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Sunday, September 14, 2003
The struggle to stay home
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Also on this page: The Passamaquoddies | |||||||||||||||||||||
PLEASANT POINT - Kim Dominguez has years of work experience, good references and a car to get her to and from work. But after two months of handing out resumes from Machias to Bangor, she has no job. Dominguez is 28, unemployed and shares an apartment on the state's poorest American Indian reservation with her mother. The apartment overlooks Passamaquoddy Bay and the breathtaking sunrises that make the rundown reservation glow each morning. Dominguez would prefer a paycheck to a view. "It's depressing here. There's no jobs. This place, there's nothing here," she said. The Passamaquoddy Tribe wants to keep members such as Dominguez from moving off its reservations. The task is daunting. The tribe believes a new casino will help. The two reservations in Washington County, where 1,300 Passamaquoddies live, have a jobless rate of 15 percent. That's twice as high as other residents of what is one of Maine's poorest counties. Passamaquoddies on the reservations are four times as likely to be jobless than Mainers as a whole. And those with jobs have lower per-capita incomes than other workers throughout the county and state. It's gotten to the point where tribal members have two choices: Move off the reservation to a better job market or stay and live in poverty. It's more of a Catch-22 than a choice, said Pleasant Point Gov. Melvin Francis. "Do you call that a choice? To move away from your elders, your language? These are some of the things that make kids proud, give them status. We must find a way to keep them here," he said. The Passamaquoddy Tribe believes a solution lies hundreds of miles away in southern Maine. It is teaming up with the Penobscot Nation in an attempt to build a $650 million casino and resort in Sanford. The tribes are asking state voters to approve a referendum question Nov. 4 that asks: "Do you want to allow a casino to be run by the Passamaquoddy Tribe and Penobscot Nation if part of the revenue is used for state education and municipal revenue sharing?" Yet if the project becomes a reality, the tribes do not expect to send hundreds of members to accept the jobs a casino would create. Instead, they hope to use a portion of the casino profits to launch new businesses in Washington County, creating work opportunities closer to home. "My priority is job creation here within the tribe, so the people will be accessible to the language, to the culture," Francis said. That won't be easy. Washington County's location at the eastern edge of the state and its rural nature make it challenging to attract major employers, said Galen Rose, an economist at the Maine State Planning Office. The county's population of 33,400 is half the size of the Portland. "People are spread out a lot there, and that kind of limits what you can do. You can't put a big factory where there aren't many people," Rose said. But a private, nonprofit group that focuses on job creation in Washington County said there are untapped economic opportunities in the areas of tourism, natural resources and technology. Dianne Tiltman, executive director of the Sunrise County Economic Council in Machias, said even simple steps could result in big payoffs. For example, companies interested in locating in Washington County often can't find a modern commercial building to rent or lease, she said. "A lot of times, there just isn't a developer or development corporation with deep enough pockets to put one up and lease it themselves," Tiltman said. Long-range investments could involve developing the deep-water port in Eastport and bringing freight rail back to the region. "There are a lot more opportunities in Washington County than people think," she said. Until the opportunities become a reality, reservation residents gradually will head south for jobs, putting the preservation of the tribal language and culture at risk, said tribal elder Joseph Nicholas. An exodus of tribal members during World War II drained the reservations of native speakers and craftspeople, he said. Nicholas does not begrudge members who chose to raise families in places where they could find jobs and live in insulated homes. But many of those families did not speak Passamaquoddy off-reservation, and their children did not learn it in school. A way of life is somewhat threatened. There are about 500 tribal members who speak Passamaquoddy fluently, and they are split between the two reservations. David Moses Bridges is one of them. He moved back to Pleasant Point in 1992 at the age of 30 after spending years in Portland, California, Wisconsin and Alaska. His grandmother taught him to weave brown ash baskets before she died, but he had to study pieces in museums to learn to make traditional fancy baskets. He also learned to make birch bark canoes, a tradition that nearly died out with his grandfather's generation, Bridges said. Bridges learned to read and write Passamaquoddy as an adult, and is now trying to better his speaking skills. He knows he could make more money living off the reservation, but wants to see his son Tobias grow up learning the Passamaquoddy language, crafts and spending time with his relatives. "Better jobs are far, far away. I want to be here to see my boy running around with his cousins. That's a great thing," Bridges said. The outcome of November's vote has implications far beyond the coastal borders of the Passamaquoddy's Pleasant Point reservation in Perry, its forested Indian Township reservation near Princeton, and the Penobscot's Indian Island reservation in the Penobscot River. Consider Sanford, for starters. A Passamaquoddy-Penobscot corporation already has paid money to take an option on 360 acres in Sanford, a former mill town struggling to rebound from layoffs and business closures. A luxury resort and casino would make Sanford a major player in the state's tourism industry, and add an estimated $5 million a year in new property tax revenue. But project critics say the hotel and restaurants at the resort would have an unfair advantage against existing tourism businesses because of casino subsidies. Critics also predict the casino would strain social services ill-equipped to deal with problem gamblers, cause more crime, and bog down court dockets. Other questions include how much of the state's share of slot-machine revenues would there be after casino-related costs are covered in southern Maine, and how the 21,000 visitors projected to come to the casino each day would affect local roads. But the tribes say the entire state will end up benefiting from the project. The gaming act accompanying the referendum question would require the tribes to share 25 percent of slot-machine revenues with the state. An economic study performed for the tribes projects the state would collect more than $100 million annually in slot machine revenue. The tribes would receive $50 million in the casino's first year of operation. If the study is right, the project would create more than 2,000 construction jobs each of the the two years it would take to build the resort. Once opened, it would employ 4,000 people through the casino, hotel and restaurants. The estimated average salary at the resort is $31,000 a year, plus benefits. That's more than triple the per-person income at Pleasant Point of $9,000. The tribes are not the only ones depending on a victory in November. There are labor unions backing the project in the hopes of new construction jobs for members. There is Las Vegas casino developer Marnell Corrao, which has invested more than $1million in the campaign to win over state voters. And there are political consultants from California to Washington, D.C., to Maine who could use a victory here as a steppingstone to lucrative contracts with other American Indian tribes entering the gambling market. Campaign commercials, pro- and anti-casino displays at state fairs, and debates at community functions kept the referendum campaign alive this summer. But the campaign barely registered a mention on the Pleasant Point reservation, where casual conversation focused on family, the weather and jobs. Employment was on the minds of the Passamaquoddy high school seniors and their families as they graduated from Eastport's Shead High School last June. Wearing her cap and gown in the high school lobby, Jacke Hicks said she hoped to find work and save money before attending nursing school. "I don't know where I'll be," she said as she accepted graduation cards and hugs. Hicks could not find work close to home during the summer. She moved five hours away, to Portland, for a job at an answering service, said her mother, Mary Sharon Nicholas. Nicholas' other daughter, Jessica Hicks, who also graduated from high school in June, is scheduled to join Jacke next month, she said. Nicholas said the departure of her daughters drives home to her why tribal officials want to use casino profits to create jobs in the area. "There's not enough jobs around here. That's why they move and why my children aren't living with me for the first time in their lives," Nicholas said. The unemployment rate on both Passamaquoddy reservations is 15 percent, according to U.S. Census information. Washington County posted the highest unemployment rate of any Maine county in July, at 7.6 percent. The statewide average at the time was 4.9 percent. Many of the members who stay on the reservation find seasonal work in the county's plentiful blueberry barrens, cutting timber in its forests, or fishing in tribal or state waters. Russell Beale no longer lives on the reservation, but stayed in the area after graduating from high school. He fishes or drags for sea urchins in the winter, and digs the tribal clam flats in the summer. Most of his friends from school moved away to attend college or work at companies in southern Maine, Beale said. But Beale likes working outdoors and being his own boss. "Not everybody likes it. It's hard, it's messy, there's a lot of laws, things you can and can't do," he said. Beale makes about $100 in three to four hours of clamming on a good day. But it's hard work that comes with aches, pains, bugs and wind. Other seasonal jobs include blueberry raking at the tribe-owned Northeast Blueberry Co. in Columbia Falls, cutting pine tips for holiday wreaths, and wreathmaking. Members hear about the jobs from relatives, friends, or former employers. Sometimes help-wanted ads are included in the tribal government newsletter that goes to members each week. The Passamaquoddy Tribe has had mixed success in the past with business investments and launches. It owns or holds shares in several ventures. Northeast Blueberry Co. employs 20 tribal members year-round, and about 800 seasonal workers in the summer who rake the blueberry barrens by hand, said manager Darrell Newell. It yields about $500,000 each year, much of which is reinvested in the business, he said. Creative Apparel, a clothing manufacturer, owns five factories in Maine and employs 350 people. It brings the tribe about $1 million in profits each year. And the tribe is still collecting $1.5 million each year from its sale in the late 1980s of a cement plant, now known as Dragon Products Co. Other ventures failed to produce profits or lasting jobs - an AM/FM radio station, a factory for prefabricated homes and a recycling factory that made liners for truck beds. An attempt in 1994 to legalize casino gambling, and build a casino in Calais, never got through the state Legislature. The tribe has other ideas for economic development that are unrelated to the casino project. They include a wind farm, industrial park, recycling center and aggressive marketing of traditional baskets and canoes. But without capital, or a pool to offer loans to small business owners, it is difficult to move beyond the planning stage, Francis said. Dominguez said she can't wait the years it could take for the tribe to create new jobs. She wants to protect her personal credit rating, something that grows more difficult with each bill that arrives. She'd also like to reimburse her mother for groceries and rent, and find a job with family-friendly hours and benefits. Dominguez started a business from her mother's apartment, booking candle parties. Sometimes, the work makes her feel desperate. "That's what I have to resort to, to get some money," she said. Dominguez has applied to work for the tribal government, and put her name on a waiting list for subsidized housing. She just started classes at the University of Maine at Machias. She said this summer that school was an option she would pursue if she couldn't find work. "I need my self-respect," she said. "Sometimes I just feel hopeless."
Staff Writer Grace Murphy can be contacted at 282-8228 or at:
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