It appears that our suspicions have been proven right—the Lottery Commission isn’t taking the public comment period on lottery ticket vending machines seriously.
Neal Moore, whose advertising firm, Communications Group, has the contract to do advertising for the Arkansas lottery, told blogger Jason Tolbert: “I just feel like Jerry is grandstanding on this topic. I certainly think the public should comment, but you and I know it’s a done deal. They’ve bought the machines!”
Mr. Moore has confirmed what we’ve been saying all along: the people running the lottery consider the public comment period to be meaningless. When it comes to the lottery vending machines, he said, “It’s a done deal. They’ve bought the machines.”
However, the comment period is very meaningful to us and, apparently, to the people of our state. Over 1,000 people have made comments via our website. The Lottery Commission should have sought public comment before buying the machines.
It is too bad that they consider our effort to encourage the public to make comments to be “grandstanding.”
While Mr. Tolbert graciously pulled down his article from his blog at the request of Mr. Moore, the article was picked up by another blog. It can be read by clicking here.
