They Said It

Dick Kassis Said It-

"If We Raise Taxes On The Oaks Club, They'll Go Out Of Business"

Politics in Emeryville have produced quite a lot of hyperbole over the years. At the Tattler, we occasionally post quotable quotes from Emeryville personalities since where we've been can sometimes inform where we're going.


Former city councilman Dick Kassis predicted the Oaks Club card room would go out of business. In light of the recent FBI raid Wednesday, perhaps they will.  However Mr Kassis' predictive skills aren't as impressive as they seem: his pronouncement of the Oaks Club's demise was 14 years ago.

Dick

The year 1997 was an election year in Emeryville. Aside from Kassis' candidacy for a fifth, four-year term was an initiative asking voters to lift the tax rate on card room profits from what they were: the lowest in the Bay Area, to parity with the regional average.
Mr. Kassis strongly urged voters to reject the tax hike on gambling, claiming "If we raise taxes on the Oaks Club, they'll go out of business".  What Mr. Kassis neglected to inform voters was that at the same time he was once again receiving the maximum campaign donations from the Oaks Club allowable under law.


Emeryville voters ended up re-electing Mr. Kassis but rejecting his advice about card room tax rates. Voters correctly gambled that Kassis' warnings of bankruptcy and the Oaks' closure was just hot air.  Some 14 years later it appears that Emeryville voters were right and Mr. Kassis was simply a paid agent for an allegedly crooked den of loan sharks and extortionists that didn't want to pay their fair share.  


No apology has subsequently been offered by Mr. Kassis for spreading disinformation to the public during an election campaign while ostensibly on the Oaks Club's payroll via generous campaign contributions. But it seems, if you've been in office since Disco was king, there's no need to explain; perhaps he has been waiting these subsequent 14 years to be proved prescient about the Oaks Club going under.