To get everything in context, listening to the interview in full is best. We asked about proposal specifics. John Stefanini gave us details. We asked about specific concerns and about the opposition to the facility and he responded respectfully. Listen on any device. CLICK PLAY.
Bay State Racing LLC – The Concept for Gardner MA
Gardner Magazine Publisher Werner Poegel spoke with John Stefanini of Bay State Racing regarding their proposal to build a thoroughbred horse festival racing facility in Gardner called Gardner Park. Our interview took place the morning of August 23, 2023 – we agreed to hold it until their information event at William’s Restaurant on August 23rd had begun. John respectfully answered all of our questions so the interview is quite informative. Listen on any device. CLICK PLAY
According to their Concept Plan, Gardner Park would have thoroughbred festival racing two weekends a year (in the interview John stated 2-3), community concerts, farmers’ markets, a restaurant featuring local craft beverages. They also promise to preserve and maintain the integrity of surrounding trails and outdoor recreation. The vision does not mention that most of the revenue would come from the Sports Betting part of the business which according to John Stefanini would be 92% online outside of Gardner. John’s pitch is that the City of Gardner would receive considerably more tax dollars from their operation than any other due to the lucrative nature of gambling. No slots or casino are planned.
Bay State Racing also made their Initial Concept Plan available for our readers in PDF format. CLICK HERE.
Next Steps and the Process
The next step in the process is first for the Gardner Planning Board to make a recommendation to the Gardner City Council. It met on August 22, 2023 and decided to get some legal opinions from the Gardner Law Department. The Planning Board will meet again on September 19, 2023 to take up the matter of whether 2 parcels in question should having zoning changed from residential to commercial to even allow consideration of the Bay State Racing proposal. Some citizens have stated that they may very well petition the City Council to change the zoning to some form of “Open Space”. If such a request were to be ruled valid by the City Council and sent on to the Planning Board, it could possibly have 2 competing proposals before it. In any case, the procedure once the Planning Board makes a recommendation is to have a public hearing. Subsequent to the public hearing, the Planning Board would meet again to render a final recommendation and only then would the matter be sent back to the City Council for approval by 8 out of 11 Councilors to be effective. If zoning were to get changed to commercial, a separate measure would seek proposals for use of the property based on criteria requested by the Mayor and approved by the City Council. In that eventuality, Bay State Racing LLC would be expected to submit their proposal. In the event zoning stays residential, the City could sell the parcels to developers wishing to build homes. And in the event zoning changes to or is found to already have protected status, the land would stay as is.