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A few weeks ago, Revel Entertainment Inc. chairman and CEO Kevin DeSanctis spoke in broad terms about the critical need for all stakeholders in Atlantic City to come up with a plan to transform the city into a destination resort. All must cooperate in that effort, he said, or Atlantic City faces an uncertain future.

Mayor Lorenzo Langford's call for a summit later this month is an encouraging step.

But here's a much more concrete example of how such cooperation could work: Revel's request to use $150 million in future property-tax revenues to improve infrastructure in Atlantic City's neglected Inlet. The plan would improve the city for both tourists and residents - and help poise the resort to meet rapidly growing competition in other states:

The proposal would capitalize on the New Jersey Economic Stimulus Act signed into law last summer. Revel is proposing to use a portion of future city, county and school property-tax money to finance improvements, many of which local government should be doing anyway. Some of these proposed projects, in fact, have been talked about for years and are long overdue - including repair of the decayed Boardwalk in the Inlet, renovating Garden Pier, improving roads and installing a citywide surveillance system.

The new state law allows Revel to seek a state-issued bond for the improvements; the bond would be paid back with part of Revel's future property taxes, an estimated total of $32.5 million per year.

County Executive Dennis Levinson and state Sen. James Whelan, D-Atlantic, are both supporting the measure for sensible reasons. Levinson indicated he isn't happy to be losing future tax revenue, "but the way things are right now, we have to be creative here. There's too much at stake." Whelan pointed out that Atlantic City, when it had a monopoly on East Coast gambling, didn't need these kinds of incentives. Now, it does.

City Council on Tuesday approved creating a local version of the state program, as required by state law. But the city also must pass an ordinance approving Revel's application to the grant program.

According to minutes of a recent closed meeting of City Council's planning committee, Planning Director Bill Crane predicted the plan would come under criticism, that taxpayers would ask, "Why would we do this?"

Sure, taxpayers will ask. But the answer is easy: Many of these improvements are needed and have been for years. The Boardwalk reconstruction, estimated at $36 million, may be the most glaring example: The Boardwalk in the Inlet is in deplorable shape. Taxpayers will get an improved city with better amenities.

But more importantly, the region's economy - the jobs, the tax revenues generated by a thriving casino industry and all the ancillary businesses it supports - is at stake. Those slot-machine parlors across the river, which have already sucked revenues from Atlantic City, are soon to add table games. Atlantic City needs to be a vibrant, attractive, easily accessible tourist destination in order for it to avoid repeating its decline of the last century.

That will take cooperation. This plan would be a good start.

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