Gaming operators and other firms seeking approval to develop a horse track with gaming in New Mexico are lashing out at the state racing commission for rejecting the plan. The decision was announced by the panel on August 3.
At the heart of the problem may be a failure to communicate. According to the Press-Reader newspaper, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham asked the commission to consider input from the businesses more than six months ago. The commission responded that it never received her letter, which was sent to prior commissioners before new members were appointed in April.
In a January letter, Lujan Grisham asked racing commissioners to postpone a decision until they conducted “additional and comprehensive research” into the matter of issuing a new license “with due regard for all applicants’ input.”
Last week, Racing Commission Chairwoman Beverly Bourguet said commissioners have opted not to approve a sixth state license, reversing a December 2018 decision by previous commissioners to move forward with the plan. At that point, the applicants protested.
Raymond Sanchez, an attorney for Full House Resorts of Las Vegas, said he asked Bourguet why his company had not been consulted before the decision. “I was surprised that the chairwoman had never seen that letter and knew nothing about it,” said Sanchez. “Her response was that she didn’t know what I was talking about.”
Warren Frost, an investor and spokesman for another applicant, Coronado Partners, also said his company was not contacted. “The governor was saying, ‘We want you to do additional research and talk to all the parties before you move forward,’ and they didn’t do that,” Frost said.
When asked why Bourguet had not seen the letter, a spokesman for the governor said, “I cannot answer a question on behalf of the chairwoman, but I would imagine, if she had not seen it, that would be because it was not sent to her; it was sent to her predecessor.”
Ismael “Izzy” Trejo, the commission’s executive director said the body has not closed the door on a sixth license in the future, but needs to carry out more analysis of the state’s racing industry before doing so. It wants to study issues including the state’s horse population and the overlap of race meets, he said.
“The commission needs an opportunity to digest the ins and outs of those factors before thinking of issuing a sixth license,” Trejo said. “We didn’t want to keep giving communities false hope when the commission is not prepared to go through the process of issuing a license at this time.”
