Legislator calls for slots, now Execution of LD 1820 slower than expected

AUGUSTA – Frustrations erupted at a Governor’s Gambling Control Advisory Council meeting Thursday when a lawmaker vented his disappointment over the near certainty there will be no slot machines operating in Bangor this year.

Council members themselves insisted they were doing all that was possible to meet a Sept. 30 legislative deadline for licensing an operator for a racino at Bangor Raceway. Still, the bureaucratic crawl of the legislative process coupled with the enormity of the challenge for drawing up state rules and regulations for a fledgling gambling industry almost guarantee the council will miss the target date.

“Our boss, the governor, told us to move heaven and earth, and [just] as President Kennedy said he wanted to put a man on the moon, the governor wanted us to get this done by Sept. 30,” said Jean Deighan, a Bangor council member. “We may disappoint him.”

State Rep. Randy E. Hotham, R-Dixfield, was one of the members of the Legislature’s Legal and Veterans Affairs Committee that worked to enact the racino bill in response to last November’s statewide vote approving the legalization of limited slot machines in Maine. The legislation, LD 1820, which becomes law today, set Sept. 30 as the deadline for awarding the slot machine license to ensure the quick receipt of gambling revenues.

Under the law, the city of Bangor, the state, agricultural fairs, the harness racing industry, prescription drug programs for the elderly and scholarship funds all get a piece of the slot machine action. Hotham was clearly upset Thursday by what he perceived as an absence of urgency by some parties involved in the racino plan.

“I [envisioned] a facility in the grandstand of Bangor Historic Racetrack as an opportunity to begin the generation of income, which is lost every day that goes by without a facility running,” Hotham said. “Those are days that are lost and will never be made up.”

Penn National Gaming owns Bangor Historic Track, the private company that operates harness racing at the city-owned racetrack. During Thursday’s advisory council meeting, Steve Snyder, the company’s senior vice-president for corporate development, told the council members that, if awarded a gaming license, his company will pursue a deliberate, well-considered construction plan.

“I know the harness racing industry wants to see this tomorrow and not next year, but we feel compelled to make sure that when we open, we open with a facility that everyone in the community and harness industry and you as a board will be proud of,” Snyder said.

Snyder’s insistence on taking a measured approach to the gambling enterprise was supported by Bangor City Solicitor Norman Heitman. He sympathized with some members of the advisory council who felt they had been unfairly criticized for the perceived delay of the racino’s construction.

He also said he couldn’t understand why people wanted to suggest there has been a delay “when I haven’t seen a delay.

“People need to understand that even if you [the council] were finished today, you are not going to see a building with slot machines tomorrow,” Heitman said. “Realistically speaking, Sept. 30 or not, July 30 or not, we won’t be seeing any groundbreaking until 2005 at the earliest, despite what we all might want to see.”

Hotham countered that it was “unfortunate” that the Sept. 30 deadline for licensing was “a message that not all stakeholders have received.”

“I would remind all those who are participating in this at this point that this piece of legislation, with all due respect, was not about the city of Bangor … it was not about Penn National – it was about the people of the state of Maine, and it was so voted by the people of the state of Maine with the intent of having a facility running and the stakeholders receiving their share of the [proceeds].”

Then Hotham asked the council to pursue an approach first devised by Capital Seven, an earlier bidder for the racino franchise, which would have placed a few hundred slot machines inside the existing grandstand at Bangor Raceway as soon as possible.

“I ask Penn National, the potential licensee for the facility, as well as the city of Bangor to work expeditiously to consider this proposal that this temporary facility be put forward,” Hotham said.

Snyder said Penn National has not been able to find a location near the raceway that was conducive to the company’s needs.

“Rather than an approach that a predecessor of ours took, which would have been to put a few hundred slot machines in the grandstand, we think it more prudent and more proper to do it right the first time and that’s what we intend to do,” he said.

The five council members also are hampered in their efforts by the fact they can only act in an advisory capacity until they are approved as members of the Maine Gambling Control Board. Their appointments must first be reviewed Aug. 17 by the Legal and Veterans Affairs Committee and then moved on for confirmation by the Maine Senate a week later.

One member said time was clearly not on the council’s side to meet the Sept. 30 deadline.

“I don’t think there are physically enough days available for us to do what we are required to do given normal procedures,” Deighan said.