A Casino in Oxford County?

Rumford attorney Seth Carey has one thing right. The manufacturing jobs that sustained Oxford County in the 20th century are not coming back. By the end of next week we will know the precise number in the latest round of layoffs at the NewPage coated-paper mill, a number that may approach 5% of the mill's workforce. Sure, the mill is doing great, making more paper with fewer workers and less pollution than ever before. But a good chunk of that cash flow is going to service corporate debt. Less is coming back to the community as wages.

So the region needs to diversify its economy, and Mr. Carey sees a casino as one way to do that. He has urged the River Valley Growth Council to support his endeavor, but directors have been hesitant. Some have a personal aversion to gambling; others point to the lack of a solid business plan. Most would prefer an enterprise that would actually create value by making something over one that would merely shuffle currency from one pocket to another.

With Mr. Carey's casino bill now on the November ballot, there will be heated debate in which each side will accuse the other of hypocrisy. Casino proponents are justified in pointing fingers at the State, which operates a lottery on the one hand while strictly regulating other forms of gambling on the other. But the Carey bill, as presently crafted, will also simultaneously promote and restrict gambling. If voters give the go-ahead, a casino will be allowed in Oxford County and nowhere else in Maine. One can hardly imagine the disgust that such an outcome would arouse in the Passamaquoddies, whose campaign for a racino in Washington County was shot down last November.

Mr. Carey wants a state-chartered monopoly, a cozy arrangement at odds with his otherwise consistent advocacy for openness and accountability in government at all levels. He would be creating his very own special interest. A more forthright initiative would be one that opens the entire state to gambling, individual projects subject to local approval. Period.

[update, March 4:]
As long as we are talking about gambling, how about the bill offered by Rumford's own John Patrick (with the Governor's blessing) to collect an annual $30 licensing fee from nonprofits that run pay-to-play cribbage tournaments. Testifying yesterday before the Legal and Veterans Affairs Committee, Patrick commented, "Thirty dollars for a year, that's insignificant." Right, so why bother? Maine cedes the moral high ground when it insists on a piece of the action. Patrick, incidentally, sponsored the Carey bill during the 2007 Legislative Session.