Persuasive Speech: Tribal Gambling

Thank you madam President. I think the first thing I wanted to address, is to acknowledge the good Senator taking this bill out, and Senator Austin’s advocacy. I have great respect for their advocacy of their community, and their residents, I truly do. At the same time, I also understand and appreciate the unique collaborative relationship that the tribal gambling institutions have with the state of Connecticut. They are a part of our state, but my challenge is, that we are looking at this as an expansion beyond tribal land; and that is something that is extremely important that we have to understand. I think that what the attorney general has offered in looking at this decision, and this approach is the fact that we have made a decision to

Unfortunately, we are encountering into a mature, gambling marketplace. A mature business, in which, we maybe on a downward (cline), and I hope not a downward sharp trajectory. Because one of the biggest questions that I have, in the case we do build this one casino and the possibility of others down the street, down the road. Here is my question, what if it fails? What happens if it fails? I think that there is a cautionary tale that we all have to look to, the plate of Atlantic City. The city that when it began the foray into gambling as an economic remedy for the challenges of our ability to compete as a market place. What happens? Have we seen what happened to Atlantic City? Atlantic City had a boom in which people were building, developers were going in, there was that economic rush, but what we have seen in the past years has been a demise or a community. A demise of an economic initiative to really try to improve the lives of the people in the community. I think that is something that we have a responsibility as a legislative body to account for. That if we go down this road, and it is the wrong one, are we able to pick up the pieces of the lives