CITY VOTERS APPROVE GAMBLING

Boyd Gaming Corp. plans to make a proposal to the Cape Girardeau City Council at the earliest opportunity in the wake of Tuesday's approval of riverboat gambling in the city.

Gambling proponents rode the crest of a massive voter turnout to win the election 6,471-6,046, a margin of 425 votes.

Sixty percent of the city's 19,000 registered voters went to the polls and voted 52-48 percent for the proposition. Turnout was more than 2,000 votes higher than in the June election, when riverboat gambling was defeated.

The yes vote increased by more than 1,500 from last June, when Cape Girardeau electorate defeated riverboat gambling by 577 votes, 5,506-4,940. Fifty-four percent of the registered voters turned out in that election.

So far the Boyd company is the only gaming company to outline its plans should Cape Girardeau okay riverboat gaming. The company has proposed a $37.5 million gambling development on the riverfront north of the foot of Broadway.

"We will come before the city council with a proposal as quickly as possible," said Dan Davis, a consultant for the company. "Hopefully they will ask us to at their next meeting."

Gambling supporters complained that many who favor the riverboat failed to vote in June, and were banking on a higher-than-normal turnout Tuesday.

The votes for gambling increased dramatically in each one of the city's precincts over the June vote, while the votes against also grew in all wards except one.

Riverboat gambling carried 11 of the city's 16 wards compared to only four in the June election.

Voters at Westminster Presbyterian Church provided the pro-gambling side with a dramatic gain even though the ward was lost. The vote Tuesday was 734-753 against, compared to 563-710 against in June.

The student vote, not a factor in the June election, was more evident this time in improving the pro-gambling vote at Centenary Methodist and First Baptist churches. Gambling carried First Baptist this time 213-184, while losing in June 121-163. The winning margin for gambling in the two wards this time was about 200 votes.

Evelyn Boardman, a member of the Yes Group committee, said, "The student vote certainly didn't swing the election."

Members of the pro-gambling Yes Group who gathered at the A.C. Brase Arena Building to monitor the returns cheered as County Clerk Rodney Miller announced a big "yes" margin from the city hall precinct with only one ward remaining.

The Alma Schrader School results, late coming in, were anticlimactic but the occasion for another celebration.

Afterward, David Knight, a spokesman for the Yes Group, said he felt "pride being part of a group that worked very hard.

"We had 125 people going door-to-door last Saturday in driving snow and sleet," said Knight.

Boardman described her feeling as "tremendous relief."

Knight also said there was no animosity between the two groups at the end of the hard-fought campaign. Members of the Yes Group and spokesmen for the Citizens Against Riverboat Gambling shook hands all around at the end of the evening.

The Rev. Charles Grant of the anti-gambling group, noting the results, said, "Greater interest was generated somewhere."

Said Councilman Melvin Gately, another gambling opponent, "The extra percent went in their column."

Grant said the group will meet Thursday to decide what to do next.

"I think something's going to happen as a response," he said. "Whether any of us want to do it is the question."

Grant said the group has been advised by an attorney that it may be able to challenge the results by gathering petitions for another election. "Our legal advice is that," Grant said. "I'm sure there will be litigation if we try."

The secretary of state's office has told Miller that the election cannot be repeated if gambling is approved.

The Boyd company unveiled its gambling development last May, and poured $163,000 into the initial campaign to win city voters over to the idea.

The company says it intends to employ 800 people and predicts one million tourists a year will be drawn to the boat.

Davis said the company's application for a gambling license already has been submitted to the Missouri Gaming Commission.