Casino news source: Las Cruces Sun-News - http://www.lcsun-news.com
Casino backers, critics still at it three years later
By Diana M. Alba/Sun-News reporter
Article Launched: 08/19/2007 12:00:00 AM MDT
By Diana M. Alba
Sun-News reporter
LAS CRUCES — It's a mostly bare, ordinary patch of desert land. On the surface, not much sets it apart from neighboring parcels.
But plans for the 111-acre site, located just off Interstate 10 in Anthony, N.M., are hardly commonplace.
The Jemez Pueblo of northern New Mexico and Santa Fe art dealer Gerald Peters have proposed to build a 48,000-square-foot off-reservation casino on the land, complete with a hotel and Vegas-style gaming.
This month marks three years since plans first surfaced for the project, stirring a whirlwind of controversy in Doña Ana County. Residents and businesses drew battle lines, filing themselves into pro- and anti-casino camps.
Backers contend the project would spark economic development in a low-income area by creating jobs and attracting tourist dollars to the southern part of the state. Some opponents argued a casino would draw spending away from local businesses and open the door for other off-reservation casinos to follow. Some have objected to the casino on moral
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grounds.
The tribe in December 2005 submitted an application to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, requesting to build a casino.
Clamor about the casino has subsided over the past year, but casino proponents say they're making behind-the-scenes progress toward their goal.
Denise Greenlaw Ramonas — chief of staff for Peters' company, Circle P Investments — said the pueblo and Peters gained an important approval earlier this year from the National Indian Gaming Commission, a federal agency that reviews the operating agreements between tribes and casino developers.
"They review all the contracts," she said. "Is it fair to the pueblo is basically what they're looking for."
In addition, Ramonas said, the tribe is making headway on an environmental assessment — called an environmental impact statement — required by the federal government.
Joe Monahan, spokesman for the Committee to Protect Doña Ana County, an opponent group, said it's significant that the three-year mark has been reached without a casino in place. He said that early on, Peters and the pueblo promoted the project as if it would be built rapidly.
The Committee to Protect Doña Ana County is backed by Sunland Park Racetrack & Casino owner Stan Fulton, who has opposed the Anthony project.
"We think the casino supporters over played their hands," Monahan said. "It could be several more (years) before it's finally settled. We don't detect a lot of public support for it."
Ramonas said gaining approval for the casino was expected to take time, and though three years have passed, Peters is "more enthusiastic than ever."
"We've always said it was a complicated process," she said. "There are numerous steps. We think we're halfway through the process; we think the hardest work is behind us."
The Jemez Pueblo and Peters have said a casino would create 950 new jobs and 2.7 million visitors each year to Anthony. Opponents have argued the casino might create jobs, but other businesses would have to cut positions as they lost business to the casino.
Monahan said his group has been low-key recently because it's waiting for the federal review of the tribe's request to be completed.
"When the draft environmental impact statement comes out, our membership will reactivate our grassroots efforts to carefully review that statement and hold the proponents' feet to the fire, as we have these past three years," he said.
Dawn Selwyn, deputy regional director for the federal Bureau of Land Management, said the agency is almost finished with a draft environmental impact statement, but she declined to predict a completion date.
"I think they're getting close to a final," she said. "When we get to the point we've got a final, ... we're looking at a couple of different locations for a hearing."
Selwyn said the agency would consider input from the hearings and then forward a recommendation about whether to approve the casino to the deputy director of the Interior Department, who'd make a decision. The governor of New Mexico would have final say about whether to allow the project.
The environmental impact statement document — required for major federal actions — examines the expected effects of a casino on traffic, the environment and economy, among other considerations. Selwyn said federal experts study the land and submit reports; when a problem is discovered — such as the presence of an endangered animal, for example — the pueblo must find a way to mitigate it.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs uses a two-part test when deciding whether to recommend approval for an off-reservation casino. The tribe must show that the project is in its best interests and that it wouldn't be detrimental to Anthony. |
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