ALL SIDES POISED FOR CITY GAMING VOTE

At the First Baptist Church in Cape Girardeau today, the Rev. John Owen will tell his 1,100-member congregation to heed Matthew's teachings about loving your neighbor as yourself. That means not seeking personal gain from your neighbor's loss.

And as stewards of the Earth, he may repeat, "It seems immoral or unethical for us to throw around money for fun when other people are starving for lack of it."

Thus will Owen and many other Cape Girardeau ministers who oppose riverboat gambling try to get out the "no" votes in Cape Girardeau's election Tuesday.

The pro-gambling student group at Southeast Missouri State University is taking a different approach: offering VCRs as prizes to the campus organizations able to collect the most "I-Voted" stickers Tuesday.

Both sides of the riverboat gambling issue agree that whichever does the best job of getting out the vote will take home the biggest prize -- whether that's a riverboat gambling casino in Cape Girardeau or a Cape Girardeau without one.

"The outcome of the election is in the hands of the undecided and in the hands of those that will and will not vote," said David Knight of the pro-gambling Yes Group.

In a June election, riverboat gambling was defeated 5,506-4,940, a 566-vote margin. The total represented about 54 percent of the city's registered voters, relatively high for a single-issue election.

The pro-gambling campaign this time has been double-pronged. The early part was carried by the Yes Group, the organization that collected enough signatures to put the question back on the ballot for the second time in five months. It has focused on jobs and revenue.

Boyd Gaming Corp. weighed back in last month with a series of ads lauding the philanthropic deeds of the company and its president, William Boyd.

Boyd says the company took this approach for a reason: "If the citizens of Cape Girardeau wanted riverboat gambling they should stand up and say so. I'm pleased that they have."

Some phone-calling and meetings have been occurring, according to a Yes Group spokesman. But both the Yes Group and the Boyd Group are depending primarily upon a formidable number of print and broadcast ads to carry their message to the electorate.

The pro-gambling Students for Progress, the campus organization sponsoring the VCR contest, existed prior to the initial campaign and didn't really take sides, said member Jessica Halter.

The organization is interested in more than just winning the riverboat gambling election, Halter said. "It is run by students to help students at Southeast get into Cape Girardeau politics."

Part of that was an on-campus voter registration drive successful enough to give the anti-gambling forces pause.

"We registered, we believe, about 750 during the three-week campaign," she said.

Those may or may not be "yes" voters, Halter said.

Yes or no, on election day the organization will run continuous shuttles from Myers and Dearmont residence halls and Towers Circle to the polls at Centenary Methodist and First Baptist churches.

The VCRs will be given to the winners of a campuswide contest between fraternities, sororities and residence halls to accumulate the highest percentage of voters.

Halter said the vote is an opportunity for students to make inroads into city politics. "Students are sometimes apathetic and don't get involved; this is their chance to change that," said Halter.

Both the Chamber of Commerce and the Convention and Visitors Bureau have continued their endorsements of riverboat gambling, which date back to the first election.

Citizens Against Riverboat Gambling, an organization given birth to last spring by the Ministerial Alliance, has been conducting a door-to-door blitz of the city's 19,000 registered voters. It also has mounted a more modest print and radio campaign.

The Rev. Charles Grant, the organization's chief spokesman, said the apathy his organization feared might materialize in the wake of the first gambling vote hasn't.

"I feel a lot of support out there for our side. Our yard signs are stuck in people's yards, in the front of their homes," he said.

"...Where do you see the `yes' signs? For the most part in public right-of-ways and windows of a few businesses. A few of them are in homes."

He said the group has handed out 600 signs. "We probably could have given out twice that many. I take that as people wanting to take their stand."

The anti-gambling side also has its campus group: Students Against Riverboat Gambling. The organization has registered a lesser number of voters than its opposite number, but has been visible in the media and through forums.

The pro-gambling side is predicting and hoping for a bigger voting turnout than last time. They're relying on the student vote, largely missing in the June election because school was not in session, and the heightened awareness of gambling advocates who stayed home last June.

No one seems sure how having another riverboat election in Scott County the same day will affect the Cape Girardeau vote.

Grant said he expects the turnout to be about equal to the June vote, and the election to be close.

By Friday, 301 absentee ballots had been received. More than 500 absentee votes were cast in the June election.

If gambling loses once again, it could not be returned to the ballot by petition for at least a year. If the pro-gambling forces prevail this time, Grant says Citizens Against Riverboat Gambling can bring the issue back for a vote "as soon as we get the petitions."