Maine ballot news
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| Three Ski Areas Oppose Casino
The Associated Press October 9, 2008[1]
Sunday River, Sugarloaf and Saddleback ski resorts are joining the effort to defeat Question 2, saying that they want to keep Maine's outddoors "family friendly".
Pat LaMarche, casino campaign spokeswoman, said:
...the ski resorts are opposed to the casino because its higher wages would siphon away ski resort workers. They're going to make a financial contribution to keep Mainers from having good jobs. Shame on them."
Dana Bullen, general manager of Sunday River, in a memo to workers said:
"Maine is known for its rugged outdoor image, uncompromised natural beauty, family-friendly environment and Yankee originality. There is a stark contrast between these attributes, for which Maine is known, and those associated with casino gambling."
In a report by Clyde W. Barrow, director of the Center for Policy Analysis at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, he states that 1,277 jobs would be created during the construction phase, while the casino would employ 907 people when the casino was completed. There would be another 592 jobs created by casino workers' spending, and the state would receive $69 million in gambling revenue.
The Olympia Group, the Las Vegas developer that wants to build the casino, says that the resort casino would pay 68 percent more than the statewide average for Maine's hotel and accommodations sector.
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| House District 142: Candidates Split Over Casino And Dirigo
Portland Press Herald, Beth Quimby, Staff Writer October 8, 2008 [2]
A former Republican state representative, Robert Carr, and an incumbent Democrat Andrea Boland, are competing in the Nov. 4 race for the state House District 142 seat, which includes part of Sanford.
Carr said he supports Question 2 which would allow a private company to run a casino in Oxford County. He also supported the 2003 casino referendum that would have allowed a tribal-run casino for Sanford.
Boland opposes all gambling in Maine. She said casinos and other gambling operations ship money out of state. Boland also said she supports the tax on beer, wine and soda to help pay for the Dirigo Health program. She said the tax will discourage people from buying sugary drinks. "Sugar is killing our kids."
Carr is against the beer, wine and soda tax, calling it a last minute back door deal.
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| State Rep. Rich Cebra (R-Naples) Weighs in Against Dirigo Tax
AsMaineGoes, Rep. Rich Cebra, Mon, 6 Oct 2008 [3]
Representative Cebra says that after four years of Dirigo, the program has met only 10% of it's goals at a cost of over $100 million to the taxpayers. Instead of providing affordable health insurance to an estimated 130,000 Mainers without insurance, it has covered on ly 11,000 many of whom already had insurance.
"This tax is a bad deal for the citizens of Maine on all levels. Make no mistake – this people’s veto is a popular revolt against Augusta’s Democratic Party elites, and it is high time that the taxpayers of Maine stood their ground. "
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| Candidates Square Off On Dirigo
Portland Press Herald, Ann S. Kim, Staff Writer October 6, 2008[4]
Republican Kristi Bryant is running against incumbent Democratic state Sen. Nancy Sullivan in District 4 - Arundel, Kennebunk, Kennebunkport and part of Biddeford.
Republican Kristi Bryant is trying to unseat Democratic state Sen. Nancy Sullivan in the race for the Maine Senate District 4 seat, which represents Arundel, Kennebunk, Kennebunkport and part of Biddeford.
Sullivan, is the co-chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Insurance and Financial Services. She supports the Beverage tax to fund Dirigo, saying that the alternative would be a cigarette tax, and that some new tax needs to be enacted to keep the program going.
Bryant believes that state spending is already out of control, and that lowering taxes and regulation would create more competition in the insurance industry. She thinks that more legislation to fund a failing program should be a last resort.
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| Vote Yes on Question 1
Portland Press Herald, October 5, 2008 [5]
"The pending beverage tax is a relatively small issue, but the underlying law is bad policy."
The Portland Press Herald in an October 5th editorial, says that while the pending tax on soda, beer and wine that is the subject of Question 1 on the November ballot won’t cause businesses to fail or taxpayers to go bankrupt, the legislation itself is badly flawed. For that reason they advised voting "Yes" to the veto.
They find fault with the current funding mechanism also, saying that the original plan was to find savings within the system and use that savings ton fund the Dirigo Plan. But Dirigo hasn’t produced as much savings as hoped for, and it has been hard to document what savings there have been. They contend that pumping new money into the program simply adds to an already inflated health-care bill for the state.
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