Kentucky

Today's Courier Journal had two interesting stories on the right side of the front page this Sunday with one above the fold and the other below the fold.  The "top" story was about the Indiana federal credit union teller who stole $7 million to lose in the casinos; the "bottom" story was about the opposition to casino gambling in Kentucky.

Again, the issue is complex, and you can almost feel the political wheels churning in Frankfort on this issue and what will be given to get what they want. 

Do not forget that a legislative vote to place the casino issue as a constitutional amendment on the ballot is not the same as the vote thereafter to approve casino gambling. 

Issue one is should the governor who pushed the issue as a plank in his election campaign and which presumably was one of the reasons an overwhelming majority put him in office be given the chance to fulfill his promise to the voters to allow the voters an "up or down" vote on the issue?

Issue two is should the state permit casino gambling?

Oddly enough, many who are against casino gambling in the state believe the state should at least vote on the issue.  Unfortunately, more is involved than just up or down on casino gambling.  Bob Hill had a story, almost tongue in cheek (but I am not sure), which suggests the state run the casinos and pocket ALL the profits directly rather than just the taxes? 

Maybe, just maybe, the issues need to be examined a little more closely and permitted to season a little longer on the backburners of the legislature and the voters' minds, rather than rush to push something through in a sixty-day session.

And, remember how the lottery was designed to further education in the state?  Did it?

However, the following stories from two separate writers at the Courier Journal bring out some valid points to ponder in this perplexing political problem.

• The teller who allegedly stole $7million by Grace Schneider, CJ
  

  For almost four years, Patricia Helen Sherman hid stacks of $100 bills in her pockets and carried them out of the Obelisk Federal Credit Union in New Albany, Ind., where she worked as head teller, federal investigators say.

  Sherman, 50, of Louisville, eventually took $7 million -- an average of $152,454 a month -- and gambled most of it away at Ohio River casinos, authorities said when they charged her with embezzlement in U.S. District Court last fall. * * *

• Religious leaders unite to fight casino plan  by Peter Smith, CJ
  Gov. Steve Beshear's bid to bring casino gambling to Kentucky has made for strange pew-fellows. Every major religious advocacy group has united in opposition -- Catholic and Protestant, black and white, conservatives who view gambling as a destructive personal sin and liberals who see an industry that preys on the poor.

And, for a WAVE3 story by Mark Schnyder on a move to at least get a vote on the topic:

Group to state lawmakers: 'Let us vote'

It's a heated debate when it comes to allowing casinos in Kentucky. But people at odds over building them often agree about voting on them. For some, that's all they care about -- an up or down vote. WAVE 3's Mark Schnyder talked to a group in Elizabethtown and joins us now with the reasoning behind their mission.