Bangor again missed harness racing’s boat

The Monday night vote by the Bangor City Council to kill harness racing at Bangor Raceway was certainly a shocker and impacts on the entire industry in Maine and eastern Canada.

The council’s order to accept a proposal by Fred Nichols, an Orono businessman and entrepreneur, to lease the race track only for harness racing with a multi-year renewal clause never reached the negotiation stage with the city’s staff. It was the third time in seven years that Bangor has missed the boat to privatize Bangor Raceway.

Nichols’ proposal was sincere, honest and fair. He told council members, “you’re looking for privatization. Give me a chance. Let private money try.” What did the city have to lose? Certainly not the $160,000 it lost in 1992 with the Ed Barrett appointee Kurt Rogerson at the helm.

Nichols, however, met all of the requirements the city set forth for private operation of the raceway. His proposal was complete, and he had operating money pledged from 10 local businessmen. He agreed to a program of regular maintenance, offered a $7,500 rental fee for the first year of operation and an increase in rental fees if his group was successful and made money. All this with no cost to Bangor taxpayers.

He would also absorb all operational costs and an end-of-the-season grounds inspection for any damage that might have occured during the meet. But the council, on the staff’s recommendation, turned down his proposal by a 7-2 vote.

Is harness racing the dinosaur that some have suggested it is and part of the past, not the future? Perhaps. But if private money wants an opportunity to operate “just the race meet,” then the city isn’t needed to protect private investors from making a mistake.

That’s the way free enterprise works.

“You bet your money and you take your chances” as opposed to “you bet the taxpayers money and let them take the chances.”

Perhaps another factor that the city-operated race track feared was the possibility that private money would make a profit where the city hasn’t during the past few years. It certainly would make Bangor Raceway’s management look inept. Ask any former private operator of Bangor Raceway. Alan Mollison of Belfast made money as did Sam Michaels of Lewiston and Tom Mourkas of Bangor.

Unfortunately, Charlie Day of Lewiston, who offered $600 rental each racing night and $250,000 in repairs over five years, and Larry Mahaney of Bangor were not afforded an opportunity to lease the Bangor track.

So what went wrong on the way to the bargaining table?

Theorize all you want, but, in fact, the city wanted to wipe out its entire annual fixed operating costs of $60,000. That could be done, but the city made some bad decisions.

Those fixed costs represent approximately $30,000 to $35,000 in salaries transferred for the 10 to 12 weeks during the summer racing season from the Bangor Auditorium and Civic Center and about $10,000 to operate the winter barns. The city would have received approximately $16,000 in fair stipend money from the state for racing the first three days of its annual fair, but it was decided not to race those days.

Under Nichols’ proposal, the salaries would have been eliminated. The barn expense would have disappeared, and, with a state stipend of approximately $16,000 generated from racing, the city would have broken even on fixed operating costs. Wasn’t that basis enough for negotiations?

In Monday’s workshop before the council meeting, Mike Dyer, general manager of Bass Park, answered Councilor Richard Stone’s question as to how much money the city would save in salaries by accepting Nichols’ proposal. “There would be none,” Dyer said. He told Stone that the salaries now charged to harness racing, including his own, have been allocated to other areas.

Unfortunately, the city’s refusal to accept Nichols’ proposal now places the entire $60,000 yearly operating costs right back on Bangor taxpayers. It’s still business as usual.

A portion of the $1.5 million generated by the parimutuel handle at Bangor Raceway has supported the operation and administration of the Maine State Harness Racing Commission, The Maine State Breeders Program, all 24 of Maine’s agricultural fairs, The Maine Harness Horsemen’s Organization and the state’s General Fund. That money is gone forever.

Promoting racing this year in Bangor was a disaster. There was no television advertising, sparce newspaper ads and some radio ads. There were no city-sponsored promotions. The three special Sunday promotions by volunteers not connected with the raceway – Stanley Dancer Day, Shrine Sunday and CanAm Challenge ’93 – pushed the Sunday handles up more than $20,000 for each event. This sort of promotion was a big part of Nichols’ plans for the raceway.

The council’s decision has immediate and long-term consequences for this area. The greatest is the loss of more than 150 part-time, race-related summer jobs and the loss of income from owners who stable horses at Bass Park for an entire season to restaurants, motels, shopping malls, gas stations and feed stores.

Clayton Smith of Cumberland, racing consultant for this year’s extended Bangor meet, said this week that Bangor kept two sets of operating figures during the meet for comparison purposes.

“If you take the city’s figures, we lost money,” Smith said, “but if you take the pure racing costs and eliminate the items that belong to the city but were charged to harness racing, we made some money in 1993 at Bangor.”

Smith, who also serves as racing consultant and race secretary at five other Maine tracks, said Bangor’s decision would hurt the fairs’ ability to recruit horses.

“Horses usually prep at the Bangor meet and then traditionally follow the fair circuit after the Bangor meet ends,” Smith said. “With no Bangor meet in 1994 and no Canadian stables here, it will be very difficult to get horses to begin the fair circuit at both Skowhegan and Presque Isle.”