BACK ON TRACK
Applicants for state’s sixth racino hope to give economic boost to struggling Tucumcari, but face opposition, competing bids in Clovis
WTUCUMCARI arren Frost’s field of dreams is 330 acres on the east edge of town.
The land is mostly mesquite, cactus and scrub grass. Someone planted three towering steel white crosses. There also is an old horse barn. Interstate 40 runs along the southern edge of the property.
Frost has a grand vision for the land: a horse-racing track, a casino with 600 slot machines, restaurants, a lounge and more.
He says Tucumcari, with its boarded-up Kmart and other shuttered businesses along historic Route 66, needs a shot in the economic arm — including the jobs, increased tourism and additional spending at local businesses that a track and casino would produce.
“We’d like to have Apple, but we’re a little more realistic than that,” Frost says.
The lawyer from nearby Logan is a member of a group that plans to apply this month for a horse-racing license from the New Mexico Racing Commission. It will have competition from at least two other groups that plan to make separate proposals for a track in the Clovis area.
The Racing Commission announced in May that it was accepting applications for
what would be New Mexico’s sixth racing license. The application deadline is July 30.
The commission says it plans to issue the license before the year’s end, which means the plum would be handed out before Gov. Susana Martinez leaves office Dec. 31. The governor appointed all five racing commissioners.
Given the high financial stakes and the political connections of the racing applicants — as well as those seeking to halt the licensing of another track — the proceedings before the Racing Commission promise to be hard fought.
“It’s going to be a fierce competition.” Warren Frost, attorney and horse-racing license applicant
“It’s going to be a fierce competition,” Frost says.
The five existing tracks raked in an average of $45.3 million from their slot machines in the year that ended June 30, 2017.
The state, in compacts with American Indian tribes with casinos, has agreed to cap at six the number of tracks with slot machines, or so-called racinos. In exchange for limiting offreservation gambling, the state gets a cut of the tribes’ take from their slots.
If the Racing Commission follows through on its plans, it will be the second time that it has issued a sixth racing license.
In 2008, the commission awarded the license to a group that planned to build a racino in Raton. That project collapsed two years later following repeated construction delays and persistent questions about its financing.
The Martinez administration in 2011 issued a new lease for the Downs Racetrack & Casino in Albuquerque to continue to operate at the state fairgrounds, a decision that was criticized as rushed and politically tainted.
Politics at play
The three groups that have announced plans to apply for the new racing license each include major campaign contributors to Martinez, a Republican. Their political connections also extend beyond donations.
All the existing racinos, with the exception of the Sunland Park Racetrack & Casino, have asked the Racing Commission to halt its process of issuing the license. The Fulton family, owner of Sunland Park, has announced it will seek the sixth license for a racino in Clovis.
The tracks that want a delay in the licensing process or their owners also have made substantial political donations to Martinez and have other connections to the governor.
“I always like to see the gambling interests fight each other. It’s a lot of fun,” says Guy Clark, chairman of Stop Predatory Gambling New Mexico, which is marshaling opposition to the sixth license.
Clark, a Corrales dentist, says neither Tucumcari nor Clovis needs the kind of economic and social problems that go along with gambling, including bankruptcies, crime and more.
Gaming tribes, major political players in New Mexico, will have their say about the sixth license as well. Under Racing Commission regulations, the commission must “carefully and seriously” consider the views of gaming tribes prior to issuing the license, including potential economic impacts on the tribes’ casinos.
Northeastern New Mexico doesn’t have any gaming tribes or racinos. But in the southeastern part of the state, there are racinos in Ruidoso Downs and Hobbs, and one gaming tribe, the Mescalero Apaches, just outside Ruidoso.
Delay sought
The group that receives the sixth racing license from the Racing Commission will have to apply to the state Gaming Control Board for a slot machine license.
But the existing racinos in Albuquerque, Ruidoso Downs, Farmington and Hobbs want the licensing process halted pending study by the commission, according to the minutes of a June meeting of the panel.
The tracks were represented by lawyers well known to the Martinez administration and in political circles.
Albuquerque attorney Marcus Rael Jr., a former appointee of Martinez to the New Mexico Lottery board, represented the racinos. In the June meeting, he cited Racing Commission regulations that say the commission, in issuing a racing license, “may consider the following factors: public interest, health of the industry, safety and welfare of the participants.”
At the same meeting was Hal Stratton, a former Republican state attorney general, who appeared on behalf of Zia Park Casino Hotel & Racetrack in Hobbs, according to the minutes.
Ismael “Izzy” Trejo, executive director of the Racing Commission, says the commission never formally voted to seek applications but did discuss the matter in sessions closed to the public.
The Racing Commission had received inquiries about the sixth license in the last couple of years, Trejo says.
“I suppose there was enough interest to trigger” the application request, he says.
The announcement by the Racing Commission that it planned to issue the sixth license came four years after the end of litigation stemming from the failed Raton racino. The Raton group unsuccessfully sued the commission after losing its racing license.
The cost of a new racino is projected at about $70 million to $80 million.
Raton Mayor Neil Segotta says he isn’t aware of another application being prepared for a track in Raton.
Coronado Partners, the company that includes Frost, first proposed a Tucumcari track in 2008 but lost out to the Raton group.
Frost says politics drove the selection of the Raton group but says he isn’t sure what role it will play in the new competition for the sixth license. He adds: “I have a lot more faith in our governor than I did 10 years ago.”