AUGUSTA – Supporters of a $650 million tribal casino could begin gathering petition signatures within three weeks to force a statewide referendum on the plan pending approval from the Secretary of State’s Office.

Tom Tureen, a Falmouth attorney representing the Penobscot Nation and Passamaquoddy Tribe, said Thursday that representatives of the Think About It pro-casino political action committee submitted a proposed referendum question late Tuesday afternoon to begin the citizens initiative process.

“We modeled it after the legislation that created the [Foxwoods] Connecticut casino,” Tureen said. “This is a successful model that’s been out there and is working well from a regulatory point of view.”

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Casinos No! group opposed to the initiative declared Thursday he would ask state House and Senate leaders to dissolve a special legislative panel reviewing the potential benefits and detriments casino gambling could bring to Maine. The panel is slated to hold a public hearing on the casino in Augusta on Oct. 25.

Dennis Bailey of Casinos No! was particularly upset that Donna Loring – the Penobscot tribal representative to the Legislature and the House chairwoman of the Legislature’s casino task force – was one of the signatories on the Think About It petition application.

“If there was any thought prior to Tuesday that she was going to be able to lead the task force in an objective look at this issue, it’s over now,” Bailey said. “This task force was supposed to study the issue and come up with some ideas that could be included in a bill. But now they’ve submitted the bill and she’s signed on to it. What’s the sense of holding public hearings and continuing the committee’s work on a proposal that’s already been submitted and can’t be amended?”

“Donna’s a tribal member who believes this should go to a vote of the people,” Tureen said. “You have representatives on that commission who are clearly proponents and opponents. Donna represents the Penobscot Nation and there’s no question about who her constituency is.”

The tribes’ application for a referendum consists of a 14-page proposed gaming law and a ballot question delivered in Augusta by former Gov. Kenneth Curtis, a casino proponent. Domna Giatas, a spokeswoman for the Secretary of State’s Office, said state officials would review and approve language in the proposed law. It has tentatively been titled “The Maine Tribal Gaming Act” that would actually be an amendment to the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980 under Title 30, Chapter 601 of state law. Once the tribes and the state agree on statutory language, the Secretary of State’s Office would have to approve the wording of the referendum question.

The proposal offered by the tribes asks, “Do you favor allowing the Passamaquoddy Tribe and the Penobscot Nation to own and operate a single resort casino if a portion of the gross revenue is used to fund public education and residential property tax relief?”

Giatas said the tribes would be free to begin collecting signatures for the citizens initiative as soon as the wording of the question was authorized. A citizens referendum requires a minimum number of signatures equal to 10 percent of the total votes cast in the most recent gubernatorial election. Tureen said timing of the tribes’ petition effort would tie that number to the total number of votes that will be cast Nov. 5. In 1998, 421,000 people voted in the gubernatorial election.

“We’re figuring that we’ll need about 50,000 signatures,” said Tureen, who would like to see the question placed on the November 2003 ballot.

The petition effort is expected to go forward as the 121st Maine Legislature contemplates its own bill to create a casino for the tribes somewhere in southern Maine. Although some communities such as Kittery have taken a definite negative position on the plan, Tureen said others such as Sanford and Biddeford have invited the tribes to submit their proposal.

Lawmakers would be free to pass their own bill or the tribes’ referendum proposal, which all four current gubernatorial candidates have vowed to veto. They could also defeat any proposed legislation for a casino. In that event, assuming the required number of certified voter signatures is collected, the tribes’ citizens initiative would move forward to the fall ballot next year.

Under the legislation proposed in the initiative, the tribes would hold a gaming license for 20 years. While the tribes could not bind the Legislature to give them exclusive rights to casino operations in Maine during that period, the legislation would allow the tribes to rescind any portion of their agreement for returning gaming revenues to the state if lawmakers approved the creation of a competing casino elsewhere in Maine, other than another tribal casino in Washington County.

Under the initiative, the tribes would return to the state 25 percent of all annual gross revenues that would be generated by the casino’s 4,000 slot machines. The state’s share has been estimated at between $97 million in the casino’s first year of operation and $119 million by the fifth year. Proponents claim that in addition to local property taxes that would be paid to the casino’s host community, the gambling resort would also generate an additional $11 million in sales and income taxes for the state.

The projected total of casino revenues is estimated at $727 million by the fifth year of operation.

Under the law proposed by the tribes, the Legislature would be required to reimburse state, county and local governments for all costs associated with the casino, which the tribes’ economic experts have estimated to be as high as $6 million annually. The tribes’ formula for allocating the state’s share of gaming revenue under the law stipulates that once operational and other reimbursements costs are subtracted from the state’s share of the gambling proceeds, the Legislature would be obligated to assign 50 percent of the remaining revenue for property tax relief, 40 percent for local education, 5 percent to nonprofit groups and postsecondary school scholarships, and 5 percent to the Maine State Grant Program which also provides financial assistance for higher education.