New documents filed with a state ethics panel provide an inside look at a rushed, expensive and ultimately unsuccessful campaign by a developer to get a new casino in southern Maine.

The effort was funded with more than $2 million by the sister of Las Vegas casino developer Shawn Scott, who would have had the only opportunity for the license under the proposed referendum question.

Signature-gathering to get on the ballot ramped up in December 2015, just over a month before more than 61,000 signatures were due. Those efforts led to complaints of misleading tactics and allegations of nonpayment.

Organizers submitted over 91,000 signatures, but more than half were rejected by Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap. His decision to keep the question off the ballot was upheld by a state judge.

The campaign, which hasn’t granted media interviews, has not stated if it will try again in 2017, but its ballot question committee is still active, with nearly $681,000 in its coffers as of May’s end.

A complaint to the Maine Ethics Commission about that committee, Horseracing Jobs Fairness, provides insight in to just how messy this campaign was.

The complaint came from Hiram Asmuth, owner of Encore Political Services, an Oregon company that was hired by Silver Bullet, a Wyoming contractor, to run a signature-gathering office in Portland for the campaign. Among other things, Asmuth alleges that the campaign owes his company nearly $300,000 in reimbursements.

Olympic Consulting, headed by Stavros Mendros, former Republican state lawmaker and Lewiston city councilor, was the other company paid by the Horseracing Jobs Fairness campaign to gather signatures in Maine. Signature gatherers hired by Olympic also complained about not getting paid.

The commission is unlikely to weigh in on the complaint, which Executive Director Jonathan Wayne called a byproduct of “finger-pointing.”

In an advisory letter to commissioners, Wayne said, “it appears that communications” between the committee and consultants “have broken down” and advised against an investigation. His office only has jurisdiction over the accuracy of campaign finance reports and not over issues of potential nonpayment.

The response from Bruce Merrill, a Portland lawyer who represents Horseracing Jobs Fairness, rejected Asmuth’s allegations and provided more clarification on the rushed nature of the campaign.

Merrill wrote that Silver Bullet was hired under a December 2015 contract to employ three independent contractors, including Encore and Lewiston-based Olympic Consulting, to gather signatures at a 70 percent validity rate.

Payments were usually routed through Silver Bullet to those companies, but by mid-January, “the three teams were spending more on expenditures faster than (Silver Bullet) could reimburse them,” so the campaign reimbursed them directly.

Other than that, Merrill said payment issues were between Silver Bullet and the subcontractors. He also stated that the committee is “unable to accurately determine whether” Silver Bullet and the “subcontractors furthered the goal” of getting on the ballot.

The ethics panel will review this on June 29. 

Request for Investigation of Horseracing Jobs Fairness BQC by sunjournal

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