Not everyone supported gaming, but we had a general meeting and a vote on whether to pursue a casino or not and the tribe voted yes, and as a tribal representative to the state legislature, I had to represent that decision.

Not everyone supported gaming, but we had a general meeting and a vote on whether to pursue a casino or not and the tribe voted yes, and as a tribal representative to the state legislature, I had to represent that decision.

I never thought of serving as a conflict of interest, that would have been a luxury! I just needed something to survive. Initial needs have to be met first, and then later things like patriotism come in.

The Penobscot took an initial poll of people in the state to determine if there was support for opening a casino, and the poll came back very favorable. As we moved forward, a commercial was aired that said if the tribe opened a casino the law would allow kids to gamble and had an image of a kid pulling a slot machine. Here it was our idea and we got massacred, and someone else ended up with what we wanted; it's sort of like history repeating itself.