PORTLAND, Maine – The Passamaquoddy Tribe has launched its ”Yes on 1” campaign to gather support for its racino initiative, which residents will vote on at a referendum Nov. 6.
Question 1 will ask voters: ”Do you want to allow a Maine tribe to run a harness racing track with slot machines and high-stakes bingo games in Washington County?”
Tribal leaders Chief Rick Doyle and Gov. William Nicholas, who head the Passamaquoddy communities at Sipayik and Motahkokmikuk, respectively, held a one-day call-in center Sept. 26 for members of the media to speak with them and with Republican state Sen. Kevin Raye, an ardent supporter of the tribe and its racino plans.
The tribe plans to build and operate a commercial harness racing track with 500 to 1,500 machines and high-stakes bingo, a hotel and a conference center, with the potential of building out the facility to include other destination amenities.
The racino will be built on approximately 300 acres of fee land in Calais in the tribe’s ancestral homelands that now borders Canada.
”We’re going to make a grass-roots effort to go and speak to as many people in as many places as we possibly can to get the word out about the Washington County racino and its benefits,” Nicholas said.
The racino’s top benefit will be the creation of hundreds of year-round jobs, Doyle said.
”The tribe has been diligent in going forward with this effort because we firmly believe this effort will benefit the people of Washington County, the tribe and also the state of Maine,” Doyle said.
Both the state House and Senate approved a bill last spring to allow the tribe to bring slot machines to Washington County, Maine’s poorest area, whose unemployment rate hovers around 50 percent. Minutes after the April 26 Senate vote, Gov. John Baldacci vetoed the bill as he had promised.
It was the third time Baldacci vetoed a tribal gaming initiative, Raye said.
”I’m strongly supportive of the Washington County racino, and in my position in the state Senate over the past three years, I’ve advocated very aggressively for its passage and we actually succeeded with excellent votes of support in the Legislature three times, which were vetoed by Gov. Baldacci,” Raye said.
Because the bill had emerged from a citizens’ petition with 50,000 signatures, however, the proposal was brought forward to November’s referendum, Raye said.
The tribe has been trying to open a gaming facility for at least 15 years. In 2003, Maine voters rejected a tribal casino in southern Maine by a vote of 2 – 1 while approving a non-Native racino in Bangor. The facility – Hollywood Slots – last year gave 39 percent of its $37 million in net revenues to the state and local funds.
But public opinion is turning in favor of the Passamaquoddy Tribe. In a poll last November, nearly 60 percent of respondents opposed banning slot machines, and recent editorials in Maine newspapers that once opposed tribal gaming now support it, reflecting an acceptance by residents.
Dennis Bailey of Casinos No, who led the opposition to the casino effort in 2003, could not be reached for comment by press time. Last spring, however, Bailey told Indian Country Today he would mount an opposition campaign if the tribe’s racino issue went to a vote.
Raye said support for the tribe’s racino is based on economics and fairness.
”I think the issues at the forefront of legislators’ minds; and certainly in the debate that we held in the Legislature, was the economy of Washington County, which has been Maine’s most economically disadvantaged county for many years, and on the issue of fairness to Maine’s Native peoples and to the people of Washington County,” Raye said.
The tribe has agreed to turn over at least 41 percent of its racino revenues to the state with special set-asides for health, education and agriculture.
As for fairness, it was the Passamaquoddy Tribe that brought the issue of gaming to Maine about a decade and a half ago, Raye noted.
”So it’s been a long, difficult struggle to this point to be this close to bringing it to fruition; and while all those years have passed, Maine does have a racino, but – lo and behold! – the very people who introduced the whole concept to Maine do not have a racino,” Raye said.
The existence of Bangor’s Hollywood Slots has actually helped forward the Passamaquoddy’s effort, Raye said.
”It’s difficult for opponents to justify a racino in one part of the state that’s owned by an out-of-state entity where much of the profit leaves the state, while arguing against a locally owned racino in another part of the state where the economy demonstrates a need for development,” he said, noting that it was also noteworthy that all the fears and doubts that were planted by opponents about increased crime and other problems have not come to fruition.
”The worst problems the Bangor racino has had in terms of crime are parking lot infractions, and it has yielded a tremendous economic benefit to the city of Bangor. We know the promise is there for it to do the same thing in Washington County,” Raye said.
For more information, visit www.yesfor1.com.
