A FAIR HEARING

The Passamaquoddy and Penobscot tribes are developing a new casino proposal. The Passamaquoddy representative to the Legislature, Donald Soctomah, says the tribes soon will present lawmakers with a complete and factual description of the proposal. Sen. Ken Lemont of Kittery, the likely site of the casino, says he looks forward to an informed debate. Senate President Pro Tem Michael Michaud says the request for after-deadline legislation necessary to begin that debate will be listened to with open minds.

Gov. King says he’s opposed. Opposed to gambling. Opposed to casinos. Opposed, apparently, to giving this proposal even a hearing.

The governor is entitled to his personal views regarding gambling. There is, however, a point at which, even for governors, personal views should be secondary to the broad issues of public policy. That point is best affixed after the facts are known.

Instead, the governor jumped on the proposal with the full force of gut reaction. He thinks casinos take money out of the pockets of local people, despite the evidence to the contrary from the tourism industry elsewhere. He dismissed this particular type of resort as not being true economic development without elaborating on why one form of creating jobs and revenue is inferior to others. He alleged that casinos bring corruption but offered nothing to back it up. His statement, “I don’t care what anybody says, when you have that much cash, it’s not healthy,” is both close-minded and incomprehensible.

If Maine were a pristine, gambling-free state, a proposal to establish a casino would be a huge step. With a lottery, dozens of scratch-ticket instant win games and pari-mutuel betting on horse racing, Maine can hardly view itself as unsullied. The governor’s alarm on this matter is premature.

The decision on whether to permit casino gambling is one any state must make carefully. There are issues of peripheral illicit activity to address, the revenue stream must be tracked by scrupulous accounting, the additional public costs in everything from traffic management to legal oversight must be fully reimbursed, measures to prevent a harmless recreational pursuit from turning into a social scourge must be implemented. Other places, such as Foxwoods in Connecticut, seem to have done this. Maine may be able to do the same. More importantly, there is no reason Maine should conclude it cannot do the same without first giving the matter full and informed consideration.