\nBy DEREK HARPER Staff Writer Press pf Atlantic City<\/p>\n
\tLawmakers worked on a plan to rescue and update Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino earlier this year, but state Senate President Stephen Sweeney said it failed when financier Carl Icahn would not sign off.\u201cHe\u2019s personally the reason Trump Plaza closed,\u201d Sweeney, D-Salem, Gloucester, Cumberland, said before an event in Atlantic City last week. \u201cBecause, you know,\u201d he said later, \u201cbillionaires like him are what\u2019s wrong with this country.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tIcahn could not be reached for comment Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\tSweeney said he and state Sen. Jim Whelan, D-Atlantic, drafted legislation that would have enabled the casino to tap into $40 million of state funds to update the property.
\n\t\u201cThere were conceptual conversations,\u201d Whelan said, adding \u201cthere were a lot of moving parts in the attempt to rescue the Trump properties, and we never could get them lined up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tIcahn balked over a proposed $25 million match, Sweeney said.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cHe would not let that happen,\u201d he said, adding that even when they proposed tapping into Casino Reinvestment Development Authority funding, Icahn would not sign off.
\n\tTrump Plaza, with its chandeliers and Reagan-era brass-and-smoked-glass decor, had long been seen as out of date, having been updated little since its May 1984 opening.
\n\tFilmmakers tapped into that vibe in 2001, when they set a scene from the movie \u201cOcean\u2019s Eleven\u201d on the casino floor.<\/p>\n
\tA February 2009 bankruptcy reduced Donald Trump to a 10 percent stake. Icahn now essentially holds the mortgage to the property, controlling about $286 million in first-lien debt secured by Trump Taj Mahal and Trump Plaza, which makes him first to be paid back in a bankruptcy. Icahn also owns Tropicana Casino and Resort outright.<\/p>\n
\tTrump Plaza closed Sept. 16, putting about 1,000 people out of work. Trump Taj Mahal, which employs about 2,800 people, has signaled it may close in November, barring significant concessions on city taxes and union contracts.<\/p>\n
\tWhelan said efforts to keep the properties open are \u201congoing\u201d but \u201cit really requires the city, the state, CRDA, which is the state, the unions and the bond holder, which is Carl Icahn, to work together and get some skin in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tTrump Entertainment asked state and local officials in September to lower their taxes by giving them a five-year freeze and cutting the assessments of Trump Plaza from $248 million to $40 million and the Taj Mahal from $1 billion to $300 million.<\/p>\n
\tIt also said it needed to drop health insurance coverage for 1,100 workers from Local 54 of UNITE-HERE and move from pensions to 401(k) plans instead.
\n\tBoth city and union officials rejected the proposals.<\/p>\n
\tWhelan said he understood why Local 54 and the city refused to sign off on the Trump proposal.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI don\u2019t know how to say, \u2018Yeah, we can keep it open, but you have to give up your health benefits.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cHe (Icahn) doesn\u2019t want it (Trump Plaza) open,\u201d Sweeney said. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t want the Taj Majal open. So then he comes up with these ridiculous offers \u2014 that he\u2019s going to strip all the benefits. Why doesn\u2019t he tell people he\u2019ll keep the place open if they\u2019ll work for free?\u201d<\/p>\n
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