Sanford’s Struggle Fierce casino debate highlights divisions between classes, regions

loading...

Special Report Part Five

In a newspaper box near the steps of Sanford’s Town Hall, the front page of the local weekly screams, “Selectmen disagree on casino.”

Replace “Selectmen” with “Families,” “Friends” or “Neighbors” – or “Mainers” for that matter – and that headline could run anywhere in the state, where in November voters will decide whether to allow Maine’s two largest Indian tribes to open a $650 million casino resort.

Nowhere is the debate more intense than in this blue-collar southern Maine town. When residents voted last November to keep the door open to an Indian casino, they made their community ground zero for what is destined to be a bitter political battle.

A few copies of the Sanford News still are on the shelf at Babe’s Store, where 78-year-old Lionel Perreault gathers up 145 blue penny candies for a neighborhood youngster who dumps a pocketful of change on the counter next to the store’s greeter, Nosey the cat.

“Things have been slow,” Perreault said after the boy left with his friend, the store’s only paying customers during the 20-minute interview. “Things are very quiet in town. There’s nothing here.”

The little store has seen busier days, the most notable of which was when, local legend has it, a home run ball hit by slugger Babe Ruth out of nearby Goodall Park landed on the roof, thus giving the store its name.

While that story isn’t true – the store actually was named for Perreault’s father, a youngest child – there’s no denying that many customers have fallen on hard times over the years as the town’s textile and shoe industries faltered and other major employers scaled back their work forces.

The promise of 4,000 new casino jobs is appealing to many in Sanford, including Perreault, who has worked behind the counter every day – except for one week when he was in the hospital – since 1968.

“I was here when the mills closed and the kids all left,” he said. “I think [a casino] might do some good.”

Good news would be welcome in Sanford, where the 8.9 percent unemployment rate is nearly double that of surrounding York County, and the median family income is 20 percent less.

Those aren’t the only differences between Sanford and its southern Maine neighbors.

Last November, Sanford residents, in a nonbinding referendum, voted 3,838 to 3,298 in favor of being host to a casino. At the same time, 13 other York County communities, including Biddeford, another top choice of casino developers, voted against the plan.

“We just wanted to keep the door open,” said Sanford selectman Roland Cote, a retired history teacher who has been labeled pro-casino – unfairly he said – despite not taking a public stance on the issue.

“Our meetings have gotten a little heated at times … kind of Jerry Springer-style,” said Cote, 60, who predicted no less for the statewide debate.

“It’s going to get very nasty,” he said.

No love lost

It’s also going to get expensive, pundits say.

Thus far, the pro-casino political action committee Think About It has spent nearly a half-million dollars trying to convince voters that a casino is a job engine destined to bring millions of tourism dollars to the state each year. The committee’s money has come from two sources – Marnell Corrao, the Las Vegas company that would like to develop the casino, and Tom Tureen, the Indians’ lawyer.

Casinos No!, a group opposing the referendum, had raised about $135,000 through April, with much of that coming from past and present executives at L.L. Bean, the venerable outdoor outfitter.

Opponents such as L.L. Bean contend that a casino would bring increased crime, bankruptcies, traffic and a host of other social ailments, all while straining southern Maine’s already scarce work force and ruining the state’s outdoorsy image.

Much of that message has come through Casinos No! spokesman Dennis Bailey, a former aide or adviser to Gov. John Baldacci and former Gov. Angus King, both unyielding casino opponents.

Bailey’s high-profile role in the campaign draws sighs from casino backers, who are quick to point out that his company, Savvy Inc., also represents the Scotia Prince, a cruise vessel that proudly advertises its onboard casino for its voyages between Portland and Nova Scotia.

“He talks out of both sides of his mouth,” said Jay Barrett, treasurer for the Las Vegas-based developer Marnell Corrao, which has spent more than $425,000 thus far on the pro-casino campaign.

Bailey sees no conflict in representing both groups, he said, explaining that Casinos No! is against the expansion of gambling, not necessarily gambling itself.

“It’s the difference between going home after work and having a beer and going home and shooting heroin,” Bailey said. “Should we have cockfighting? Where’s the limit?”

As it stands, the limits are in the referendum language, a 12-page amendment to the 1980 Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act. Under the proposed law, the tribes could operate one casino for 20 years, unless extended through an agreement between the state and the tribes.

As part of the proposed agreement, 25 percent of the slot machine revenues would go to the state, which stands to gain in excess of $100 million each year, according to supporters’ estimates. The community chosen to be host to the casino could stand to gain $5 million in property taxes each year, those same estimates suggest.

Despite a dismal budget year in Augusta, that extra line item does not tempt Baldacci, who instead has proposed creating regional tax incentives to lure businesses to struggling areas of the state.

“It does not happen overnight,” Baldacci said in a recent telephone interview. “There is no easy money and there are no quick fixes.”

North-south split

The mention of the Bangor Democrat’s name in Sanford elicits scowls from some casino supporters.

“Oh you mean the governor of northern Maine?” said Julie Carlson, an assistant to the town administrator who serves as the town’s casino liaison. At a recent gathering of town officials, several expressed dismay that Baldacci’s tax incentive plan, combined with his unyielding anti-casino stance, appeared to favor northern Maine while denying Sanford a potential economic opportunity.

But Baldacci’s fervent opposition runs against a pronounced north-south split on the issue, as suggested by recent polls that show northern Maine voters much more likely to support the referendum question than their southern counterparts.

Republican pollster Christian Potholm, a professor of political science at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, said he had little faith in the early polls, which show statewide support for a casino with more than 60 percent of northern Mainers and half of southern Mainers in favor.

Instead, Potholm assessed the political climate statewide as a “classic 40-40-20 split,” respectively referring to the percentages for, against and undecided.

“They’re going to spend a lot of money to try to influence a relatively small number of people,” said Potholm, who is predicting one of the costliest referendums in the state’s history, at between $4 million and $5 million.

Money isn’t likely to sway 29-year-old Becky Graffam’s vote come November.

From behind the counter at Rosa’s Deli and Bakery, a popular sandwich shop in Sanford, Graffam cited concerns with increased traffic and problem gambling.

“People who get welfare will just be using their money to gamble instead of take care of their kids,” said Graffam, who embodies poll results that show men more likely to favor a casino than women.

Across town at Mulligan’s Tavern on a Monday afternoon, Christina Glaude, a 35-year-old cook from Sanford, said she was torn over the issue that has consumed the town during the past six months.

“I don’t like people being stupid enough to waste their money, but it’s their decision,” said Glaude, as her boyfriend, 34-year-old Andy Cust, a casino supporter, waited for his turn at a table in the smoky pool hall.

“You know if you work there, you and your spouse can’t gamble there,” quipped Glaude, giving Cust a little shove.

“I voted for it once [in the town’s nonbinding referendum], and I’ll do it again,” Cust’s billiards partner, 52-year-old Arthur Berube of Sanford, chimed in. “All my friends, too.”

The color of your collar

Casino supporters have defined the debate as one between wealthy coastal Maine and working-class towns such as Sanford, where vacant brick textile mills still dominate the town’s skyline.

“They don’t need it,” Sanford Selectwoman Lee Dupre, 77, said of neighboring opposition that includes wealthier villages such as Ogunquit, Alfred, Kennebunk, Kennebunkport, Saco and Wells. “Sanford does.”

Nothing in the referendum language names Sanford – or even southern Maine – as the eventual home to a casino, but the tribes have their eyes on a number of parcels near the Sanford Airport, a general aviation facility on the south end of town.

While much of the rest of southern Maine has rejected the idea of a casino, pundits say the project’s biggest hurdle will be none other than the governor’s office, which has the means and opportunity to deliver its anti-casino message to a mass audience.

Baldacci said he never has been to a casino other than on The Cat, the ferry between Bar Harbor and Nova Scotia, and he didn’t gamble there. He added he wasn’t going to oppose a casino on moral grounds as have some religious factions in the state.

“I don’t get on a soapbox and tell people what they should do,” Baldacci said. “The fight I’m waging is for more education and better jobs.”

Instead, Baldacci said he would use the anti-casino campaign as an opportunity to advance his own economic plan, which he said provides for a more balanced approach without exacerbating outmigration from Augusta north.

“I don’t want to see the state tip over,” Baldacci said of the potential for more workers to leave northern Maine for work at a casino in the already prosperous south. “We’re trying to put economic anchors in all corners of the state.”

Baldacci said his proposed Pine Tree zones would do more for economic development across the state – including its Indian reservations – than a casino, whose social and economic costs would outweigh any short-term financial benefit.

With November fast approaching, Baldacci stressed the need for patience while his economic strategies take hold.

“The only way we can do things is begin to have our actions speak louder than our words,” he said, promising major economic announcements in the weeks to come.

But for some in Sanford, time is of the essence.

“If [Baldacci] has other jobs I’d be more than willing to listen to him,” said Selectman Cote, standing on the banks of Number One Pond where the town’s vacant mills easily can be seen looming in the distance. “But I don’t see anything else coming right now.”

Saturday: Gambling on slots to help Bangor Raceway