Democracy requires participation. Grass roots participation is the lifeblood of our democracy. On 12/20/06 No Casino Gettysburg won our 20 month grassroots campaign to preserve our heritage and community. The Pa Gaming Control Board (PGCB) refused a license to Crossroads Gaming Resort and Spa to place a 5000 slots casino one mile from the GettysburgNationalMilitaryPark. We fulfilled our mission although we didn’t always succeed at every goal. The PGCB refused Crossroads due to community opposition. This is what we did that worked:
Values based organization and vision. The movement began before the organization in an outpouring of anger. Outrage isn’t enough to sustain a long fight, but people are motivated by their core values. Before organizing formally, about 60 people discussed what we valued most about AdamsCounty and what we most wanted to preserve here. We were motivated by the values that emerged from that dialogue: our unique identity as a historic and welcoming, family-friendly community. Preserving our unique identity as a historic and welcoming, family-friendly community was our VISION and our inspiration. We fought to protect this nationally known community identity. We looked at whether a casino fit into those values, and decided it did not. That led to our mission.
Focused on a single mission continuously. We did not oppose gambling itself, all casinos or all inappropriate development. We opposed a casino near Gettysburg, and will dissolve as soon as our debts are paid and the time for appeal is past. Every goal strategically supported our mission.
Took the high road. The battle was about a bad idea, not people. We maintained polite and respectful relationships with the staff of the Pa Gaming Control Board. We were ASSERTIVE, but not aggressive.
Remained an all volunteer, grass roots group, so the workers maintained a high degree of dedication. Our group welcomed everyone as long as they opposed a Gettysburg casino, so we had all political, religious and social viewpoints represented in our group. We focused on our single mission when together.
Self-Examination. We all had to face our own conscience to decide to become active and stay in the battle in the face of cynicism and attacks. We kept one another on the high road through honest friendships that grew deeper every day.
The power of dialogue through public meetings, open process, and the Internet: We had many public meetings, and we welcomed opposing views. We had open process in planning meetings. We had an interactive, information rich web site that stayed at the top of search engines, using templates from amateur-friendly www.networksolutions.com. Our website message board received over 25,000 messages and our e-mail network helped local conversations span the globe.
Relationship Networking: We carried the conversation to any group or individual that could possibly be interested in preserving history or community for any reason. At the end we had support from national, state and local people, including 178 local businesses against the casino, four national historic preservation groups, 111 historians, 28 local organizations that testified against the casino, numerous politicians including the Pa. Governor, and over 65,200 people who signed our petitions. As amateurs in the halls of power, we lobbied the state legislature, resulting in one unanimous vote in the House opposing this single casino. (The Senate never voted on this, but the point had been made.)
By December, 2006 we found ourselves part of the Stop the Gettysburg Slots Coalition, comprising our local group, Preservation PA, National Trust for Historic Preservation, National Parks Conservation Association, and our most involved national partner, the Civil War Preservation Trust www.stopthegettysburgslots.org
Research and voluminous material distribution. One volunteer produced several comprehensive cost-benefit reports, and we had professional consultation from a fiscal analyst provided by Civil War Preservation Trust. We condensed hard data into continuously updated brochures and our website.
Interesting, creative events: Always open to volunteer suggestions, we had public meetings, seminars, candlelight vigil, bike ride, Lincoln, Lee and Grant speaking at a press conference in the capital, attended every PGCB meeting in No Casino Gettysburg t-shirts, silent auction, and were a familiar site on the street with our merchandise and petitions.
Helpful to the press. (We suggested pros they could interview even when they couldn’t get through to Crossroads, etc.) Lots of press releases, at least one a month, always ready to talk. On public TV we debated a county commissioner representing Crossroads and in a second debate, their PR rep. We spoke wherever we were invited. We offered exclusives to particular reporters at different times.
Choosing our battles. When personally attacked, we responded only if it would further our cause. We became involved in one legal battle, offering an attorney to StrabanTownship residents opposed to zoning for the casino. This took us through a series of zoning board hearings, ending in their win and our ultimate appeal to the State Supreme Court. Luckily, the victory came before we had to go to Court and we could drop the case.
Underdog Success By MEG BERNHARDT Evening Sun Reporter Evening Sun 02/18/2007 Long before a casino was proposed for Gettysburg, before a group of people met to oppose it, before she agreed to chair the group, before it took over her life, Susan Star Paddock's life was about rooting for the underdog. It didn't have to be that way. Paddock was born in Dallas and her father was the vice president of advertising for Macy's. Like many people in the 1950s, her parents placed priority on what was beautiful, glamorous, trendy. But Paddock soon decided she wanted to "understand at a deeper level what is important in life." She began reading about Martin Luther King Jr. In 1965, she did a summer internship at the Henry Street settlement on the Lower East side of New York City, a very poor neighborhood. As a social work student at Temple University (and pregnant with her daughter), she armed herself with a "Make Love, Not War" sign and marched in Washington to protest the Vietnam War. "We definitely learned to question authority," Paddock said. "It was important to not just go along, but to really ask ourselves what is important. (In that time period), I think a lot of people started a search. Became seekers." Though she would ultimately become simultaneously one of the most loved and most hated people in Adams County, Paddock came to Gettysburg without grand aspirations. Her husband's father had Alzheimers and needed care, but they didn't want to move him from his Cumberland Township farm. So they left Columbia, Md., and settled at the farm in 1993. Now 62, Paddock has a head of gray hair and three grandchildren. And she's became known in Civil War circles worldwide for leading a successful battle against Crossroads Gaming Resort and Spa, a casino proposed by a group of investors led by Gettysburg native David LeVan. Paddock put her counseling career on hold while organizing the effort, credited by many as one of the best-run grassroots organizations in the nation. Its single task was to lobby the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board not to grant a slots license to Crossroads. The group united historians and preservationists with church leaders and small business owners worried about losing customers to the casino or other casino-free historic destinations. But it also drew fire from locals hoping the casino would bring more jobs and economic development on major roads and designated for commercial development. The gaming board gave licenses to two other casinos in December, and this month released a written statement about its decisions. With that, No Casino Gettysburg disbanded. Applying her skills It will never be clear just how much sway No Casino had over the board, but the opposition against Crossroads was especially noted by the board in the decision, as well as other concerns that had been raised by No Casino as well. Though she has been an activist all her life, this battle was different for Paddock. "Everything else that I did fit within the rest of my life," she said. "This took over my life." Paddock earned her master's degree in 1979 and started out as a child welfare social worker. Later, she became more interested in psychotherapy and also started branching into organization development for businesses, coaching managers and executives in relationship skills and facilitating discussions. That's how she was elected chairwoman of No Casino Gettysburg. She'd volunteered to lead a meeting to set goals for the just-forming group in spring 2005. The other members liked her approach so much they suggested she be the leader. "Well I had never done anything like that before," Paddock said. "I had never thought about gambling or casinos. I knew very little about the state law. I just didn't know, but I did pray about it, and I felt called to help with it." Her husband, Jim, helped her lead the group. They'd get up every morning and start talking about it. They created a Web site with a comment board where people could post news and thoughts. Paddock checked her e-mail constantly – sometimes getting 100 messages a day – and installed a separate phone line for the casino. She and other volunteers went to Harrisburg every two weeks to sit in at gaming board meetings. The only other people who showed up were lawyers for the casino applicants or journalists. People power Many people thought the group couldn't combat wealthy investors. But every time Paddock began to get discouraged, she said, a new person would stop her at the grocery store or during an errand to thank her for what she was doing. "When people say it's a done deal, they are saying that whatever clique has decided that something shall be, that that clique has control over the life of the rest of the citizens," Paddock said. "We proved in this case that there is no done deal." Paddock was interviewed by reporters from around the world and helped circulate petitions which would ultimately get more than 65,000 signatures against the casino. Their 1872 farmhouse became headquarters and activists from out of town would often stay with them on frequent trips to Gettysburg. Most of the Paddock's farm is protected from future development by an easement they put into place in January 2005 through the Adams County Land Conservancy, of which Susan's husband Jim was a founding member. A trail runs through their property for Land Conservancy members to use and she calls it an "oasis" from the encroaching development which will one day completely surround it. "There is a pull that people have here {in Gettysburg} that many people don't understand," Paddock said. "People feel a very deep spiritual connection to this place. This world needs places where people can breathe freer air and reflect on their history and the history of this nation. And that is a strength that is so essential to the health of our society." Paddock approached her group as she would any of her therapy clients. They established a vision, they agreed to be open with communication, they established "relationships," and they even had a process of "self-examination." That might sound like therapy couch jibberish, but Paddock believes many of these things are the reason the group was successful as it was. That's because the group relied on information to refute the claims of Crossroads and connect people across the nation in a unified effort – things that might not have happened without Paddock's approach. And she also felt the group had spiritual help and guidance. A Catholic, Paddock meditates every morning and tries to focus their life on values rather than superficiality. As a testament to modest values, they compost everything and grow their own vegetables in a garden. And she's decorated their farmhouse simply. A few sheets and blankets cover old couches in the living room, and they heat it only with a wood-burning stove. And lately it's become a shrine to their victory, a victory Paddock says is a victory of the people. She has a Boyd's Bear dressed in a No Casino T-shirt sitting on a shelf next to photos and framed newspaper clippings of the group. "I think it was just an incredibly compelling more-than-full-time job for both Jim and I and what the people did, what these volunteers did, is very inspiring to me," Paddock said. "And I think that inspires others and so I want to remember it." Positive thinking There are parts of the 20-month saga she does not want to relive. For instance, there were the threatening e-mails sent to her and other members of the group between July 2005 and May 2006. The e-mails contained death threats and lewd language directed at Paddock, police said. Police eventually charged a 24-year-old Gettysburg area man with harassment and terroristic threats, but Paddock doesn't like talking about the case. It was upsetting, she said, and scary. "But we had already come so far, we couldn't give up," Paddock said. "Too many people were counting on us." And she always tries to think positively, even toward the investors of Crossroads, an idea she hated. "I try to see the good in everybody. I don't think the investors were bad people," Paddock said. "I don't think they fully grasped who they might be hurting. People don't always think things out clearly." Characterized as a rabble-rouser by many in Adams County, Paddock's critics have said she created controversy where none had to exist. After all, the massive Gateway Gettysburg complex just across the street from the proposed casino was built without a peep from preservationists. And Paddock didn't shy away from calling the project "divisive" throughout the fight. But as she sees it, the casino was a "bad idea" bound to draw complaints. That's why people got upset, she says, not because of her. Her group merely gave those people an organized group. She doesn't want there to be hard feelings, though, and is ready to move on. And she is positive about the future of Gettysburg as well, including its economy. "I think our economy is freed up by the defeat of this terrible idea," Paddock said the day the casino was rejected. "We are on the verge of a renaissance and I believe we can really build on our strengths now." She's not planning on leading a preservationist charge now. She's ready to return to private practice and quiet gardening, she said. But she does believe she's helped other local groups by showing them sometimes underdogs can succeed. "It was a good call to have and it was a good call to be done with," she said. Contact Meg Bernhardt at mbernhardt@eveningsun.com.
