STUDENTS, FACULTY DEBATE RIVERBOAT GAMBLIING ISSUE

Student and faculty members debating riverboat gambling Wednesday night over and over gravitated to a central point: how best to enrich the lives of the citizens of Cape Girardeans.

The jobs and tax revenues that would arrive with the riverboat would be foolish to turn down, the three-person team of pro-gambling debaters said, while one opponent warned, "Think about how dependent the local economy can become on gambling."

The debate, sponsored by the Student Activities Council at Southeast Missouri State University, drew nearly 200 people to Academic Auditorium.

Cape Girardeau voters will go to the polls Nov. 2 to decide whether to allow riverboat gambling in the city. The student vote, virtually nonexistent in the last riverboat gambling election last June, is being curried by both sides this time out.

The debaters formally addressed the issues of economic development, quality of life and morality.

Student Kim Sides, representing the pro-gambling Students for Progress on campus, pointed to the higher-than-minimum wages riverboat gaming companies will be required to pay. She criticized those who charge that college students will just be taking out the trash on the riverboat.

"Who do you think takes out the trash at the university?" she asked.

On the other side of the economic question, faculty member Hamner Hill said, "Every dollar spent on that boat is a dollar that can't be spent elsewhere in the local economy."

Faculty member Mike Weatherson pointed to the economic benefits of riverboat gambling in his presentation.

The riverboat on the floodwall mural will be just a reminder of Cape Girardeau's past if Cape Girardeau turns down riverboat gambling, Weatherson said. "That memory of the past can become a vision of the future."

Chris Keck, who is president of Students Against Riverboat Gambling, questioned whether "we want to advocate a proposal that promotes the ideal of a free lunch.

"Gambling is not a financial solution. It's a social problem," he said.

Addressing the issue of crime, student Mike Stites used statistics to question whether an influx of gamblers increases crime.

"Twenty-seven hundred people (the daily projection of visitors) is less than the number of people who go through the Wal-mart on the highway every day," he said.

Scott Pittman carried the moral issue for Students Against Riverboat gambling, and said, "As a Christian, my responsibility is to be concerned with you, not just myself."

Said Weatherson, "Our moral position is that gambling is a business like anything else."

In a question after the debate, attorney Scott Reynolds asked where opposition to riverboat gambling might be found in the Bible.

"You can't serve God and Mammon both," shot back Hill.

Sides said the people in favor of riverboat gambling also want the best for their community.

"With riverboat gambling, we're not trying to get rich quick. We're trying to get people jobs," she said.

The debate was moderated by Frank Nickell of the university's Center for Regional history.