Americans for Prosperity, a Kansas tax watchdog a group that opposes the proposed Hard Rock Hotel & Casino at Kansas Speedway, say they haven't given up the fight.
While the group has no plans to appeal a ruling it lost last month in its bid to stop the construction of the casino, it said it would file a new lawsuit alleging that the gambling and resort complex would unlawfully benefit from tax dollars.
The first lawsuit was filed in March on behalf of several taxpayers and funded in part by the organization. It claimed that the speedway casino plan and two others that were then pending would illegally benefit from their proximity to private land developments that in the past had received state sales tax and revenues bond funding or, in the speedway's case, was on land obtained through eminent domain or its threat.
State law bars any public financing or use of eminent domain for gambling facilities.
State Senator Karin Brownlee, Republican of Olathe, said this week that she welcomed further legal action and criticized Shawnee County District Judge Franklin R. Theis for dismissing the earlier lawsuit.