Questions and Answers, Part Three...

5.  Q:  BILOXI, MS (WLOX) Dec 06/2010

Emergency claims filed by Mississippi casino workers with the Gulf Coast Claims Facility were arbitrarily and categorically denied according to the Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood.  "Hood said, "It was denied solely on the basis of these claimants' place of employment."  Hood's office has received several complaints from the casino workers and said, "I appreciate that the GCCF has admitted it's mistake in assessing casino worker claims as a whole based solely on reports of overall casino gross revenues, an inaccurate indicator of employee revenues. However, I find it unacceptable that the GCCF has refused to correct the error by re-evaluating these claims on its own initiative without the need for the claimants to submit new claim forms."

    A:  We agree, and are very disturbed that all gccf sources tell us that casino workers' Interim Claims are, by quotes from gccf representatives in Ohio,  "being held to different standards", "more in depth investigation", "authentication process", "more meticulous evaluation", "different calculations", and "scrutinized a little bit more", when our brothers' and sisters' claims on the Coast have been processed so accurately and efficiently before.
  

6.  Q:  Sun Herald, Dec 09, 2010, Anita Lee:

"Attorney Kenneth Feinberg, who heads the GCCF claims process, said each claim, including those from casinos, was examined on its merits. But casino employees, Attorney General Jim Hood, State Representative Bobby Moak, and others believe the employee claims were rejected...while oil gushed into the gulf.  In fact, GCCF denied hundreds of claims for casino workers but paid residents with similar jobs in non-casino establishments."

    A:  Every individual that we have contacted with the gccf in two local offices, as well as several levels at the 800 number in Ohio, has confirmed that "casinos" claims were categorically denied, without even a glance, much less having been examined on it's merits.  In our own place of employment, servers in the leased restaurants have been paid, while servers in the casino-owned restaurants have been denied.
 

7.  Q:  ProPublica: Dec 14, 2010,  Sasha Chavkin :

"Feinberg said that he would post a description of his methodology for evaluating claims online and in every claims office in the Gulf, and said he would release the methodology within the next 10 days. "We will have full transparency," he said."

    A:  Methodology?  Transparency?  When we spoke with Tom Bender of the Ohio gccf office on 12 / 29, he said the "gccf is finalizing the methodology for evaluation of interim and final claims."  He was not sure if or when it would actually be finalized.  Oh, by the way, we were told earlier by the gccf that the Interim Claim process would begin Nov 24th, the day after Emergency Claims access expired.  Five weeks later, and the methodology is still not finalized?

"Full transparency"?  Really?  Everything is still so privatized and compartmentalized that nobody knows anything.  We filed our claims locally on 12 / 20.  As of 12 / 28, Ohio had no record of us having filed.  Our local office had no way to show that we had filed.  Our local office's attorneys have no contact at all with Bill Mulvey, the gccf-casino liaison.  As of today, Ohio shows that we have filed, but cannot tell us if or when the filing might be indicated on the gccf website, and no time-frame estimate at all (except, "within 90 days") on resolution.  They are quoted as saying that they currently have 9000+ claims to process within 90 days.  We must point out that 400,000 emergency claims were processed within 90 days.  By that math, two to four days would seem adequate to process these 9000.
  
8.  Q:  iStockAnalyst.com, Dec 27,2010:

Ken Feinberg, who oversees the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, a $20 billion fund for victims of the oil spill, said, "I'm sensitive to the casino workers' claims. We have every intention of honoring documented casino workers."  Feinberg denied casino workers have been categorically shut out of the claims process.

    A:  Casino workers' claims will prove to be the most properly and well-documented claims of any group to file on the entire Gulf Coast.  If Mr. Feinberg is, in fact, sensitive to that, then why didn't the gccf honor them in the the Emergency Claims process?  Again, see #1 and #3.  Every gccf employee, both locally and on the 800 # phone line tell us that "casinos" claims were categorically denied.