Casino alternative to joblessness

I have read a lot about pro- and anti-casino positions in the paper and this is what I know from experience. Sanford was a sort of mini-Silicon Valley for many years, hundreds of people had good-paying jobs and health insurance. Then the factories closed and moved overseas and those jobs were gone.

My daughter and husband took advantage of the education offered and now have respectively a degree in health care and electronics. This took them years to put them way into debt, going to school and not being able to work full time.

Not all people were able to take advantage of this offer and are still trying to get out of the hole they were dropped into.

The casino, while not my first choice, is the only game in town; no pun intended. Casinos No! has not brought forth an alternative; there is no large employer, green or otherwise, on the horizon.

I have been to Atlantic City pre-casinos. The blight talked about was there then. Only, instead of being behind casinos it was right up to the boardwalk, with tacky shops and greasy spoons from one end to the other.

They have now moved behind the casinos and are enjoying the patronage of those who step away from the boardwalk. I ate at a wonderful little Irish pub just off the boardwalk the last time I was there, on a street I would have been afraid to walk down the first time I was in Atlantic City. By the time Atlantic City went to the casinos, the boardwalk was a slum and no one went there.

I have seen the post-casino high school and only the casinos are bigger and more elaborate. It is my belief that most of the Casinos No! people are of very high moral character and/or have an income from some other source, and therefore don’t need a job.

What about the others? A casino will mean more than just gambling. There will be motels, hotels, restaurants and stores built nearby to catch the overflow from the casino, which will mean more jobs in construction, housekeeping, serving, cooking, snow-plowing and gardening.

Are our unemployed supposed to sit in their about-to-be-repossessed houses, with no presents under the tree – if they can afford to but one – and say “Well, we at least don’t have that awful casino”?

Give us an alternative to the joblessness so we can vote no. Otherwise, go back home to your monthly checks and let us survive the best way we can without your interference.

Sally Lyman is a resident of Orland.