Wellington may be down, but is certainly not out for the count.
    At a work session Tuesday night, a quorum of city council members met to discuss the council’s position on the Lottery Review Board’s decision and to decide what to do next. City council member Jim Valentine was not present for the work session.
    City Manager Gus Collins said the Sumner County Commissioners had requested a letter from the governing body, asking if they were on board with the Commissioner’s decision to move forward with the lawsuit against Mulvane’s island annexation.
    After hearing from State Rep. Vince Wetta - D (Wellington) and concerned citizen Bob Leftwich, the response from the city council was overwhelming — continue the casino fight.
    At the work session, Wetta gave updates on what Topeka is doing and how Wellington needs to move as a united front.
    “It has been quite a week, or 10 days. It’s been very emotional...a real rollercoaster,” he said. “We are not without power and we are not without allies in Topeka...Our community has pulled together through this whole thing and we have the State, the County, the City, all of us are still together. Contrast that to what’s up north. They have no state representative, they have their state senator who is in a tough re-election race and won’t say much. We can say and do what we want to do. Now we have to make up our minds as to what do we do and where do we go from here.”
    Wetta said though it would be easy to “sit back and be nasty” towards those connected with the decision, ultimately it would hurt Wellington and the whole of Sumner County in the long run.
    “We got a long way to go on this and we do have some power and we have some options and we don’t want to close any of those off,” he said.
    Though competent Wellington would eventually pull through as the Sumner County centrally-located casino site, Wetta stated there was a lot going on in the state capital that couldn’t currently be discussed.
    “Without getting into anything, I think this upcoming election will be big in November. It’s a big election up there. A Harrah’s guy who rode up there to all their functions is running against a  guy who is the leader of the anti-gaming group in Mulvane. In a five-person race it got 50 percent of the vote and that’s huge. So those people are still voting against the casino,” Wetta said.
    Leftwich chimed in, expressing the need for the council to back the County Commissioners and the casino developers who are also fighting for the casino slot.
    “They have a huge investment in this and it’s their business,” said Leftwich of Penn and Marvel Gaming, “They need to know that our City and our County support this on a broad basis,”
    Leftwich sited the huge investment already placed with the State for a chance at a site, not to mention the pending investment while litigation into Harrah’s is sought, not only by Sumner County, but the Potawatomie Nation as well.
    “We need to the support of Penn and Marvel to stay active in this,” he said. Both the developers still remain in town and have a strong interest in getting the casino to Wellington, Leftwich said.
    Though the primary focus is to have a centrally-located casino in Wellington, Leftwich said the lawsuit against the island annexation done by Mulvane will set precedence for the State of Kansas.
    “It basically makes law for every County in the state,” he said.
    Leftwich said “keeping the buzz” going would be key to getting Wellington in motion.
    Mayor Roger Stallbaumer warned the council they would “take a lot of shots” by backing the decision, but as a group, the decision had been made.
    “We’ve already been taking shots,” said Council member Richard Granger. “We just took one a bit ago, so that’s nothing new.”
    Fellow Council member Terry Craig said he was willing to take the heat if it meant making sure the democratic system was in place.
    “The thing that upsets me about this whole ordeal was that democracy failed. You can say what you want but democracy failed in America; not just here but across the entire Nation and it didn’t work the way it’s supposed to and that’s what really aggravates me,” said Craig.
    “But it’s only failed up til now,” Council member Larry Shimer interjected.
    The governing body agreed the people of not only Wellington, but the whole of Sumner County had been ignored, and as a council agreed it had to stop.
    “It’s about helping the people of the County and they’re the ones who got cheated. They are the ones who got robbed and they are the ones who lost out and now we are just going down the path like we were and we can’t. We have to fight for those people. We got elected to do that and we can’t just quit. We’ve got to help the voters,” said Shimer.
    As a council, the unanimous decision was made to construct a letter to be distributed to the Lottery and Gaming Commisson members and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and the county commissioners.
    Council member Cindy Antonich said Wellington needed to play nice but be firm on their position.
    “You can be legal and nice and still be firm,” she said.
    The letter is currently being constructed and will be released to The Wellington News at a later date.