Casino debate grows in urgency Sides air views at UMF event

FARMINGTON – The debate over a proposed Indian casino landed in this small college town with a sense of urgency Tuesday, with both sides aiming to sway the few remaining undecided voters and perhaps pick up the even rarer convert during the final week of the campaign.

The stakes are undeniably high in what pundits predict will be a close race despite recent polls showing casino opponents gaining momentum.

While the importance of the vote on Question 3 is not in dispute, the ultimate impact of the massive casino resort is. Depending on who’s doing the talking, it would bring either an unparalleled opportunity to a faltering state economy or social and political ills the likes of which the sheltered, outdoors-oriented state has never seen.

Strong opinions were aired at a hastily arranged debate in this western Maine town one week to the day before voters decide whether to allow the Penobscot Nation and Passamaquoddy Tribe to open a $650 million resort casino, the most likely destination for which would be the blue-collar, industrial town of Sanford.

“Things have to change in this state, whether it’s this plan or some other plan,” Erin Lehane, the high-profile spokeswoman for the pro-casino political action committee Think About It, told an estimated 100 people at Thomas Auditorium on the University of Maine at Farmington campus. “We have to send the message that Maine’s open for business.”

Despite only a few days’ notice, headliners from both sides showed up to talk to the student-heavy crowd.

For the anti-casino group CasinosNo!, that meant former gubernatorial adviser Dennis Bailey, a veteran opponent of casino gambling who spearheaded the 2000 campaign to defeat a plan to place slot machines at Scarborough Downs.

“If this were all about jobs and the economic future of Maine, do you really think we’d get all these people in one place against this?” Bailey asked, rattling off a list of opponents including three governors – two former and one present – dozens of business groups and the editorial pages of virtually every major newspaper in the state.

“It’s not former governors or groups that are going to decide this,” Lehane later shot back, repeating the findings of a study that predicts $100 million in much-needed revenue going to the state every year from the 25 percent gaming tax that would be levied on the slot machines at the facility. “It’s every Maine voter. That’s the power of a referendum.”

The UMF event, organized by the student political science club, served as a precursor to tonight’s final televised debate, which will air locally at 7 p.m. on WLBZ 2.

Absent from Wednesday’s televised debate will be Bailey, the rumpled ex-press secretary for former Gov. Angus King, one of the two past governors (John McKernan being the other) opposed to the project. Instead, Bailey, as has been the case with past televised debates, will be replaced by former Labor Commissioner Val Landry, who Bailey said had a “better television presence.”

“I frighten the children,” quipped the typically caustic Bailey, who on Tuesday drew laughs from the college crowd with his self-deprecating humor and by using such lines as “Let’s talk about addiction, one of my favorite topics.”

Tuesday’s debate was typical of past debates between Lehane, a Portland lawyer, and Bailey, at times pointed, at times reminiscent of a comedy duo. But, regardless of the tenor, the issues were real, with the two each armed with studies backing their positions sparring over seemingly unresolvable disagreements over the proliferation of crime around a casino and whether problem gambling increases once a casino opens.

Last week, across campus, professor Jim Melcher’s public policy class full of the age group that polls suggest most strongly favors a casino had its own debate on the issue. When all was said and done, nine students favored a casino. Eight were opposed.

John Merrill, 21, was one member of that slight minority after the classroom debate, in which classmate Ryan Campbell, 20, of Skowhegan argued in favor of the casino, the benefits of which Campbell later said could help turn around the state’s well-documented economic decline.

“It will do a lot for Maine,” said Campbell, quick to recite the now familiar statistic that 85 percent of the revenue would come from out of state, bringing with it a new infusion of tourism dollars.

But before the Tuesday debate between Lehane and Bailey, Merrill, an Augusta native, remained unconvinced.

“I’m sure it will bring in some money, but it’s not going to help my town,” Merrill said Tuesday after Melcher’s lively class, a discussion of why there appears to be more public support for slot machines at harness racing tracks than for a full-fledged casino. “What if people decide to go to the casino instead of, say, the Maine State Museum? We need those people.”

Recent polls show support slipping for the casino, which at its peak enjoyed a 20 percentage point advantage over the opposition. A Survey USA survey conducted for WCSH 6 and WLBZ 2 released last week showed that opponents had surged in the polls, with 57 percent opposed and 41 percent in favor with just 2 percent undecided.