A meeting took place recently in Bangor between officials of Penn National Gaming and the City Council. Penn National, as many of you may know, is now purchasing Bangor Historic Raceway in its dogged attempt to introduce Las Vegas style slots to Maine.

Mr. Kevin DeSanctis, the president of that company, made a sales pitch to the Bangor city councilors not unlike the one Peter Carlino, their CEO, gave earlier in Saco and Westbrook. He promised they’d be good corporate citizens. He promised good paying jobs and that they’d be spending even more money than Shawn Scott would have. He promised help with the city’s tax problems. And, as usual, he made the outrageous claim that crime would go down rather than up.

However, in Bangor, he apparently dropped his guard momentarily and let it be known that he did not approve of the governor’s efforts to establish a separate regulatory authority to supervise all forms of gambling in the state.

I find such a cavalier attitude toward the governor’s efforts disturbing. Mr. DeSanctis’ remarks could possibly indicate that he does not yet know that, only a few days earlier, 12 of his employees at the Casino Rouge operation in Louisiana were indicted for skimming from slots. Another more likely possibility is that DeSanctis had that information, but simply chose not to mention it. Either way, it does not bode well for Bangor citizens or the rest of the state either.

Fred Kilfoil, Scarborough