They tried it in 1996, but it was too early. Twelve years later, Rick Lertzman and Dr. Bradford Pressman are confident about their chances to cash in on a $600 million casino resort project in rural Southwest Ohio. But they need more than 400,000 signatures to help them sell it to voters.
Lertzman, a business restructuring specialist who lives in Moreland Hills, and Dr. Pressman, a retired podiatrist who lives in Chagrin Falls, met in the fourth grade in Beachwood Elementary School and have been friends ever since. The pair, who worked on a similar casino initiative in 1996, are not affiliated with the failed 2006 "Learn and Earn" campaign, which promised college scholarships for Ohio students if voters approved slot machines in nine sites around Ohio. That issue was rejected by 58 percent of voters.
Under the Beachwood-based company, MyOhioNow.com LLC, they believe they have found the right straightforward message and the right location on 95 acres in rural Clinton County. And with casinos now in 37 states and in every Great Lakes state, voters have finally warmed to the idea, they say.
"We did a lot of polling looking at why 2006 failed," says Lertzman, whose research found voters thought the "Learn and Earn" organizers were being deceptive by trying to cloak a casino gambling issue under college scholarships. "We're not trying to hide the fact that this is about casino gambling."
MyOhioNow.com needs to collect 402,225 signatures by August to place the issue on the November ballot, which is also the same time Ohio voters will choose a new U.S. president, so the turnout should be larger than 2006.
"We're going to get 800,000 signatures," says Lertzman, who hired a California firm to collect them. "We're not going to take any chances." The firm, National Petition Management, has set up offices in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Dayton, Youngstown and Wilmington, not far from where the casino complex will be located.
MyOhioNow.com is financially backed by a publicly traded gaming company with casinos in the Midwest, but Lertzman wouldn't reveal the name. He expects to spend $3.5 million to collect signatures and "double-digit" millions to market the issue to voters.
Lertzman estimates more than $200 million in taxes per year will be generated from the casino complex, split among Ohio's 88 counties on a per capita basis. Cuyahoga's share is projected to be at least $16 million a year, Lertzman says.
MyOhioNow.com's plans call for not only slot machines, but a full casino with card games such as blackjack and poker, and table games like craps and roulette.
"We're talking about a world-class golf course, luxury hotel, nice restaurants," Lertzman says. "This is not going to be anything cheap."