Governor plays hard ball with money for park

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — The governor appears to be driving a hard bargain for Red Rock Park.

City officials are ready to turn the park over to the state if it's the only way to convince the state to invest in the prized facility. But the $400,000 Gov. Bill Richardson recently awarded the park for capital improvements well short of the $2 million hoped for has some city officials thinking twice about the bargain.

Red Rock Park has been a mixed blessing for the city. A growing number of popular events including the annual Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial, one of the largest tourist draws in the state call the park home, events that bring local retailers millions of dollars worth of business each year.

But the park isn't even close to breaking even. Each year, the city pours hundreds of thousands of dollars into the park to keep it running. A decision to turn day-to-day management over to a private company helped, but still cost the city more than $400,000 this past fiscal year. And that's not counting all the money the city has spend improving and repairing the facilities; it spent more than $600,000 fixing up the park for last year's Wrangler Junior High Finals Rodeo alone.

Desperate for some state help, the City Council agreed to hand the park over to the state late last year. Despite some reluctance to give up local control, Richardson's surprise ultimatum no state ownership, no state money made the council's choice a much easier one. In return, city officials were hoping for a generous reward.

The governor's $400,000, less than a quarter of what they had asked for, wasn't quite it.

"It is disappointing," said Mayor Bob Rosebrough, who had personally implored the governor to award the full $2 million.

During the months leading up to the New Mexico Legislature's 2006 session, which kicked off in mid-January, city officials were optimistic that a trade with the state would pay off generously. But as the session neared, Rosebrough said he noticed a "sharp shift" in the governor's talk about the park in his willingness to even talk about the park, it seemed and he's not sure why.

Richardson's staff could not offer a precise explanation for why he awarded exactly $400,000 for capital improvements, plus another $100,000 for operating expenses, just that the governor had many funding requests to juggle.

Even the $2 million the city was asking for, Rosebrough said, would not have met all the park's capital needs; estimates range from $5 million to $10 million. By awarding just $400,000, Richardson may have put the city in the most awkward of positions.

"In some ways," Rosebrough said, "this is the most difficult scenario what we could have imagines."

Had the governor awarded the park nothing, city officials would have a much easier time turning their backs on the state. Had he awarded the full $2 million, they could hand the park over feeling like they made a fair trade.

$400,000, Rosebrough said, puts them somewhere in between.

The City Council approved the handover which takes effect July 1 in December. Rosebrough thinks the city can still pull out if it decides the governor's offer isn't good enough.

City Manager Eric Honeyfield isn't so sure. While the deal hasn't been written in stone, he's said, pulling out now would prove a "disaster" for the city's future relations with the state.

The governor's decision to award Red Rock Park the $500,000 isn't written in stone either just yet. Richardson has just about two more weeks before he must decide whether to sign or veto this year's appropriations.