Interior Department rejects Anthony casino proposal

The U.S. Department of the Interior has rejected a proposal by the Jemez Pueblo and Santa Fe art dealer and developer Gerald Peters to build a casino in Anthony.

In a four-page letter dated Jan. 4, Carl J. Artman, assistant secretary for Indian affairs, wrote that the casino would not significantly improve the unemployment rate among members of the pueblo and might encourage reservation residents to leave their homes and travel 300 miles south to find work, so the “negative impacts on reservation life could be considerable.”

Although the decision means the casino cannot be built, a spokesman for the Jemez said there may be an opportunity to improve and resubmit the application. You can read the department’s rejection letter by clicking here.

The spokesman said a statement from the Jemez was forthcoming but the pueblo had not received the letter. He said Peters would make no statement.

The proposal has been controversial. When news of the plan first became public in August 2005, Sunland Park Racetrack and Casino owner Stan Fulton waged a public campaign to try to buy opposition to the casino. Several legislators took Fulton’s side after he paid political blogger Joe Monahan to help form the Committee to Protect Doña Ana County, which argued that allowing one off-reservation casino here would open the floodgates for many more.

Fulton also gained the support of several New Mexico State University officials when he changed a provision in his will so that the university would only get half ownership of his casino when he died if no other casinos existed nearby.

Meanwhile, residents of the poverty stricken community of Anthony organized and gathered several thousand signatures in support of the casino proposal with the help of a public relations campaign waged by Peters. The Doña Ana County Board of Commissioners worked out a deal with Peters, who would have operated the proposed casino, to provide services if the land was placed in federal trust, and also convinced Peters to make several promises, including hiring local workers and paying 100 percent of their health-care costs.

Such promises by Peters won over other public officials, including some lawmakers, but then-state Attorney General Patricia Madrid said Peters’ agreement with Doña Ana County was illegal.

The pueblo stated in its application that its main goal was to locate the casino near a population center, arguing that the reservation is too remote and too close to other tribes that have already established casinos to successfully operate a casino on its Northern New Mexico land. The pueblo was aiming to generate revenue, not create jobs for tribal members.

Artman wrote that the pueblo didn’t provide enough detail about its planned use of revenues from the casino for the department to weigh the expected benefits against the negatives of little job creation and possible encouragement of tribal members to move to Anthony and leave behind their tribal community.

Federal law allows off-reservation casinos only when the department agrees to place land in federal trust for that purpose. Before that happens, the department has to be convinced that the proposal is in the best interest of the tribe and has the support of the local community where the casino would be built. When the department approves such a proposal, it’s then up to the state’s governor to decide whether the casino can be built.

Only three off-reservation casinos have ever been approved and built in the United States.

Update, 5:35 p.m.

In a new release, Jemez Gov. Paul Chinana said the Interior Department issued new “guidance” regarding trust applications for gaming on Thursday and then, on Friday, sent letters to a number of tribes denying pending applications. He said the reasons cited for denial are nearly identical in most cases.

“The form letter ignores the underlying premise of the Jemez/Anthony project, which is that the revenue generated at the casino helps the pueblo fund a tailor-made jobs and training program to create jobs and services at the pueblo to meet their unmet needs,” the release states. “At the same time, the project provides needed jobs for Anthony and Doña Ana County residents.”

“I can tell you that for Jemez, the off-reservation casino would be a positive impact because our jobs plan is different and better because it benefits the pueblo and Anthony,” Chinana said.

Chinana said the new “guidance” is the most recent in a series of changes the department has made during the last year, and the pueblo has worked to address the changes each time.

“The new guidance raises a host of complicated issues that the pueblo’s lawyers are just beginning to analyze,” Chinana said. “Until the lawyers have fully reviewed the Department of Interior’s new, retroactive guidance and the apparent blanket rejection of pending applications based on boilerplate reasons, we really can’t intelligently comment further.”