AUGUSTA (AP) – The watch continued Wednesday for supporters and opponents of a statewide referendum on an Indian-operated racetrack casino in Washington County.

A measure calling for a November vote on the proposal was sent last Friday to Gov. John Baldacci, who vetoed a similar bill without a referendum provision and whose leanings now remain under close scrutiny.

“I’ve heard totally opposite stories,” said gaming critic Valerie Landry, a spokeswoman for Casinos NO!. “What’s a little perplexing is to know why he’s waiting.”

Baldacci had linked acceptance of the new measure to super majority thresholds of two-thirds in the Legislature. The Senate’s enactment vote was just short, 21-11.

The governor’s statement that “I don’t want to argue fractions” has left both sides claiming the legislative voting went their way.

“He said at least two-thirds,” Landry asserted.

“I understood he was satisfied with the vote, that it was a significant vote,” said a leading racino supporter in the Legislature, Rep. Frederick Moore III of the Passamaquoddy Tribe.

Moore maintained Wednesday that one way or another the project will go before voters, either this November or in November 2006, if proponents are forced to undertake a citizen initiative.

“This is going to be on the ballot,” he said. “We have made too much progress on this issue to simply go away.”

The proposed racino could be located in Calais or Machias, and would include an all-weather harness racing track, as many as 1,500 slots and possibly a high stakes bingo hall and hotel and other facilities.

The Passamaquoddy Tribe would run the horse track, and its proceeds would be distributed to Maine Indian tribes, county development programs and funds benefiting the harness racing industry and college scholarships.

State voters approved a proposal for racinos to be developed at existing harness-racing tracks in 2003.

A voter-approved racino is already under development in Bangor.

Racino proponents have noted that in 1993 when he was serving in the Maine Senate, Baldacci co-sponsored a bill to authorize the Passamaquoddy Tribe to operate a Casino on tribal land in Calais.

Baldacci says now his concerns about the social costs of gambling had grown in the intervening years.

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