I don't know about the rest but I live above the elementary school on Upper Church Street. I can hear the 100 kids down there yelling and screaming fairly clearly during the daytimes when I'm home on occasional weekday. What will it sound like with 5000 screaming race fans and the PA announcers echoing through the hills?
How bad will Cumbys be backed up on a Saturday and Sunday Mornings when I'm trying to get gas for the lawn equipment?
How many more nip bottles and beer cans will I have to pick up due to increased traffic through the neighborhood from curious or lost race fans driving through.
The roads suck especially Hardwick Road going to Worcester. You mean those bastards that run our town will repair the road if they can put a race course in but they won't repair the road for the people who commute to work on it every day? Who pays for increased wear and tear?
We don't need this traffic. We don't need the type of growth this thing will bring us. They claim 20 races now but once they're here they can do pretty much what they want. Temporary building are like the concessions at Xfinity Center. Do you want those booths set up for days at a time? 3 days before an event and 2 days after for teardown, means they dissappear for two days during the week. Do you really believe these will always be temporary structures?
The $500,000/yr they're offering for the HCA is less than it will cost us for those bastards to be here. HCA's don't stand up in Court. Ask Springfield.
The biggest issue with this proposal is that it really wasn't a proposal at all. It was just an idea. No drawings or renderings, no traffic studies, no environmental impact studies. Someone from the project, likely Jeff Fields himself, called me on Saturday. He made all kinds of claims that were never made public. He claimed they were going to pay for road improvements and other needs. He denied connections between organized crime and horse racing. I feel they didn't perform any up front due diligence because they're just throwing pasta at the wall and seeing if anything sticks somewhere. They're looking to make big money without spending any up front money.