East Windsor residents showed they support the casino planned for their town, voting late Thursday night to reject a proposed ordinance that was designed to derail the project.

The tally, announced after 11 p.m., was 198-112 in favor of rejecting the proposed ordinance.

The casino, which the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes have agreed to develop off Exit 45 of Interstate 91, still is contingent on the state’s enactment of legislation authorizing it. 

Thursday night’s town meeting was prompted by petitioners who hoped, ultimately, to take the matter to a townwide referendum. A huge turnout prompted Robert Maynard, the town’s first selectman, to move the meeting from Town Hall to space in the elementary Broad Brook School across the street and then to the school’s auditorium.

Voting was conducted by paper ballot.

“We’re disappointed in the result, and more disappointed in the process, especially considering that 336 voters signed a petition calling for a referendum,” Brianna Stronk, an organizer of the petition drive, said Friday. “One hundred ninety-eight people last night were able to frustrate a reasonable ordinance intended to regulate gaming institutions now and in the future. It was a chaotic meeting that seemed unplanned — no adequate meeting space, then moving hordes of people to different locations multiple times.”

“The only thing that seemed planned was a selectman’s motion to have a 'yes' vote mean 'no,'” Stronk said.

Selectman Richard Pippin Jr. offered the motion on which residents voted. As worded, it meant that a “yes” vote favored rejection of the ordinance — in effect indicating support for the casino.

Signs that casino supporters had printed before the meeting and distributed around town urged residents to reject the proposed ordinance by voting “no.”

“Who knows how many people may have been confused?” Stronk said. “I think that casino supporters truly were afraid that this was the only shot at stopping further discussion. I hope none of the selectmen have the temerity to say that this is the ‘will of the people.’ But for our petition, they would have been happy to have this continue outside of public view without ever asking what the will of the town really is.”

Two days before the town meeting, the town attorney, Joshua Hawks-Ladds, had issued an opinion in which he found the proposed ordinance "legally defective." He recommended it be rejected. 

Maynard and the chairmen of the two tribes, which respectively own Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun, signed the East Windsor casino agreement in March. Since 2015, the tribes have been pursuing a north-central Connecticut “satellite” casino as a hedge against the competitive impact of MGM Springfield, a $950 million resort casino being built in Massachusetts.

"We’ve said all along we want to be where people want us," Andrew Doba, a spokesman for the tribes, said Friday. "Last night was a huge affirmation of the project. We thank all the residents who came out."

MGM Resorts International, the casino operator behind MGM Springfield, staunchly has opposed the proposed legislation that would authorize the tribes’ East Windsor project, instead backing bills that call for a competitive bidding process for a third Connecticut casino.

In the wake of the East Windsor vote, Uri Clinton, an MGM senior vice president and legal counsel, issued a statement.

“While we think it is unfortunate that the residents of East Windsor have been denied a chance to voice their opinion on hosting a casino in their town, the news of the past few days regarding the state's finances has been eye-opening,” he said. “Given the magnitude of the growing-by-the-day fiscal crisis, it would seem like a really bad idea to jeopardize a guaranteed revenue stream of $250 million a year — which is what the attorney general has said might happen if the legislature approves a casino in East Windsor."

Clinton was referring to the share of casino slot-machine revenues the tribes pay the state in accordance with agreements signed in the 1990s.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com