Most cultures have a social taboo around lying.

For the average person, lying is something that diminishes you in the eyes of others. People can’t trust you because your word has no value. Liars are seen as not reliable and being known as a liar can have serious social consequences.

For politicians, corporations, and PR shills, lying is business as usual. The normal rules do not apply to them. They have no personal, moral, social, or ethical qualms about lying. Being caught in lies and hypocrisy has no consequences. In fact, lying has many benefits for the powerful, the rich, and the wanna-be rich; and it can be very effective in manipulating situations to your benefit. In this scenario, as it often is, the benefit is financial.

Like many other large gaming development projects, “The Fairgrounds” is backed by a consortium of parties who anticipate making a very large amount of money. Baystate Racing intends to extract tens of millions of dollars annually in gaming “revenue” from the surrounding region; Thoroughbred horse owners and trainers hope to access the tens of millions of dollars in the state’s Horse Race Development Fund; Whitney Companies would make millions from construction and management. The project has been unpopular from the start but there’s a lot of money to be had, so why not lie? Just to make it easier? Call it “corporate messaging” and move on.

The first lie was when Mayor Mazzarella angrily informed the public that there was no public meeting planned to discuss a “landfill revitalization project” — this meeting, of course, took place as planned on February 18th, 2025. Jim Whitney told those attending that an apartment block could be “built tomorrow” and would ruin Mechanic Street unless we accepted Baystate’s offer– this was the second lie. Later, in a bizarre scene, a former Senator and current sellout shill for the Marijuana Lobby told the City Council that “it isn’t about gambling addiction,” despite gambling addiction being the business model of all casinos. They’ve told us they could guarantee only six race days a year (a lie), that their legal-minimum race days would significantly benefit Massachusetts agriculture (a lie), that horse racing is not dangerous for horses (a lie), that they will provide many permanent full-time jobs to locals (a lie), that that they wouldn’t raise the height of the landfill (a lie, they will raise it by 20 feet), that there wouldn’t be amplified sound or permanent outdoor lights (a lie) that they won’t “harm” the landfill (despite it being a virtual certainty); and, in a particularly pathetic attempt, that the project is supported by a “silent majority” of Leominster residents.

If all you know about “The Fairgrounds” is what you’ve read in their marketing materials, they have deliberately deceived you into supporting a version of their project that does not exist. “The Fairgrounds” is not a community-oriented 30 acre activity field with a family friendly sports bar and restaurant. It certainly has a field, bar, and restaurant, but what it actually is –the purpose of its existence, the essence of the business, the mechanism by which it makes a profit– is a gaming establishment. The vast majority of The Fairgrounds’ revenue would come from said establishment: sports betting (ie, a sportsbook), simulcast horse racing, and off-track betting. Their requested zoning amendment would also allow them to install slot machines, poker tables, and “other gaming activities”. The $1 million that Baystate is promising would increase the City’s annual revenue by a mere 0.5%, a drop in the bucket compared to the tens of millions of dollars they would have extracted from the region’s collective pockets.

The Fairgrounds is, first and foremost, for gambling. Secondarily, it is a horse track: Baystate needs one to get their gaming license. Next, it is a potential apartment development and hotel site–both are included in their zoning amendment. It is, lastly, a “community space”. The field would sit on top of a toxic industrial landfill and be covered in PVC pipes that vent combustible landfill gas from underground. The weight of the fill needed to level the 30 acres will exceed 1 million tons, compressing decades of municipal and chemical waste into the swamp it was built on. Absolutely no one involved in the project has ever been responsible for monitoring a toxic landfill. It would requires tens of thousands of gallons of water and fertilizer to keep the man-made plateau green. Technically an activity field? Sure. But Leominster already has fields, parks, and gathering areas. They are selling us a lawn and some restaurant jobs.

Baystate is spending a lot of money trying to sell the public a version of The Fairgrounds that is not real. None of it is true.They are paying college students $22.50 an hour (plus $1 per signature) to stand outside of grocery stores asking people to sign their “Fairgrounds petition”. They are sending glossy full-color mailers, buying full-page newspaper ads, putting ads on apps, and still managing to say nothing. They are paying construction unions overtime to pack City Council meetings. They are intentionally, with aforethought, paying people to deceive you into thinking this is a community project and not a casino with OTB and a sportsbook.

That’s a big, big lie.