Posted on 09/25/2003 9:40:02 AM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
AUGUSTA — Pro-casino lobbyists took their cause to the editorial board of the Morning Sentinel and the Kennebec Journal on Wednesday, preparing the ground for the Nov. 4 referendum question that will decide whether Maine will have a casino.
The group, Think About It, held an hour-long briefing for the board that was part of a campaign to drum up support for the casino.
Think About It has approached about six editorial boards in the last six months, said the group's representative Erin Lehane, including the Brunswick Times-Record, the Lewiston Sun-Journal and the Bangor Daily News.
If voters approve, the Penobscot Nation and Passamaquoddy tribe will build, own and run a 200,000-square-foot casino, the third in New England after Foxwoods Casino Resort and Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut. But the tribes will confirm the casino's location in Sanford, the only town in southern Maine that has voted favorably for hosting it.
At the forefront of the pro-casino lobby are those such as Lehane, the tribes' lawyer Tom Tureen, and Donna Loring, the Penobscot Nation's representative to the Legislature. Their theme, repeated to the editorial board of the newspapers, is economic development.
"The tribes will be Maine's largest taxpayer, and the sixth-largest employer in the state," said Tureen. "This is the largest economic opportunity in Maine in the last 30 years. It's a chance to have a huge export business of entertainment as a product."
Of the casino's projected gross revenue of nearly $600 million in the first year, Lehane forecasts that $130 million will stay in the state as tax receipts, and $130 million as employee payroll. Up to $100 million will go to the tribes, depending on how the financing arrangements are negotiated with banks, Lehane said. The rest of the money would go to the developer from Las Vegas and banks.
The two tribes, which number some 5,000 on three reservations in Old Town and Washington County, are quick to rebut suggestions that much of the profits will be retained by mobster financiers long associated with the gambling industry.
"There is absolutely no evidence in Foxwoods-Mohegan Sun of mobs moving in," said Lehane. "The tribes will pay for enforcement by state police."
At the meeting, the group touted another widely reported projection of 10,000 new jobs statewide, which supporters say would supplant a hollowed-out manufacturing base, reverse layoffs and renew Maine's aging population.
But at the heart of opposition to the $650 million casino is a conflicting vision of Maine, and fears that gambling will begin an erosion of values that will eventually see seniors squandering Social Security savings and families mired in debt and crime.
Opponents include former Gov. Angus King, legislators, town councils and anti-gambling groups, including a national one headed by Illinois United Methodist Rev. Thomas Grey, who said, "this is a product that leads to addiction, bankruptcy, crime and corruption."
Douglas Muir, a retired Kittery statistician, has helped produce studies that conclude a casino would cost Maine taxpayers about $169 million a year in socioeconomic costs, exceeding the casino's projected annual revenue for the state.
It is these fears that led to at least eight southern Maine towns rejecting the idea of hosting the casino, laying a political land mine over which Loring claimed that Gov. John E. Baldacci has cynically maneuvered.
"When he first came, he was willing to listen," said Loring. "He told us in private sessions that there was nothing wrong with it." That support quickly evaporated, Loring charged, when sentiment in Cumberland and York counties swung against the casino. Loring suggested that Baldacci changed his tune to court the two southern counties' votes.
Proponents say the tribes will be vindicated if the casino proposal is approved in November. The ballot will ask voters if they want to allow the two tribes to run a casino if part of the proceeds are used for municipal revenue-sharing and education.
The authority to run the casino will have a life span of 20 years, unless jointly overturned by the state and the tribes, or by the U.S. Congress.
For now, the casino's supporters are hoping for a populist tide.
"If we win in November, it will be because there are a whole lot more employees than employers," said Tureen.
Anyone else heard the story of a woman who never handled a check book, lost her husband and went on a couple of bus trips that turned into twice a month and six figures lost in 16 months? I have and it is a sick thing to know how often this is happening. Shame on the city, county state that thinks casinos are a solution. A casino is a solution liek gay pride days are a solution. Wrong values.
A fool and his money...
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