Casino bill defeat is sad news for tribe and Calais

Friday was truly a sad day for the people of Calais and the people of the Passamaquoddy tribe who had a vision of making a better life for themselves. The hopes of a casino in Calais and the dreams of what it could do for our community has been shattered by the Maine Legislature. I’m sure I speak for many of the people of Calais who were hoping for something better for our community and our families.

On our many trips to Augusta to talk to the members of the Legislature we heard many times how they felt that Calais and Washington County truly needed something but they weren’t convinced that the casino was the answer. Unfortunately, when we asked them what alternatives they had to offer they never had any specifics. We mostly heard pie in the sky answers which we have heard many times over, especially during election time, none of which ever seems to materialize. I would like to feel that even one of their pie in the sky answers would materialize but I’m sure that once this whole issue dies down Calais and Washington County will once again be forgotten and we will continue to be the most depressed county in Maine; someone has got to be.

I do not feel anger for the people of Calais who fought against the casino because they felt as strongly against it as we did for it. This, to be sure, is a victory for their cause but please don’t be fooled into thinking that it was a victory for Calais. The more I talked to the Legislature the more convinced I became that they were not very concerned with Calais but mostly concerned with themselves and how this would affect them. Some of them would not even take the time to talk to us stating that they had already made up their minds and would not hear what we had to say. I think that some of these representatives need to be reminded that they are here to represent the people and indeed the people are the ones who put them in office and likewise can choose not to put them back. Sometimes I think they may forget they are in office to serve us. … Carol Hollingdale Calais

Hearty congratulations for making the disgusting casino vote front page headline news. In so doing, and in publishing the voting record of the legislators, you are giving Mainers the opportunity to let the “winners” know that they really lost for all of us in Maine.

Whom do they think pay to support people who are jobless (and pay for the various social services necessary to deal with problems that stem from joblessness)?

I would bet that none of these marvelous intellects could find it in their lily livers to oppose the state lottery. Somehow it’s so much safer to put down (for the nth time) Maine’s original inhabitants. “Let them starve and decrease the surplus population!” — Scrooge.

May some of these shortsighted (read that “ethnocentric”) legislators be jobless after the next election. To that end, I would suggest a legal aid fund be set up for the Passamaquoddy nation. We who oppose the legislators’ destroying this opportunity for the Passamaquoddys to help themselves can contribute what we might have given to their campaign funds. Annelisa H. Randall Belfast

The rejection of the casino bill is just another inglorious chapter in the sorry history of Anglo-native relations, one which will have negative effects not only on the native community, but on the poor and middle class of Washington County as well.

In denying the Passamaquoddys the right to build and operate the casino in Calais, lawmakers have toed the racist, condescending line of knowing what is best for another people, preaching purity and morality while shrugging their shoulders in impotent dismay at the shameful numbers of native unemployment, alcoholism, and suicide. If they were truly concerned about serious inequities of reservation life they would allow the people the right to self-determination under law, and leave off the centuries-old, ineffectual habit of treating native Americans as wayward and dimwitted children.

The air of uneasiness which filtered through the halls of government before the Lands Claim Settlement Act will soon settle again on Augusta as the gullible and unsophisticated children, and their laywer, Tom Tureen, gear up for another long and bitter court battle. Joel Marino Grand Lake Stream

While the rest of the world is anxiously awaiting the arrival of the 21st century, Mainers and their Legislature are bravely marching into the 20th, waving the tattered flag of morality as they go.

The defeat of the Calais casino bill serves to reinforce the notion that Washington County is destined to remain “Appalachia North” and its inhabitants remain dependent on local, state, and federal assistance programs. Once again, imagined pristine morality wins out over harsh reality. I’d be willing to bet, if the Legislature had allowed me to, that the individual who coined the phrase “Maine, the way life should be” didn’t live in Washington County.

The decision should not have come as a surprise to the Passamaquoddy tribe either. After all, the natives have been taken by the hand and led down the garden path ever since the first European (dare I say white man?) stepped on these shores. Look at a list of federal hiring priorities for minorities and see where the native American stands on that list. (Hint: It’s not at the top.)

There should be a sign at the airports in Bangor and Portland that welcomes arrivals from the west coast: “Welcome to Maine. Please set your watch ahead three hours and back 50 years.” Clint Nash Lubec