Forum to target casino gambling

The forum format will include a debate and audience participation.
LORDSTOWN -- Four players in the ongoing casino gambling debate will be part of a Saturday forum to discuss gaming in Ohio.
The forum, sponsored by The Vindicator's Web site, Vindy.com, and WFMJ-Channel 21, will begin at 10 a.m. at the Lordstown High School auditorium.
There is an initiative to place a constitutional amendment on the November general election ballot that would permit casinos at Ohio's seven horse-racing tracks and two sites in downtown Cleveland and Cincinnati.
Also, the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma is continuing its effort to build a $300 million casino-resort in Lordstown.
There will be a debate among the four participants, followed by audience participation.
The participants are:
Dr. Peter Yacobucci of Walsh University, who has studied the effects of gambling and is helping the tribe get its casino in Ohio.
State Rep. Kenneth Carano of Austintown, D-59th, an advocate of a casino in Ohio.
The Rev. John Temple of North-Mar Church of the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Warren, a gambling opponent.
David P. Zanotti, head of the Ohio Roundtable, which also opposes the proposal.
Yacobucci has been a policy analyst with the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., and Toronto, Canada. He also earned a master's degree in public policy from Georgetown University.
He has been an assistant professor of government and foreign affairs at Walsh for the past three years, teaching a range of classes in American government.
Carano was an educator for 36 years at Austintown Fitch High School and Youngstown State University.
He served as an Austintown Township trustee for six years and was twice re-elected to the Ohio House of Representatives. He serves as the ranking member and secretary of the House Education Committee. He is on the national education committee of the National Conference of State Legislatures and a member of the State Legislator National Education Summit.
Carano was the co-chairman of the Democratic Caucus Committee investigating gambling in the state and a study committee evaluating gambling machines as a potential revenue source. He has been an advocate for carefully controlled gambling by the state as a means to eliminate the state budget deficit.
The Rev. Mr. Temple received his bachelor's degree in arts in 1976 from Nyack College in Nyack, N.Y. He went on to Alliance Theological Seminary and graduated with a master's degree in professional studies. Mr. Temple was ordained in the Christian and Missionary Alliance in 1979.
In 1995, he returned to Ohio and to the Warren area, where he is the senior pastor of a church. He has traveled frequently to West Africa, Israel and China as a conference speaker and leader of mission study groups.
Roundtable
Zanotti's Roundtable was founded in Ohio in 1980 as a state-based public policy organization. Since that time the work has expanded to an educational and research component.
In 1985, Zanotti began his work with the Roundtable as a financial contributor and volunteer. He joined the staff in 1986 and was elected president.
Under his leadership, Roundtable and Freedom Forum have led state and national initiatives on tax policies, school funding, health care, religious liberty, school choice, campaign finance reform, intelligent design, campaign finance reform and the defeat of casino gambling.
Zanotti received his formal education at Cuyahoga Community College, Mount Vernon Nazarene College and did graduate work at Ashland University.