CENTRAL AVENUE CASINO IN THE SPOTLIGHT AGAIN
Yesterday, the Senate Rules Committee had hearings on the hugely flawed RFP (Request for Proposal) that the Martinez administration used to give the Albuquerque Downs the 25-year lease on the 83 acres of State Fair grounds, and the opportunity to build a great big casino on the corner of Louisiana and Central in the heart of Albuquerque.
The administration is calling the hearing a political ploy to advance the potential gubernatorial potential of the committee chairman, Senator Linda Lopez. One spokesman for the administration said that it was just a bunch of Democrats with an axe to grind with no new information.
He was right about axes to grind. Charlotte Rode, the courageous and outspoken former State Fair commissioner, who was a critic of the RFP through the whole process, had an axe to grind. Her axe was that the casino was going to increase crime, drug sales, prostitution and economic injury to her neighborhood. He got it wrong on another level because Charlotte is a Republican. She just feels that her neighborhood’s health is more important than slavish devotion to a politician or party.
It is interesting and disappointing that the main movers of the RFP, Governor Martinez, Dan Mourning, the State Fair exec, and Jay McClesky, the governor’s main political advisor, all declined an invitation by Senator Lopez to defend their actions in regard to the RFP. They all wish this would just go away, but the neighborhood associations in the area are not about ready to kiss and make up when their quality of life has been trashed.
The administration protests that they broke no laws in the process, and that it was a better process than Governor Richardson’s team did. Richardson’s proposed contract WAS worse, since the lease was for a longer period of time, and there were to be NO competitive bids. Still, the Martinez RFP was absurd, since it only allowed proposals to come in during a thirty-day window, a totally inadequate time for serious contenders to put together a proposal for a project that even the Downs said would bring in over a billion dollars in revenue. Laguna Pueblo and the Albuquerque Downs were the only ones prepared ahead of time to submit proposals in the inadequate time allowed.
Commissioner Rode’s testimony was the most detailed and troublesome for the administration, and suggested a host of improprieties in the process, suggestions that the attorney general and the FBI should take a close look at for possible bid-rigging.
The best outcome for all of this would be for the RFP to be found in violation of state and/or federal law, and for the casino to be closed down. The legislature could certainly keep the state fair afloat long enough for a new RFP to allow positive proposals to be submitted. Aksarben Development in Omaha, Nebraska is a wonderful example of a dying racetrack that was torn down and the property converted into a showcase of retail businesses, research facilities, corporate offices, apartments and a beautiful park. The development has been and still is a huge success, even during the 2008-2009 recession.
Governor Martinez either got very bad coaching from her handlers, or made some colossal mistakes in allowing the RFP to become such a disaster and the biggest black eye of her administration. It’s not too late to start over.
An Albuquerque Journal article about the hearing can be read here.
