Florida

Lawmaker Wants Outgoing Stockton President to Talk Showboat

The outgoing president of Stockton University will testify next week about the details of its plan to use a former casino as a satellite campus.

State Sen. Paul Sarlo, a Bergen County Democrat, on Thursday asked Herman Saatkamp to testify before a Senate panel on April 30 about the plan to convert the former Showboat casino into part of the university.

The plan has been bogged down in legal uncertainty. Saatkamp announced on Wednesday that he will resign later this year; on Thursday he agreed to speak at the hearing.

Sarlo said in a letter to Saatkamp that he wants to know whether the university president was aware that Showboat's parent company, Caesars Entertainment, was preparing to file for bankruptcy during negotiations for the property.

Stockton bought the Showboat for $18 million last December from Caesars Entertainment. Florida developer Glenn Straub then bought it for $26 million from Stockton on April 3.

Straub plans to let Stockton use it as a campus, but the neighboring Taj Mahal casino is using a 1988 legal covenant to block the move. The legal agreement among the Showboat, the Trump Taj Mahal and Resorts Casino Hotel mandates that the Showboat not be used for anything other than "a first-class casino hotel."

Trump Entertainment Resorts is enforcing the prohibition on the Showboat being used for a college campus. The company fears underage students will try to sneak into the neighboring Taj Mahal to gamble and drink, exposing it to costly fines.

Trump Entertainment said Stockton knew about the legal covenant when it bought the Showboat; Saatkamp said the university had been led to believe it had been resolved, but the university has not said who provided that assurance.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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