Taking a Chance
Manuelito moving forward with casino plans despite Shirley's endorsement of Sanders

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — The Manuelito Chapter is forging ahead with plans for a casino just outside of city limits despite Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr.'s official endorsement of another casino project less than an hour's drive west on Interstate 40.

After a tribal referendum that legalized Navajo Nation gaming in 2004, more than a dozen chapters across the sprawling 250,000-square-mile reservation have developed plans to build casinos. Since then, a tribally commissioned study has identified six ideal sites.

One challenge, said George Hardeen, Shirley's spokesperson, was to place the casinos where none would cut into another's profitability.

Said Hardeen, "the president doesn't want to dilute the affect of one or the other casino by having too many."

Shirley announced his first pick for a site, some 20 miles west of Sanders, Ariz., during a state of the nation address last month. Backed by the tribe's Nahata Dziil Chapter, the group spearheading the project, the 130 acres lie within easy sight of Interstate 40.

Unlike the 134-mile stretch of Interstate 40 between Gallup and Albuquerque, with its three casinos and counting, the hundreds of miles of virgin interstate leading eastbound into Gallup through Arizona looks like prime real-estate for a new gaming facility. The tribe's study names both the Nahata Dziil acreage and Gallup among its top six picks for Navajo gaming sites.

So how does Shirley's endorsement of Nahata Dziil's project bode for the fortunes of a casino just outside of Gallup?

Hardeen said he couldn't say.

Manuelito Chapter President Milton Davidson sounded optimistic about the prospects for both projects, pointing to the example of the Sky City and Dancing Eagle casinos on Interstate 40 between Gallup and Albuquerque. With less than 20 miles between them, he noted, both appear to be thriving.

Greg Violette, chief operating officer of Full House Resorts, the gaming management company working with the Manuelito Chapter to develop its casino plans, sounded a little more cautious.

"It is a concern," he said of a possible casino near Sanders.

But it hardly spelled the end for Manuelito, he said, just a little downsizing perhaps.

"If there are two gaming facilities," Violette said, "it might require us to adjust the sizing of our facility."

The chapter's current plans call for a $36 million, 50,000-square-foot casino with 600 slot machines and as many employees, 12 table games, a travel plaza, several food outlets and eventually a hotel, rodeo arena and RV park. Violette would not speculate about exactly how much downsizing a Nahata Dziil casino would mean.

And although Manuelito's chosen site roughly four miles west of Gallup still lacks an eastbound exit, the weigh station for commercial trucks next to it, Violette said, should provide plenty of business.

If they don't get an exit built any time soon, he said, "we think that the Gallup market is big enough to support a casino even without a lot of visitor traffic."

That's a major departure from what chapter officials have been saying. Davidson insisted the chapter had no intentions of filling the casino's coffers with local dollars. The majority of the casino's business, he hoped, would come from outsiders, truckers especially. Without an eastbound exit, that could prove a challenge.

Although Gallup City Manager Eric Honeyfield welcomed the opportunity to work with the Manuelito Chapter on its project, getting the New Mexico Department of Transportation to build the chapter an eastbound exit off of Interstate 40, he said, would be a "remarkable obstacle to overcome."

Rhonda Ray made light of the challenge. Ray is president of Tse Ndeeshgiish Enterprises, the volunteer group the Manuelito Chapter established to pursue its casino dreams.

In a recent news release claiming the chapter is "project ready," she seems to be overstating its case.

In the release, she implies the enterprise has secured all the necessary utility services from the City of Gallup and McKinley County to run the casino.

"That is not true," said Honeyfield.

According to Honeyfield, the city and the enterprise have not met since a public hearing about the Manuelito project the chapter hosted last April. All the city has done, he said, is let the chapter know it was open to negotiations.

And it still is, he said, "but there is no agreement at this point."

McKinley County Manager Tom Trujillo said the enterprise hasn't "secured" anything from the county yet either, although they have talked about the possibility at least once since April.

The release also mentions that the chapter has secured the land for its casino. But it's still allotted land, according to Ray; however, by federal law, a tribal casino can only go up on trust land. Ray said the enterprise was still working with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to change the land's status.

None of this makes the enterprise's job any easier.

Ray insisted she didn't care which chapter got to build the tribe's first casino. What was important, she said, was that the tribe, as a whole, would eventually reap the benefits of gaming.

The tribe expects the casinos to generate hundreds of millions of dollars once they're up and running. Officials have promised to share the money with all 110 of the reservation's chapters.

A revenue-sharing agreement is still in the works.