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Norfolk — Voters already have started to cast ballots to decide whether to give the green light to the Pamunkey Indian Tribe and their billionaire backer to build a casino along downtown Norfolk’s waterfront.
And now a committee opposed to the referendum has gone public — a revival of the same group that waged a petition battle to undo the city’s deal with the tribe this time last year.
This time, they’re getting a little outside help. But from who, nobody really knows.
As initially reported by WAVY-TV, a D.C. public relations firm that’s helping the casino opponents won’t say who’s funding its work. One of the residents working to defeat the casino, Jackie Glass, said she doesn’t know either. But she said it’s irrelevant because the money is helping even the playing field between the grassroots opponents and the casino bid, which is backed by Tennessee billionaire John Yarbrough.
Earlier, in a similar vein, the Pamunkey tribe’s own PR firm created what looked like a grassroots pro-casino group, complete with a website that listed supportive citizens — and made no mention of the tribe being behind it.
It’s the latest in what’s been a messy public battle over the tribe’s efforts to build a casino in Norfolk — first announced in December 2018 and immediately assailed with objections to the tribe’s ancestral land claims from both the local Nansemond tribe and a former Pamunkey chief.
The new iteration of the “Vote No Casino Norfolk” committee opposes the casino referendum on this year’s ballot, saying the specifics of the deal and a lack of transparency make it a bad fit for Norfolk and urging residents to vote “no.”
Glass, who is one of the current group’s organizers and was involved in the original petition campaign, said she’s not anti-casino, just against the particulars of this casino deal.
The new group echoes many of the same concerns Glass and others brought to City Council last fall: environmental issues with the site next to Harbor Park, problems with how the deal was conducted, complaints about a lack of transparency from the city and tribe and the potential impact on existing local businesses.
However, representatives of the Pamunkey and two state lawmakers who back the casino are asking questions about who is helping the group.
As WAVY reported, P.R. firm Red Banyan reached out to Glass to offer its help this summer.
Glass said the Vote No Casino Norfolk committee didn’t hire the firm, and she doesn’t know who’s paying it.
“When they initially contacted me, they said I had to sign something to know who was doing this,” Glass said Thursday. She said she declined to sign anything, and still doesn’t know who’s footing the bill.
However, Glass said they accepted Red Banyan’s help to give the group a fair shot at fighting the casino group’s billions — and because no one with deep pockets would open them publicly.
“We wouldn’t have this issue if the wealthy folks who supported us would do it outwardly,” Glass said. “It’s really not about who’s paying for our yard signs.”
Glass said the PR firm hasn’t told them what to say and has only helped them to get their message out by, for instance, printing signs and fliers.
Red Banyan’s website notes, “We are often retained for sensitive issues that require superior levels of intelligence, creativity, tact and discretion.”
Evan Nierman, the CEO of Red Banyan, would not identify who had hired the firm to provide services to the Vote No Norfolk Casino group.
Two members of the General Assembly, Del. Jay Jones and state Sen. Lynwood Lewis, wrote a letter Thursday to the state Board of Elections asking for an investigation into the group.
They argue Red Banyan’s work for the casino opponents is an in-kind contribution that needs to be disclosed under state campaign finance laws because the group is trying to influence voters.
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Jones and Lewis are both supporters of the Pamunkey tribe and their casino proposal, and have publicly spoken on behalf of the effort.
In an email Thursday, Nierman said “disclosures of our support are being handled properly in full compliance with requirements” and called the letter from Lynwood and Jones “a pathetic attempt to distract from the key issue: the casino deal being pursued by Norfolk is a rotten one” for the city.
This isn’t the first time questions about who is looking to influence the debate have come up.
Roughly a year ago, as the original petition effort was under way to undo the council vote approving the casino deal with the Pamunkey, lobbyists for the tribe organized and funded a citizen group called All In For Norfolk Casino — a political practice known as “astroturfing."
At the time, the citizen group’s website made no mention of the connection between it and the tribe, and it was only revealed through a series of website registrations, which lead back to Capital Results, the tribe’s lobbying and PR firm.
A representative for the Pamunkey said at the time said the tribe “has not tried to hide the fact” that it was behind the group.
Ryan Murphy, 757-739-8582, ryan.murphy@pilotonline.com