A rendering of Penn National Gaming Inc.'s plan for Rosecroft Raceway, if it wins Prince George's County's casino license.

The Maryland State Lottery and Gaming Control Commission plans to take a closer look at Penn National Gaming Inc.’s plan to split into two companies.

The Wyomissing, Pa.-based gambling company plans to cede control of its casinos (and other real estate) to a publicly-traded Real Estate Investment Trust called Gaming and Leisure Properties, Inc. The entity known as Penn National Gaming would retain the company’s operating assets.

In the split, Hollywood Casino Perryville would be owned by Gaming and Leisure Properties, freeing up Penn National Gaming — which would retain ownership of Rosecroft Raceway — to build a casino there if awarded Prince George’s County’s casino license by the Video Lottery Facility Location Commission.

State law prohibits a company from holding more than one casino license.

John W. Morton III, a new Lottery commissioner who also chaired a task force last summer to study expanded gambling, said he felt the commission needed “to be very careful.”

“The form I understand, with the REIT,” Morton said Thursday. “The substance, however, is something different.”

Penn National is one of three companies vying to build a casino in Prince George’s County, considered by many to be the premier location for such a facility in the United States.

MGM Resorts International Inc. has bid to build a resort casino at National Harbor. Greenwood Racing Inc. — owner of Parx Casino near Philadelphia and partners with the Baltimore-based Cordish Cos. in a casino bid in Philadelphia — is seeking to build a resort casino in Fort Washington.

“Obviously, there is a lot of personnel and financial resources behind these bids,” Morton said.

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Rocky Gap Casino Resort in Allegany County. (Alexander Pyles/The Daily Record)

A lot of Western Marylanders, casino experts, economists and stakeholders contributed to a story in Wednesday’s paper looking at the history and future of what is now called Rocky Gap Casino Resort.

Few had a more unique vantage point than Robert C. Brennan, executive director of the Maryland Economic Development Corp., which owned the property when it was called Rocky Gap Lodge & Golf Resort.

Brennan spoke with The Daily Record at length this week about the lodge, a project that he said failed as a hotel, conference center and golf resort but succeeded from an economic development perspective, driving some tourism to Allegany County. Only a small percentage of Brennan’s comments fit into today’s story.

For one thing, Brennan said it was difficult to lure people from Maryland’s more densely populated core.

“Getting people to go west, in my opinion, has always been difficult,” Brennan said. “My analogy’s always been ‘during the summer months, 300,000 people pack Ocean City, and I would love to have just had a small fraction of those people experience the western part of the state.’ We never had the big marketing dollars to attract people.”

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Here’s a few government and politics headlines for Wednesday:

• The Washington Post reports former Baltimore County Executive James T. Smith Jr. is in talks to become Maryland’s transportation secretary, a post left vacant since last summer.
• The Baltimore Sun reports Joseph P. Gill has been sworn in as secretary of the Department of Natural Resources.
• The Daily Record reports on the likely opening this week of Rocky Gap Casino Resort.

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A couple of Annapolis public relations pros confirmed plans to switch jobs this week, headlined by Gov. Martin O’Malley’s longtime aide, Raquel Guillory.

Guillory plans to join the Department of Business and Economic Development next month as assistant secretary, a role that will put her in charge of marketing and communications after serving as O’Malley’s communications director.

She’s the fourth high-ranking O’Malley staffer to depart since November, following Joseph C. Bryce (Manis Canning & Associates), Rick Abbruzzese (Rifkin, Livingston, Levitan & Silver LLC) and Matthew D. Gallagher (Goldseker Foundation).

Meanwhile, Jim Pettit announced Tuesday he would join the campaign staff of Harford County Executive David R. Craig, who intends to announce his candidacy for governor early next month.

Pettit had been working for Change Maryland under Larry Hogan, a cabinet secretary in the administration of former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. Hogan — thought to be a potential Republican candidate for governor himself — canceled plans to run for governor in 2010 after Ehrlich decided on a rematch with O’Malley.

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For those of you wondering about the answer to that age-old question, “What do judges wear under their robes?”, here’s one answer:

I usually just wear simple black pants and a shirt—very rarely a suit. There’s some freedom in that, especially since I have so little time in the morning.

That’s Baltimore City District Court Judge Catherine Curran O’Malley, also known as Katie O’Malley, Maryland’s first lady.

O’Malley shared this tidbit and other details about her personal fashion and being a working mom in the newest issue of Baltimore Style Magazine (which was recently redesigned and relaunched.)

O’Malley also posed in the latest spring styles for a photo spread shot all around Government House.

The first lady also confirmed she loves finding a good deal:

I am a bargain shopper. My daughters shop quality. I buy my makeup at CVS and they buy theirs at Nordstrom. I go to Old Navy and buy yoga pants while they go to Lululemon.

That’s not to say she disregards her daughters’ fashion sense:

If I walk downstairs and look ridiculous, they won’t let me go out.

And isn’t that what family is for?

(Photo courtesy of Baltimore Style Magazine)

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Here’s a few government and politics headlines for Monday:

• The Baltimore Sun compares Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, both speculated to be interesting in seeking the presidency in 2016.
• The Frederick-News Post reports on a new law that should mean more business for Maryland wineries.
• The Daily Record examines Maryland’s myriad business rankings.
• Baltimore Style magazine features Baltimore District Court judge and Maryland First Lady Katie O’Malley.

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Here’s a few government and politics headlines for Friday:

• The Baltimore Sun reports on projects that will be paid for by the gas tax increase enacted on Thursday.
• The Baltimore Business Journal reports Penn National Gaming Inc. may be able to hold two Maryland casino licenses at the same time.
• The Washington Post reports Maryland’s legislative hearing on the Baltimore Detention Center will take place June 6.
• MarylandReporter.com reports that some state workers doubled their salary through overtime last year.
• The Annapolis Capital reports Del. Steve Schuh has been elected chairman of Anne Arundel County’s state delegation, replacing new House Minority Leader Nic Kipke.

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Treasurer Nancy K. Kopp, Gov. Martin O'Malley and Comptroller Peter Franchot at a Board of Public Works meeting in 2008 (Maximilian Franz/The Daily Record)

Gov. Martin O’Malley and Comptroller Peter Franchot have shared a number of tense moments at Board of Public Works meetings over the last couple of years.

But on Wednesday, Franchot offered something of an olive branch: a check for $271 dollars from the comptroller’s unclaimed property division.

The check — apparently a royalty from O’Malley’s cameo appearance as Baltimore’s mayor in “Ladder 49″ (a 2004 film starring Joaquin Phoenix and John Travolta) — made O’Malley the 7,001st Marylander to find unclaimed property this year.

“This is the first thing you’ve ever given me,” O’Malley said, later adding he’d donate the money to charity.

By law, businesses are required to notify the comptroller of property that has gone unclaimed for more than three years, including bank accounts, security deposits, wages and insurance benefits and contents of safe deposit boxes.

Franchot’s office devised a marketing campaign this year that called the comptroller “The Most Interesting Man in Maryland” — spoofing a long-running Dos Equis beer commercial campaign — complete with a catchphrase: “I don’t always lose property, but when I do, I prefer to search at marylandtaxes.com.”

The planned exchange with O’Malley was meant to further promote the program, which the comptroller’s office says has returned $261 million to 260,000 tax payers since Franchot took office in 2007.

“I’ll concede the point if you don’t think I’m the most interesting man in Maryland,” Franchot said.

O’Malley — though he wondered how The Walt Disney Co. could loose track of him in his move from Baltimore to Annapolis considering his name is on every sign in the state — was happy to call Franchot the state’s most interesting man, a good-humored compliment that Franchot later said he hoped O’Malley would remember one day in the White House’s Oval Office, a reference to O’Malley’s presidential ambition.

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If any employees working for the Comptroller of Maryland conducted themselves as some Internal Revenue Service employees apparently did, Comptroller Peter Franchot knows exactly how he would handle it.

“If something like this happens at my agency, I would fire any employee within a country mile of it,” Franchot said Tuesday. “When I walk into the Treasury Building, I check my politics at the door.”

U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Tuesday announced there would be a criminal investigation of the IRS’ apparent targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

Good, Franchot said.

“It is incomprehensible to me that just a small number of low level bureaucrats were responsible for this,” he said. “It’s really distressing for me to read about this.”

The comptroller — Maryland’s tax collector — said the IRS ought to be the one government agency in no way entangled in politics. If citizens begin to doubt that, it would be “incredibly unfortunate.”

“I take it personally, because that’s the responsibility I have,” Franchot said. “It’s the one agency that needs to be beyond reproach … We would fire anybody and everybody.”

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Here’s a few government and politics headlines for Tuesday:

• MarylandReporter.com reports that about 6 percent of state employees earn more than $100,000 a year.
• The Daily Record report Sen. Bobby Zirkin, a key vote during the General Assembly’s debate to repeal the death penalty, will seek re-election.
• The Annapolis Capital reports Del. Don Dwyer will plead guilty to drunken boating.
• The Daily Record reports on Baltimore legislation that would require some contractors to hire city residents.

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