THE PUBLIC MIND: DO WE REALLY WANT 1 MILLION VISITORS?

To the editor:

If riverboat gambling lives up to its promises of over 1,000,000 customers a year that would mean an average of 2,740 people a day would be hurrying down our east/west streets - and if there were two of them per car, we'd have 1,370 cars charging down our streets.

We now have hundreds of pot holes in our streets with the city engineer not having the money to repair them. Think what our streets would be like in a year or so ... and to our cars, which also will be in gridlock if we want to go downtown to our favorite stores ... or dine out.

And I think how the gamblers who don't win would drastically change the friendly family-type camaraderie that makes Cape such a lovely place to live now.

So I firmly believe that riverboat gambling could, and probably would change the essence of Cape and the lives of the majority of us. Are the extra jobs and money these in-and-out gamblers would bring to Cape be worth it to us? I don't think so!

If you like your life here as I do, though invited to live free in Miami by my son do you want to live life in a crowded downtown of a big city? If on thinking about it, and you don't want to then your answer to the big monies coming to Cape is NO! on June 8 ... and you certainly need to vote.

Charles E. Stiver

Cape Girardeau