Astonishingly, David LeVan and his other supporters have refused to give up the ghost on the Gettysburg casino. Instead of gracefully and graciously accepting defeat and moving on to some other more productive project, they’re now considering appealing the decision of the Pennsylvania Gaming Commission to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

From yesterday’s Gettysburg Times:

Pa. Gaming board: Casino decision stays

No reason given for denial. Appeal may be next.

Posted: Wednesday, June 8, 2011 12:14 pm | Updated: 12:45 pm, Thu Jun 9, 2011.

BY SCOT ANDREW PITZER Times Staff Writer

The state’s Gaming Control Board unanimously rejected a request Wednesday morning by Gettysburg-area casino developers to reconsider a licensing process that was called unfair and flawed.

As a result, investors behind the denied Mason Dixon Resort & Casino in Cumberland Township may appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

Gaming Control Board spokesman Doug Harbach said the seven-member panel will release a written adjudication over the next week that will explain why it turned down the request.

The board voted unanimously Wednesday morning at the State Museum in Harrisburg, after an hour-long hearing

Mason Dixon spokesman David La Torre said following the board’s vote that his group is undecided over whether to file an appeal, but that one is “absolutely” under consideration.

An appeal would not be surprising, since every other licensing decision made by the state since gambling was legalized has been contested in court. The board awarded a slots license to the Nemacolin Resort (Woodlands Fayette) in mid-April over three competitors, including Gettysburg, and then issued its written explanation one month later. Only about a week remains until the appeal window closes.

“We are disappointed. This is a blow for transparency,” La Torre said after the board’s meeting in Harrisburg. La Torre cited a Grand Jury investigation that reviewed alleged deficiencies the Gaming Board’s licensing process. The report was not made public until after board awarded a casino license to Nemacolin, over Gettysburg and two other projects, prompting Mason Dixon investors to file the “petition for reconsideration” Tuesday.

“The grand jury report raised serious questions about how licenses were awarded in 2006,” explained La Torre. “The public is left no other option than to take the board’s word that it was different this time. The fact remains, Pennsylvania’s system for awarding gaming licenses is among the most secretive in the world.”

The Nemacolin Resort in southwest Pennsylvania cannot break ground on the casino until the appeals process concludes. Project spokesman Jeff Nobers said his group isn’t concerned about the recent legal action.

“They (Mason Dixon) are basing their petition on the Grand Jury report which in no manner mentions or refers to the awarding of the most recent Category 3 license to Nemacolin,” said Nobers. “The issues raised in this report are all prior to this process.”

No Casino Gettysburg spokesman Susan Star Paddock said Mason Dixon is “grasping at straws” and “continuing to drag our community” into what she called a “hopeless and destructive request.”

Gaming advocate Richard Kitner, of Pro Casino Adams County said his group has “supported Mason Dixon in the past and we continue to support Mason Dixon now,” regardless of the outcome in the appeals process.

State gambling regulators chose the 2,000-acre Nemacolin Resort for the license in western Pennsylvania, calling it the “best fit” for the license, with the potential to generate the most new revenue for the state, as it draws 350,000 visitors annually, and is located the farthest from other Pennsylvania casinos. Opposition was cited in denying the Gettysburg-area project, although its proximity to the boundaries of Gettysburg National Military Park was not a factor in the decision. The casino would have been managed by Penn National Gaming.

Groups in the Poconos and Mechanicsburg that were also denied the license are still deciding whether to file an appeal.

Give it up. Simply accept the fact that the bulk of the world, including the Gaming Commission, thinks that Gettysburg is the LAST place where a casino should be placed. Get it through your thick, stupid skulls already.

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Take a look at Craig Swain’s excellent report on the Stevensburg road widening project that will significantly impact an important portion of the Brandy Station battlefield. Not surprisingly, the new president and board of the Brandy Station Foundation have committed another epic failure by refusing to take a stand against the demolition of yet more of the battlefield that they have sworn an oath to protect. Why? Because, according to them, we must never, ever, ever do anything that could be construed as ruffling the feathers of the local landowners.

EPIC FAIL.

It is now quite clear that the BSF and its present officers and board members have made themselves entirely irrelevant by abrogating their obligation to preserve the battlefield.

It’s time for all true battlefield preservation organizations to disavow these pretenders if they won’t resign. And it’s clear that they won’t. If they do resign, those who wish to destroy the battlefield will lose their advocates and protectors.

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Today is the 148th anniversary of the largest cavalry battle ever fought on the North American continent, the Battle of Brandy Station. For fourteen long hours that day, approximately 21,000 Union and Confederate cavalrymen slugged it out. Fleetwood Hill–the most fought over piece of real estate in the United States–was the vortex of much of that fighting.

I wonder what the veterans who sacrificed so much on June 9, 1863 would think of that hideous McMansion that disrupts their battlefield, and I wonder if they would be as horrified by Lake Troilo as I am.

We know that the board of trustees and president of the Brandy Station Foundation don’t care–they couldn’t possibly ever think of interfering with private property rights and agricultural activities, even if those activities destroy ground zero of the battlefield. For shame.

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Welcome to The History Press as a sponsor of this blog! The Press published my book on the Battle of Brandy Station, and it will also publish the one that I’m in the midst of writing, which addresses the August 26-27, 1863 Battle of White Sulphur Springs. I have added the Press to the list of sponsors below, and am glad to it as a sponsor of this blog.

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I suffered through 45 minutes of Gettysburg on the History Channel last night. With brothers Ridley and Tony Scott as directors and producers, I had high hopes for this production. The Scotts are two of my very favorite directors, and they are known for the quality of their productions.

What a staggering disappointment this thing was. I turned it off after 45 minutes because I couldn’t take another moment of it. This thing was shockingly bad. Events were presented horribly out of context, with absolutely no stage setting. The movie begins with the Iron Brigade’s advance to the unfinished railroad cut and without any context for the viewer to understand how they got there or why they were there. It would have confused anyone without a decent working knowledge of the battle.

I counted ten major factual inaccuracies in the first ten minutes of the thing. And it got worse from there. Just a few of the things wrong with this production–and this is FAR from a comprehensive list:

1. The terrain was completely wrong. Since when were segments of the Gettysburg battlefield covered with thick forests of pine trees?

2. The sets were awful–fence lines were wrong, the buildings were wrong, and the depiction of the town itself was completely wrong. The unfinished railroad cut on McPherson’s Ridge was portrayed as being only three or four feet deep when it’s really as deep as thirty feet at its deepest.

3. They had the Iron Brigade digging deep trenches atop Culp’s Hill on the night of July 1–not crude breastworks like those actually built on the night of July 2, but rather the sort of deep, semi-permanent trenches with head logs that one expects to see on the Petersburg battlefield. And they were using brand-new, shiny shovels and pick axes that looked like they still had the Lowe’s or Home Depot price stickers on them, not period tools. They never did mention Greene’s brigade either….

4. The uniforms and many of the weapons were wrong, and few, if any, of the actors looked like the people they were portraying. I just loved the yellow cavalry stripes on the infantrymen. That was my favorite.

5. The history was largely wrong. As just one example, none of John Buford, John Reynolds, Henry Heth, or A. P. Hill were even mentioned at all during the discussion of the first day. Instead, the first day focused on Rufus Dawes–you would think that the 6th Wisconsin alone captured the Confederates in the railroad cut and that no other units were involved.

6. I turned it off just as the second day’s portrayal began. I’m told that the focus was on William Barksdale and that there was no mention of Little Round Top or of Joshua Chamberlain or the 20th Maine’s defense.

I feel badly for Garry Adelman and Prof. Peter Carmichael, who were interspersed as talking heads. They presented the history accurately and correctly, and lent some credibility to this thing, but yikes–now they will be associated with this piece of crap. Pete and Garry are both good guys and very capable and accomplished historians, and I sincerely hope that their association with this terrible program doesn’t sully their reputations.

There’s plenty more, but that will give you a taste. I’m so disappointed in this that it’s shocking. What’s even more concerning to me is that novices will think that this piece of dreck is an accurate depiction of the battle and that they will find out just how terribly wrong it was and lose interest because of it. On the other hand, if it spurs interest, then I guess it’s a good thing, but it nevertheless shows how far the History Channel has fallen.

Awful. Just appallingly, horrifyingly awful. Do yourselves a favor–don’t waste a minute of your time or a brain cell on this piece of crap. It’s not worth either.

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With thanks to Bud Hall–a Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War himself–for passing this along to me, I give you the words of the great American poet, Archibald MacLeish, who offered this elegy:

Who in the still houses has not heard them? The soldiers say: “Our deaths are not ours; they are yours. They will mean what you make them mean.”

They say: “Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope or for nothing, we cannot say. It is you who must say this.”

They say: “We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning. We were young, we had died, remember us.”

Thank you to all of the veterans who gave the last full measure of their devotion to help give us the freedoms that we take for granted. And to all of my friends who have served, thank you for your service and for the sacrifices that you have made so that the rest of us can enjoy our freedom. As you celebrate this Memorial Day, please remember to thank a veteran for his or her service.

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The other day, I got an e-mail from Mark Gaffney, who is the owner and webmaster of a very useful web site called Impediments of War. The site was designed to be, and acts as, the archive for all of the episodes of Civil War Talk Radio, a weekly program hosted by Prof. Gerry Prokopowicz, the chairman of the history department at East Carolina University.

This is the e-mail that Mark sent me:

My website is titled Impediments of War and is intended to be a Companion Website to Civil War Talk Radio. My inspiration was Dyer’s Compendium, I originally had the website subtitled “A Compendium of Civil War Talk Radio,” but decided it was a big mouthful….Companion is easier for most people to say and understand. I started the website in November 2010.

Additional background information can be found on the website HomePage and on the About Our Site page.

As you may, or may not know, World Talk Radio owns the Civil War Talk Radio shows. Gerry is merely a volunteer who is willing to provide his services each week as a labor of love. World Talk Radio does not offer Gerry much in the way of support and their website is atrocious. I started the website out of frustration with World Talk’s site. I believe in the show so much that I was willing to put up money to spread the word (Sounds like that old Remington Shaver commercial from the 70’s!). I taught myself HTML, PHP and MySQL while creating the site. To my good fortune, Gerry liked the website so much that he adopted it as the “official” website. He mentions it at the beginning of each show.

My website provides the information on each show and links to the original MP3 files on the World Talk Servers. There are currently 200+ hours of interviews online. The show listings are organized by season, the 100 series being the first year and the 700 series being the 7th year, etc. I also have a listing of guests, alphabetical by last name and recently added a “search” tool that is still being tweaked.

I am not in the Military History business nor am I a web designer, I am a structural engineer who practices in New Jersey, consulting to architects to make sure their buildings stand up. I maintain the website as a hobby. Through Gerry’s show, I have widened my appreciation of the Civil War and discover so much valuable information. I think that is worth sharing with others.

I was interviewed on Gerry’s show during the program’s episode 129, in case anyone is interested. Like the others, this episode is archived on Mark’s website.

Thanks, Mark–both for writing and for your obvious labor of love that does a service for all of us. Mark’s doing a great job with this project, and I commend his site to anyone with an interest in listening to any of the terrific interviews that Gerry Prokopowicz has done over the years.

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Craig Swain, a former member of the board of trustees of the Brandy Station Foundation, has written an excellent and concise summary of his concerns about, and dealings with, Joseph McKinney and the rest of the appeasers on the board. I commend it to you. It can be found here. Well said, Craig. It is indeed a tragedy when a preservation organization ceases doing preservation work on the battlefield it is supposedly the steward for. It’s an even greater tragedy when a preservation organization begins to oppose the very preservation work it was created to perform.

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John Hennessy, who as chief historian for the Fredericksburg/Chancellorsville/Wilderness/Spotsylvania battlefield complex, knows a bit about battlefield preservation, also left a very succinct and well-put comment on the post where I described the ill-advised and wrong-headed policy declaration by the BSF. John began by quoting the BSF statement, drafted to supposedly allay our concerns that the BSF is on top of things, and then reacted to it:

“Frequently landowners are required to obtain permits before making improvements or undertaking certain agricultural activities. We view the permit process primarily as an issue between the landowner and the governmental agency exercising legal or regulatory authority over the matter.”

While anyone may choose to view the permit process as an issue between the landowner and the agency, the law in play here–Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act–views it VERY differently. The law REQUIRES the permitting agency (in this case the Corps) to seek the input of the public in its review of projects. The law is written to encourage precisely the sort of public input that BSF has apparently eschewed.

Preservation groups have very few legal tools at hand to accomplish preservation; section 106 is by far the most useful. The idea that a preservation organization would publicly proclaim its intent NOT to use the major legal tool at its disposal might well be unprecedented.

Well said, John, and an excellent description of precisely how badly the BSF has strayed from its stated mission of protecting the battlefield.

The board of the BSF, in its rush to appease Tony Troilo, failed to consult with its pro bono legal counsel to determine whether there might be a regulatory impact (or weapon to use to prevent) of the destruction of Fleetwood Hill. Mr. McKinney and his board clearly know nothing of, or care about, the tools that are available to protect the battlefield. How can someone possibly serve as the president of a battlefield preservation group, but yet be as clueless about the fundamental governing regulations and the tools available as Mr. McKinney appears to be?

The arrogance of the president and board of the BSF is truly staggering. Thanks for pointing that out so eloquently, John.

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A particularly insightful comment was left on this blog pertaining to the outrageously inappropriate policy statement issued by the BSF:

Mike Stevens, the president of the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust–a legitimate battlefield preservation group that has done some fabulous work in the Fredericksburg area–wrote:

Surely no one who understands what this ground means to us and to our country would allow its destruction and desecration without standing up and saying, “No!”

Surely any battlefield preservation organization with its priorities straight would do the same.

It appears that the only positive thing stemming from this unfortunate incident is to show how a preservation organization should NOT act.

That sums it all up quite succinctly and quite well. Shame on you, Joe McKinney, and shame on all of the members of the BSF board that voted for the worst appeasement since Neville Chamberlain at Munich.

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