Finance news

Casino backers from MyOhioNow.com will submit enough signatures on Tuesday to put plans for a $600 million resort on the November ballot, those pushing the initiative said.

Rick Lertzman, who heads MyOhioNow with Brad Pressman, said the group will submit the signatures to Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner. The group will also discuss its fall campaign and disclose the final total of signatures at a media conference in downtown Columbus, he said.

Beachwood-based MyOhioNow is pushing an initiative to develop Ohio’s first gambling casino near Wilmington. The group said in June it had collected more than 400,000 signatures to bring the issue to a statewide vote.

Brunner’s office and each county’s board of elections will verify the signatures over the next several weeks, though the process length can vary, said Kevin Kidder, a media relations coordinator in Brunner’s office.

MyOhioNow’s initiative, proposed with Minneapolis-based Lakes Entertainment Inc., calls for the casino resort to be developed midway between Columbus and Cincinnati no fax payday loan. The project would include a 220,000-square-foot casino with as many as 5,000 slot machines, 100 gaming tables and a 1,500-room hotel. The resort would be built off Interstate 71 at Route 73, in Clinton County.

Lertzman told Business Courier sister paper Columbus Business First in June that county officials and commissioners have generally supported the initiative because of the promise of economic revitalization. The group says the casino will create 5,000 jobs and would employ thousands more during construction of the project.

Ohioans on three separate occasions have signaled a distaste for gambling initiatives, defeating referendums in 1990, 1996 and 2006.