Closed-door council meeting leads to big decisions regarding potential casino in Petersburg

PETERSBURG, Va. (WRIC) — Last week at Capitol Square, the potential for a casino in the City of Petersburg sprung back to life. Now, just one week later, Petersburg City Council has already landed on a developer for the high-stakes project.

Back in 2022, Baltimore-based Cordish Companies conceptualized a casino in Petersburg. The project never moved forward, but after getting the greenlight from the Virginia General Assembly to hold a referendum in November, the City of Petersburg is laying down the cards once again.

This time around, leaders appear to be moving particularly quickly – and quietly. A closed-door discussion Wednesday night led to an abrupt open session vote. Petersburg City Council selected Cordish Companies, once again, as the development team, but some people in the Petersburg community said they had no idea this polarizing topic was even being discussed.

8News spoke with Megan Rhyne, the Executive Director for the Virginia Coalition for Open Government. Her team aims to bridge the gap between the government and the people, emphasizing the importance of transparency.

“The public is supposed to be able to witness the operations of government,” Rhyne said.

Rhyne shared how that type of secrecy, whether intentional or not, can be harmful.

“There might have been people who were very interested in this issue, but didn’t come to the meeting because they didn’t think this was going to come up,” Rhyne said.

Wednesday night’s meeting agenda cited Virginia code sections which referenced casino planning, but didn’t explicitly suggest a formal vote would be held. In effect, Wednesday night’s decision cancelled the city’s standard Request For Proposals (RFP) process.

“Safeguards are in place to inform the public, to have public input, to let the public observe,” Rhyne said. “Any time there is deviation from that, that leaves the public out of the process. That’s very hard. A hard message for members of the public to hear.”

8News reached out to every member of Petersburg City Council for comment, but did not receive any responses. The $1.4 billion project would be Petersburg’s largest tourism project to date, but regardless of scale, Rhyne noted that any time the community is left out like this, it raises a red flag.

“If we’re not being included here, what else have we not been included on up to this point?” Rhyne said. “And what else will we not be included on in the future?”

Even though city leaders did not respond to interview requests, on Thursday, April 25, officials distributed a press release confirming negotiations with developers are set to begin. They’ll need documents approved by the Virginia Lottery by August in order to have a referendum on the ballot in November.