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That was the period leading up to a decision by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board to reject LeVan’s proposal to desecrate the hallowed ground of the Gettysburg National Battlefield by opening a sleazy slot machine casino nearby.

It would be nice to think the gaming board’s action was based on a desire to maintain the integrity of one of America’s most sacred places. That board, however, is a creature of the state’s political establishment and, accordingly, it reflects the worst elements of the Harrisburg power structure from Gov. Ed Rendell on down. From its start in 2004, the board has reeked of scandal and questionable decisions in granting licenses, to put it generously.

To this day, it is packed with appointments by Rendell and legislative bosses, who selected mostly flunkies, fellow lawyers and others.

Originally, gambling interests poured millions of dollars of ”campaign contributions” into the pockets of Rendell and other politicians to help get the casinos legalized and then to get casino licenses.

The politicians fell all over themselves to accommodate those interests, passing casino legislation in flagrant violation of the Pennsylvania Constitution that every one of them had solemnly sworn to uphold. That action was then upheld by the disgraceful Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

Campaign contributors then showed up among the lucky individuals upon whom casino licenses were bestowed, such as Louis DeNaples of the Mount Airy joint in Monroe County, who still has ties to the casino but officially is listed as the former owner. He gave $1 million in such gifts, including six-figure tallies for Rendell alone.

LeVan, however, never paid the politicians a dime in those days and when the gaming board saw his casino application, he was told, in effect, to drop dead.

When The Associated Press reported this week that he was again seeking a license for a casino on the outskirts of Gettysburg, I checked the Campaign Finance Reporting section for more recent years.

This time, LeVan has contributed tens of thousands of dollars to politicians ranging from state Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffery to various legislative candidates. Two candidates for governor — Attorney General Tom Corbett and Auditor General Jack Wagner — also got money from LeVan. Corbett accepted $5,000.

One legislative candidate in a district near Gettysburg, Catherine Cresswell, took $20,000 from LeVan, but she lost and now has a legislative staff position.

I called the Gettysburg motorcycle shop that LeVan owns to ask what he expects to accomplish with his switch from zero to big money for the politicians, but he was not available and had his press spokesman, Dave La Torre, respond with this cryptic statement:

”Dave [LeVan] actively participated in the political process long before gaming was ever introduced in Pennsylvania. He has exercised the rights any American has to support a candidate of his or her choice. When he was an applicant for a gaming license previously, he did not. When he applies again for this project, he will not. It’s that simple.”

What I find simple is what it says on the state financial reports: Money talks.

Anyway, the AP said LeVan’s new proposal is smaller than his 2005 plan and it is one of four proposals for a single casino license that will be available.

LeVan’s joint would be a mile from Gettysburg National Military Park, it was reported, and some view it as an economic plus for Adams County. Others disagree.

”We don’t think it’s economic development,” the AP quoted local activist Susan Star Paddock as saying. She said any patrons at a casino would only be pouring money into slot machines instead of spending it on healthier activities in that area.

Also opposed are groups like the Civil War Preservation Trust and the National Parks Conservation Association. As far as I can tell, nobody from those groups has made big contributions to state politicians, so I’m not sure how well their messages will be received in Harrisburg.

In 2005, after LeVan hatched his first plan, I wrote about what Abraham Lincoln said at Gettysburg when he dedicated ”a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. …

”We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract,” he said.

One politician, state Rep. Paul Clymer, R- Bucks County, said he was ”inspired” by that column to fight against LeVan’s first plan to desecrate the consecrated ground.

I went back to the state’s list of LeVan’s recent campaign contributions, and I could not find Clymer’s name anywhere.

LeVan knows, I guess, who his pals are.

paul.carpenter@mcall.com 610-820-6176

Paul Carpenter’s commentary appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Paul Carpenter

LeVan’s new proposal … [would be] a mile south of the Gettysburg National Military Park.

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“So you’re from California,” the guide said as she pulled her Hyundai SUV onto Seminary Ridge. “Remind me to show you where your ‘regiments’ fought.”

I hadn’t known that Californians fought at Gettysburg, but it made sense. California was as Union Blue as Abe Lincoln’s underwear. I refer doubters to a map of San Francisco: Union Square, Grant Avenue, Union City across the bay. And can you guess the name of the train depot in Los Angeles? Hint: It’s the same as the one in Washington, D.C. (Answer: Union Station.)

I was in Gettysburg, smack in the middle of memorial ceremonies – 146th anniversary of the two-minute Gettysburg Address and Lincoln’s 200th birthday – that were particularly pompish and circumstantial.

By the scheduled start of my Civil War battlefield tour, which included an authentic November rain, I was chilled to the bone. My wool overcoat – a remnant of the wardrobe from my East Coast college days – offered little comfort, and like an idiot, I had forgotten the holy trinity of scarf, hat and gloves.

“It’s a good thing, actually,” said Joanne, my tour guide. She was a native Pennsylvanian, a middle-age mom who had gone back to school in preparation for the notoriously difficult Gettysburg tour-guide exam. “You’ll get a better sense of how it felt that weekend.”

“That weekend” in Gettysburg means July 1-3, 1861. In a very real sense, there is no other weekend, no other time in the town. Though I lived for two years in Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, I have never experienced a place more rooted in a particular moment.

“I would apologize for the mist,” Joanne said as her Hyundai crept along Reynolds Avenue, stone monuments dotting the landscape like scarecrows. “But this weather is actually more representative. After 2 hours of cannon fire, you wouldn’t have been able to see your hand in front of your face.”

And so we rolled over the rolling hills, stopping here and there to imagine the lines of infantry and artillery, the headquarters and field hospitals. The car tour touched on all the legendary landmarks: the Roundtops (Little and Big), the Peach Orchard, the Wheat Field. In the land of the Eternal Weekend, these are all proper nouns.

We saw the ridge where Gen. George Pickett’s men lined up for their ill-fated charge, now marked every hundred yards with a monument to one of the former Confederate States. Of the thousand-plus stone markers on the field, only a couple dozen are dedicated to the Southern dead – an eerie physical reminder that history is written by the victors, at least in the victors’ backyard, anyway.

Eventually I reminded Joanne that I had to be back at the hotel for dinner. We were idling at a spot called The Angle, where Pickett’s Charge was repelled.

“I almost forgot,” she said. Lowering the driver’s side window, she pointed through the mist to a squat stone obelisk. “That’s one of your regiments. There were four ‘California regiments,’ and that’s the first.”

With the Hyundai back in gear and the gray skies fading to black, I had to ask. “Listen, Joanne, I noticed that every time you say ‘California regiments’ you use air quotes.”

Without pause she said, “That’s because all the men were from Pennsylvania.”

“Excuse me?”

“You all sent a check.”

Nearly three hours I had listened to her stories – about the sacrifice, the bloodshed, the only truly consecrated cornfields in North America and so on – and I had nodded and agreed, confident that my sacrifice was just as good as hers. Now I realized that this Pennsylvanian had all along seen me (and my state) for what we were: absentees.

That weekend, 331 men lined up as the 1st “California regiment,” virtually all of them from the City of Brotherly Love – 21 died, 58 were wounded, 19 more went missing. These were not Californians. They were “Californians.”

“I feel like a jerk,” I said as we pulled up in front of my hotel. “I had no idea. I know it’s a hundred years too late, but thank you.”

“Nah,” she said. “You all would have done the same.”

Back in 1861, California had plenty of gold but few men. Today it’s just the opposite. God forbid we should ever be in that situation again, but just supposing, we might have a chance to repay the favor.

Until then we’ll just keep sending players to the Phillies.

Nick Taylor is a writing professor at San Jose State who last wrote for Travel on Mallorca. E-mail comments to travel@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page M – 5 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Nick Taylor

Friday, January 29, 2010

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[poll id="2"]

This predatory business just doesn’t fit in this location. Gettysburg is America’s most beloved small town, the site of what some historians consider the most important battle of American history. People visit here because they can relax in a family friendly community. We don’t want the identity of our town changed to a “casino town”.

We need the help of everyone who loves Gettysburg. Please join our network to help stop this desecration!
If everyone invited a few friends, think just how great this group will be!

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