My family has built a successful multimillion-dollar business empire over 70 years, starting in 1963 with Jet Bargain Stores (six locations), Hawk’s BBQ & Seafood (five locations), Indian Head Hair Grease 1965, Mascot Gas & Oil (six locations) and Crawley’s Nursing Home and Crawley’s Funeral Home. In my business and professional opinion, I was impressed after reading the proposal for ONE Casino + Resort.

Richmond City Council voted 8-1 to approve RVA Entertainment Holdings LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Urban One, as the casino and resort developer. They are offering the City of Richmond $25 million up front for schools, infrastructure and other needed improvements. These funds would be made available to the city immediately prior to the construction of ONE Casino + Resort.

The resort will feature a four-star hotel, upscale restaurants, shops and clothing stores, resort-style swimming pools, a world-class spa, lavish meeting and reception spaces, a 3,000-seat auditorium featuring 200 live shows per year, along with radio and television production studios and a 15,000-square-foot sound stage onsite.

ONE Casino + Resort would foster economic growth for the residents of Richmond by providing job opportunities to local contractors, employee benefits with salaries averaging $55,000 annually, on-the-job training and profit sharing, which is unheard of in the industry.

In addition to employee and workforce benefits, Cathy Hughes, founder and board chair of Urban One, has agreed to provide contributions to Virginia Union University, Reynolds Community College, The Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia, the Armstrong-Walker Classic and Evergreen Cemetery.

Richmond can’t afford to lose $25 million along with all of the benefits and tax revenues that will increase the city’s funding for years to come.

However, state Sen. Joseph D. “Joe” Morrissey and Sen. Jennifer L. McClellan of Richmond are blocking Richmond’s second referendum on the $565 million casino project by pushing a provision in the state budget calling for a study of an alternative site for the casino in Petersburg. They have turned their backs on Richmond, $25 million and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for residents to participate in improving their city and their future.

To all of the concerned residents, citizens and students of Richmond, call your senators and delegates and state budget conferees and ask them to vote “no” on Petersburg and “yes” to Richmond being the home of ONE Casino + Resort.

To find the names and phone numbers of your senators and delegates, visit www.famousbrownshow.com.

We would like to thank the Richmond Free Press, P.T. Brown, Gary Flowers, Pastor Robert A. Winfree and everyone else who has supported and worked toward the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to offer Richmond residents what they truly deserve — empowerment and entertainment all in one!

MELVIN CRAWLEY SR.

Richmond