OVER the last few months, there have been polls inquiring into the interest of the CNMI population regarding casino gambling.
The Saipan Chamber of Commerce has just initiated the process a second time, and is polling their members again. Unfortunately, the board refuses to educate their members relative to the pluses and minuses of this possible approach to invigorating our economy.
My sense is that the wrong question(s) are being asked. Try these questions on for size and fit:
• Do you want better schools and better teachers for your children?
• Do you want a better medical center wherein no one needs to be referred to foreign hospitals? And, CHC has only the best physicians to treat you? And, folks come here to The CNMI for the best and the latest in medical care!
• Do you want access to more jobs and better-paying jobs?
• Would you like to see CUC privatized and lower power rates?
• Would you like to see Saipan become a true tourist destination?
• Would you like to see the roads paved and widened?
• Would you like to see your government come out of bankruptcy and begin to contribute to the Retirement Fund again?
• Would you like to live on an island wherein the morale is positive, and life is exciting?
• Would you like to live on an island wherein business wants to come here?
If you want these things, then ask yourself how that can be accomplished! Casino gambling just happens to be a means to an end!
Casino gambling is simply one way to accomplish this. Check out what it did for island economies like the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, and Macau.
Take a look at what was once the most backward state in America, Mississippi, and see how they went from last in education to close to the top. New schools, better teachers, earning higher salaries, new roads, and they recovered from Katrina much quicker than their neighbor, Louisiana. All of the positive changes that have occurred in Mississippi are a result of the revenues derived from the carefully managed casinos.
Check out what the Foxwood Casino did for Connecticut, and it is family oriented. It includes two hotels, movie theatres, restaurants, baby-sitting facilities, and stores for exciting shopping, all situated in a mall-like enclosure. And, last year, with absolutely no advertising, and no signs on the highways, Foxwood did more business than the Las Vegas strip ($6.9 billion).
Casino gambling, professionally run and professionally monitored, and these two factors are KEY, can be a huge factor here relative to turning around an economy that is in so much trouble…and, getting worse by the day.
Would you not like to pick up your morning paper and see positive headlines, and stories, rather than depressing news that is scaring people into leaving this beautiful tropical isle.
Every day people are leaving to seek their fortune elsewhere. They don’t feel there is any chance the situation will be, or can be, reversed. That is sad. And what is particularly sad about this is, it is the younger generation that is leaving. A perfect example of the infamous “brain drain” that afflicts the CNMI!
Those of us, who have reached majority age, owe our children and our grandchildren better options, and a better life.
An option to placing casinos on Saipan: build them on Tinian and then build a bridge to enjoin the economies of both islands.
Saipan has everything. We have the airport; we have the hotels, the golf courses, the restaurants, the shops. It would be all of a five minute drive, and still allow THE opportunity for jobs and a vibrant economy.
For those who proclaim that it is impossible to build such a bridge, talk to Tom Arkle. He had a group of Korean engineers on Tinian last July, look at the possibility of constructing a bridge from somewhere near PIC to Tinian, the shortest distance. After about twenty minutes of calculations, the only question was: WHO PAYS?
There is too much potential here. Float a bond, and then float a bridge.
NOW, ask yourself, BEFORE you cast a vote, whether you desire a better life for yourself and your family, your children, and their children. Get on the internet and check out what casino gambling has done for so many other depressed areas in the world. Cast an educated vote…not a guess.
Casino gambling is not the devil, incarnate! It has NOT destroyed life as we know it wherever it goes. It brings people and it brings prosperity. We can get off of our knees and stop begging the airlines to fly more planes in here. They will be begging us for more space at the airport terminal. And, my friends, that creates more revenue for the government, and, in turn, a better lifestyle for everyone on-island!
And, to top it off, remember: there are over one (1) billion people in the neighborhood! We only need a very small slice of that pie!
Successful business people have been admonishing their teams to “THINK AHEAD”. The most poignant and oldest example of that philosophy: IT WASN’T RAINING WHEN NOAH BUILT THE ARK!
For those of you who were around in the late 1960’s, Robert Kennedy, former attorney general of the United States, uttered these famous words: “SOME PEOPLE SEE THINGS AS THEY ARE AND ASK WHY? I DREAM OF THINGS AS THEY COULD BE AND ASK: WHY NOT?”
It is absolutely time for us to ask: WHY NOT! The governor has tightened the belt, and we are all suffering. It is truly the correct approach. But it is only half of the solution to the problem. The other half is to find a way to bring in additional revenue.
Casino gambling is a solution as obvious as the sad looks on all of our depressed faces!

ALAN STUART
MARKOFF, DDS, MBA
Chalan Kiya, Saipan