invest in, profit from, or appear to benefit from tobacco in any way. It's the same thing. They could use that money for good, but you just need to keep your hands clean so you can make a good witness about what is good for life and what destroys life.

Though the majority of people may not get damaged by the casino, and may have great times there, who can afford to make the owner rich all they want, there are a minority whose lives do get destroyed. One can almost predict which kind of people that will be, and all my life I've represented, cared for, and tried to help stabilize and improve the well-being of such people. I just believe that when you're in that kind of situation, you need to keep a separation.

After I resigned from New Bethany Ministries, however, one positive effect happened. There was a lot of media attention on the agency and on the board. With the media outside--maybe somebody even inside-- the board voted to never take money from or benefit from gambling interests. So the agency ended up 00:13:00keeping their hands clean; I lost the job of my life in making that happen.

Some philanthropists like Dexter Baker, who had been a CEO of Air Products, as a result of my witness within about a week, his foundation stopped giving grants to any nonprofit that benefited from gambling interests. Little things that were positive and good and right happened. But I think that's even not the point. If none of that happened, what we are called on to do is to bear witness, to advocate for what is right and good in a society and for the vulnerable, for the 00:14:00least able. That's just what is morally commanded of us.