On November 20th, 2007, Councilman Jack Rogers was the only one concerned about the propose ordinance that would give permission to business owners to retail keno and their staff, to play keno after work at their own gaming facility.
The proposed keno ordinance, which will be reviewed in a second hearing, was approved in a four to one vote with no additional discussion. It will need to pass one more hearing before the council before it will be enforce. Current city ordinances do not allow business owners and their staff to participate in games.
The proposal would permit them to play in their own facility except for the person that sells the tickets would be restricted from playing keno an hour before or after writing the tickets. Councilman Rogers said that he was not convinced that the computer systems could not be manipulated. He added that there are a lot of hackers out there that could break into even tough systems like the Air Defense Command or Social Security.
Although he does not believe that the employees will try to break into the system, he cannot understand why the opportunity should be put out there. The keno proposal has been a point of contention for the past months now among the council members.
Mr. Mike Nevrivy, who is a keno operator in McCook, believes that operators and employees alike should be allowed to play keno in their own gambling facility because keno computers are more sophisticated now compared from before. Aside from the keno issue, the council has discussed issues like appointments of different city officials, the surplus auction in the police department and others.
[04-12]
John M. Thorpe
