Pojoaque Pueblo puts all its chips on a golden future
The first thing you notice about Albert is a small canister of compressed oxygen-fastened to a miniature dolly with black electrical tape-nipping at the 78-year-old's heels as he shuffles through the din of the Cities of Gold casino.
Albert is the calm in the middle of this storm. He navigates steadily through a choppy current of shifting fortunes, convulsing lights and chattering slot machines with his oxygen tank providing ballast. He is tethered by plastic tubing winding up his torso, around his ears and into his nostrils, held in place with an elastic strip across the bridge of his nose. It's clearly not his lucky charm.
"I'm having a horrible night." Albert chuckles softly. "I haven't won in ages."
He is resigned to the ebb and flow of providence. This isn't his first dry spell and it won't be his last. He has dozens of white whale stories. The times when he gave up on a slot only to watch the person who took his seat nail a jackpot three nickels later. He has a dozen more tales about people who amass small fortunes in a single reel only to hemorrhage it all by the end of the night.
His big payday came last year during a promotional "anniversary" drawing at Camel Rock Casino that offered $100 for every year a couple had been married. Albert and his wife had logged 54 years when fortune found them.
Tonight they are not so lucky. Albert is stinging from $60 evaporated in nickel slots. His night finished, he waits patiently for his wife, who is pecking at a Triple Diamond machine nearby. As he talks, his wife feeds one Abraham Lincoln after another into the machine. She taps the "spin" button methodically as her credits ebb and flow before disappearing altogether.
"I'm not a high-roller by any means," he says. "Playing responsibly is the only way to do it. If you're playing with $50, the best thing you can possibly do is take some of it home with you at the end of the night."
Albert should know. His father operated mechanical slots for workers toiling on the railroads and in the mines during the depression. But the retired machinist, stone merchant and silversmith culls most of his anecdotes from spending 350 days a year in the bustling tribal casinos of Northern New Mexico.
He was there when the Pueblo of Pojoaque first opened the doors of Cities of Gold in 1995. "When they first opened it up you could take $20 and play all day," Albert says. "Of course you'd eventually lose it all but you at least had fun. Now you can lose it in a second."
Albert can't stay mad at Cities of Gold for long. It's family. He knows the employees by name and pauses frequently to chat with the ladies pushing refreshment carts.
"I've met a lot of good, hard-working people here," he says. "They're the backbone of the whole business."
A sturdy spine is a necessity in this industry. Gambling-legal or otherwise-has thrived in New Mexico since the days when occupying US soldiers were fleeced in games of three-card monte conducted in the portals of the Palace of the Governors. But the dog-eared stories about sordid saloons and back-room poker are mere footnotes to the new era of Native American gaming.
New Mexico boasts 16 tribal casinos and five state-run horse and slot "racinos." The boom didn't come easily or overnight. Tribes fought tooth and nail to open their casino doors with Pojoaque spearheading the charge as the first to establish a full-service casino and hotel.
In early July Pojoaque also become the last to sign a gaming compact with the state, settling a five-year lawsuit filed by the attorney general and effectively ending a decade-long feud over revenue sharing.
The settlement was a bitter-but financially necessary-pill for the pueblo to swallow. In little more than a decade, Pojoaque has transformed-largely through charismatic and controversial leadership-from a withered outpost with a small, impoverished population into a burgeoning community home to one of the most politically powerful and economically ambitious tribes in New Mexico.
The pueblo's unapologetic tenacity and feral ambition has won it as many adversaries as admirers. Then again, success means never having to say you're sorry and people like Albert are doing their part to help Pojoaque's lofty aspirations become a reality. But he isn't the only one trying to conjure triple 7s.
Pojoaque is all in. The cards are on the table. And the prosperity of its people hangs in the balance.
Viarrial Street isn't much to look at.
It isn't a major corridor like US 84/285, from which it juts toward the hills that flank the Pojoaque Valley. It isn't a vital commercial artery like Cities of Gold Road, along which the pueblo's political and economic pulse throbs. But the street-and the Butterfly Springs Mobile Home Park that sits at the end of it-represents the startling transformation of Pojoaque.
The trailer park is an eyesore compared to the new developments that have sprouted on the pueblo in the last 10 years. Graffiti is scrawled on pretty much everything solid, smooth and institutional. Cheap chain-link fences sport "Beware of Dogs" signs. Most of the 200 or so trailers look capable of immediate evacuation, their hitches still jutting out into the driveways.
The butterfly is an iconic symbol of Pojoaque. It represents a community coming to life after being trapped in a cocoon of poverty and despair for decades. Nearly 3,000 people call the pueblo home these days, though only about 350 are tribal members.
They are survivors if nothing else. The first Pojoaque clans migrated to the area some 1,000 years ago and were subsequently decimated by the usual suspects until the land was all but abandoned. About 12 survivors returned to the area and re-established the Pueblo of Pojoaque in the 1930s, struggling mightily to carve a permanent niche in the New Mexican desert.
"This place did not grow out of thin air," Pojoaque Gov. George Rivera says. "My ancestors sacrificed a lot to help make the pueblo what it is. That's not taken lightly by anyone."
For decades the pueblo was rife with poverty, crime and substance abuse. Tribal leaders struggled futilely to reverse the trend, but it wasn't until the namesake of Viarrial Street-Rivera's uncle Jacob Viarrial-took over as governor of the pueblo in 1978 that the wheels of progress began to turn.
Viarrial proceeded to become one of the most revered and reviled tribal leaders in New Mexico until his death in June 2004. More than a year later, his name inspires beatification from supporters and grumbling from opponents. "Uncle Jake" is alternately portrayed as a charismatic savior to his people and an obstinate leader who fractured public opinion with impenitent politics. In his efforts to meet the needs of hundreds, Viarrial alienated thousands more.
Viarrial helped launch the Butterfly Springs Mobile Home Park and the Pojoaque Supermarket as kindling for the pueblo's resurgence. But progress was laborious and slow until the governor saw a golden opportunity to accelerate the pace when he helped establish the National Indian Gaming Association in 1993.
In February 1995, Viarrial and other tribal leaders signed an agreement with then Gov. Gary Johnson that allowed the first tribal casinos in New Mexico. Cities of Gold opened its doors within 90 days. They stayed open after the compact was thrown out by the state supreme court. The pueblo repelled repeated attempts by US Attorney General John Kelly and State Attorney General Tom Udall to declare the casinos unlawful.
Pojoaque balked when the state introduced gaming compacts in 1997 that required tribes to pay 16 percent of gaming revenues. The tribes that signed the compact eventually ceased revenue payments in protest. In 2000, the state filed suit. In 2001, a new compact lowered the state's cut to 8 percent but required tribes to pay back revenues at the original 16 percent. Pojoaque balked again.
The state threatened to shut down Cities of Gold and Viarrial retaliated by threatening to set up toll booths on US 84/285. "To tell you the truth, when he did stuff like that he was admired by his people and those sympathetic to Native causes," Father Flavio Santillanes of Pojoaque's Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church says. "He loved his people and wanted to make sure they weren't left behind. He was the one who [told the government] 'We are here and you have to deal with us.'"
The pueblo's hard-line stance didn't win many converts outside Pojoaque.
"That issue not only had a negative impact on the state government but also on public opinion of the pueblo," New Mexico House Speaker Ben Lujan, D-Nambe, says. "But [Viarrial] stood his ground in the interest of serving the needs and rights of his tribe. I don't hold that against him."
In 2003, Viarrial told the US Senate Committee on Indian Affairs that the revenue-sharing compacts were "a smokescreen for extortion" and in violation of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. The pueblo was in its third year of litigation with the state attorney general by then and was en route to owing $30 million in back revenues by the time the 2001 compacts expired in 2006.
The pueblo's refusal to pay further polarized public opinion, but it wasn't the only contentious issue. Viarrial also had proposed a nuclear-waste dump 15 miles north of Santa Fe (the plan was later scrapped). The pueblo-which maintains its own community water and sewer systems-was embroiled in controversy over its water use. Pojoaque and neighboring pueblos have first rights to water in the Pojoaque Valley, which carries with it the theoretical ability to shut off non-Indian users during water shortages. The issue-manifested in the long-standing complexities of the Aamodt lawsuit-has been simmering for decades, but Pojoaque became a primary target for critics alleging the pueblo was single-handedly sucking the regional water supply dry in order to hydrate fledgling business ventures like the Towa Golf Resort.
Viarrial couldn't escape controversy even in death. Last fall Rivera brought a petition signed by 311 people to the Pojoaque Valley School Board requesting the district's new high school be named after his uncle. Opponents responded with 1,035 signatures and the school retained the name Pojoaque High School. But the late governor doesn't need his name on a high school to ensure his legacy in the tribe.
"He was a fighter for the Pueblo of Pojoaque," Rivera says. "He recognized the need for something to be done in this depressed area and he saw that gaming was a way for the tribes to get important economic development. He went the distance and we're better off because it."
Certainly there's no turning back.
The painting depicts a Native American man in ceremonial dress standing in the middle of a highway. On his right is a coyote. On his left is a rabbit. Behind him are blue skies and purple mountains. Above him is…wait. Is that a fighter jet?
"It's what we were just talking about," George Rivera says. "The past and the future coming together."
He should know-and not just because Rivera painted the art hanging in the lobby on the second floor of the Poeh Center. Rivera also is one of the primary architects of a mission to both embrace culture and tradition and forge new economic and social frontiers.
Rivera served as lieutenant governor of the pueblo for 13 years before taking over gubernatorial duties after his uncle died. The 41-year-old father of two has been instrumental in turning the Poeh Center into both the pueblo's expensive totem of cultural revival and an international model for preserving and revitalizing indigenous culture.
But somebody has to foot the bill.
Which is why Rivera has just returned from Albuquerque to push through a deal that establishes Mescalero Apache Telecom as the pueblo's sole telecommunications provider. The move is intended to expand high-speed Internet access throughout the pueblo, with Pojoaque perhaps eventually starting its own telecom company. But like many of the well-intentioned moves made by Rivera's predecessor, it isn't without stepping on some toes. Qwest Telecom-the pueblo's previous provider and a charitable donor to Pojoaque's revitalization-has been shoved out.
That's business. And Rivera is every bit the businessman. He's cordial but wary. His hair is neatly cropped. He wears slacks and a collared shirt and intermittently doodles with the Blackberry clipped to his belt whenever a call comes in. Which is about once every 15 minutes.
Rivera spent his childhood in Pojoaque but left during his formative years in order to escape the impoverished desperation of the pueblo.
"There's no question that it's better now," Rivera says. "I grew up with extreme poverty and a lot of alcohol abuse. They were both rampant and jobs were nowhere to be found. I left because it wasn't an exciting place to be. My mind was elsewhere."
Now there is no time for Rivera's mind to be anywhere else. The pueblo has its fingers in enough pies to start its own pastry factory. But the revenue lawsuit had stalled operations and was threatening to sink the pueblo in a mire of debt. Rivera shares the political tenacity of his uncle, but his pragmatism ultimately won out with the decision to end the draining litigation.
"We knew that if we won it would be devastating to the state," Rivera says. "We also knew that if the state won they could have forced us to shut down. Either way, somebody would have lost a lot. In the end it was necessary for us to put the whole issue at rest."
Pojoaque agreed to pay $24 million in back revenue over the next 12 years and has begun allocating the state its 8 percent cut. While Rivera says the settlement will thaw Pojoaque's relations with state government, the move still clearly causes him consternation.
"It's a Catch-22 situation," Rivera says. "Now that we've made a settlement, we're in a position of having to pay money to the state, but it does take off that risk of jeopardizing our business development."
Since its humble investments in the trailer park and supermarket, the tribe's holdings have grown exponentially to include everything from an industrial park, Phillips 66 and Subway to the Eating House restaurant, True Value Hardware store and the Pojoaque Wellness Center, which boasts community fitness facilities, a public library and a Boys and Girls Club. In addition, the pueblo has established numerous programs ranging from offering college scholarships to preserving the traditional Tewa language.
"That's why I support Indian gaming," Rivera says. "I've seen how people can go to work and have a job. I see the pride they have now in their community. They don't see things as hopeless anymore."
In order to fund the projects, the pueblo utilized state grants, local bonds and revenues culled from its casino operations. But much of that capital is being wagered on the pueblo's most ambitious endeavor yet, the Buffalo Thunder Resort. Pojoaque broke ground on Buffalo Thunder more than a year ago but-other than the towering signs that flank the highway-it mostly exists for now in a theoretical realm.
"I think that the settlement will definitely increase the comfort level for our investors." Rivera chuckles. "Now it's just a matter of determining what the best plan is for moving forward."
The resort is the pueblo's push for stability and respectability. An elementary-school-turned-casino it's not. The project will sprawl over 600 acres and cost more than $200 million to build.
"I see the Buffalo Thunder as an international destination," Rivera says. "I think it's a good thing for Pojoaque and New Mexico. When you're an international tourist draw, people come in and have a major impact on our economics with only a minor impact on our infrastructure."
The resort will eventually include a 400-room Hilton Hotel and an expansive casino in addition to restaurants, shops, a spa, a nightclub and an expansion on the Towa golf course.
Rivera hopes to see the resort open its doors within five years. "We're not in a rush," he says. "It's got to be done right. It's a reflection of the tribe and the state so it's important to have a full package, not just a casino with a hotel. In order to ensure longevity in the future, it's important that it be of high quality."
Buffalo Thunder represents a big risk for a pueblo that has sunk virtually all of its gaming profits into infrastructure and economic and social development. But it also has the potential to harbor a big pay-off. It's exactly the kind of calculated gamble that has earned the pueblo respect among its political contemporaries.
"I think they have been one of the most progressive tribes we've had in the state," Lujan says. "Pojoaque was one of the poorest of the northern pueblos but they have shown a desire to build new enterprises and stimulate development even before gaming."
Rivera says the pueblo currently employs about 1,000 people making it one of Northern New Mexico's largest non-governmental employers. If and when the Buffalo Thunder Resort opens-and if the pueblo can successfully lobby to reopen the Downs at Santa Fe-that number could more than double in five years.
"We've grown so fast that sometimes it's hard to keep up," Rivera says. "But we're trying to slow things down now. There is a sincere effort not just to make money and stimulate economic development but to do the things that will make a quality impact on the community."
Indeed, Jeff Montoya-the 32-year-old manager of the Pojoaque Visitors Center-says the economic surge from Cities of Gold is secondary in importance to the resurrection of a culture that has lingered on life support for decades.
"We've had a big revival in our native culture," Montoya says. "We are relatively small and we're often seen as one of the most nontraditional tribes in the state. But we're trying to build that back up because we've lost a lot."
Cities of Gold is the lifeblood of that revival. And for all the benefits the pueblo has milked from its cash cow, Rivera acknowledges the danger in relying on gambling to be the savior of Pojoaque.
"You can't bring people out of poverty without jobs and you can't create jobs without economic development," Rivera says. "The reason for Indian gaming is to help stimulate economic and social development. But it's not the answer to everything."
Another answer, apparently, is organic compost. That's the polite way to describe the mountains of horse manure that have accumulated for decades in an impromptu landfill on the western edge of the Downs at Santa Fe. It's also just about the only thing that draws anybody to one of the pueblo's biggest investments these days. And even the crap is dwindling.
Rivera speaks in generalities when discussing the dormant race track. The tribe purchased the Downs for an "undisclosed amount" in 1996 before closing it down the following year after suffering "significant losses." Outside estimates indicate the pueblo paid and lost millions.
"We ran it for two years but we eventually had to close it down," Rivera says. "We were losing too much money. It's an important investment for us but the ability to open it is not within our power at this time."
Armed with the lawsuit settlement and a state law-which passed after the track was shuttered-that allows slot machines at horse races, the pueblo is seeking to reopen the Downs. But efforts to acquire operating licenses have been stalled by the New Mexico Racing Commission-following the lead of Gov. Bill Richardson-ostensibly in order to analyze the financial impact of a new track in Hobbs.
The pueblo plans to submit a development plan in the fall detailing what needs to be done before the Downs is even ready to open its gates. It'll certainly take more than a fresh coat of paint. The manicured grass of the track's infield is virtually the only thing that hasn't been neglected in eight years. Weeds flourish in the parking lot. Anything of value has been ransacked. Black metal frames that once supported color televisions sit idly in the eaves of the concourse. The betting counter bears the signs of a hasty retreat. Empty cash drawers collect dust on the counter next to a stack of weathered racing programs dated August 29, 1997.
This is the hazard of Pojoaque's ambition. No horses will set a hoof on the track anytime soon. With virtually all of the pueblo's revenue sunk in development, the line between Pojoaque the Success Story and Pojoaque the Cautionary Tale grows thinner every day. Which is why the pueblo is paying its $24 million settlement in increments.
"We didn't have money laying around to pay the state," Rivera says. "We had used all our money for infrastructure and economic and social development."
While the tribe assuages the concerns of its creditors and bides time for its investments in Buffalo Thunder and the Downs to appreciate, there are still numerous other enterprises to bankroll. Linda Diaz, the pueblo's lieutenant governor, insists Pojoaque isn't betting its entire future even as she acknowledges the perils of the pueblo's aspirations.
"There is a risk in anything you do but if you're not willing to take that risk you're not going to go anywhere," Diaz says. "If [Jake Viarrial] wouldn't have taken the risks he did we wouldn't have gotten where we are."
Pojoaque didn't get where it's at on geriatric gamblers alone. The pueblo has relied on grants and bonds to supplement everything from the construction of the Wellness Center to the new $13.2 million high school. Tribes receive millions of dollars in state and federal funds. Tom Talache, governor of Nambe Pueblo-which does not have a casino-says relying on such resources poses its own set of problems.
"We receive a lot of our financial support in the form of grants but those are almost always under-funded and come with a lot of strings attached," Talache says. "There is a lot of red tape that we have to wade through and it's been very difficult at times to work in that atmosphere."
While Pojoaque has been a leading and vocal political presence for tribes, it's nonetheless faced with the same problems confronting the rest of the state's tribes.
"They're politically strong and they've had some financial success but they're also playing catch-up like the rest of us," Talache says. "We are still essentially Third World countries. We all have a lot of problems and deficiencies that we're trying to address. We don't always go in the same direction-one size does not fit all-but we respect the sovereignty of each tribe [and how] they address their specific needs."
Gambling critics, however, say the approach taken by the tribes is a lose-lose proposition. "It's terrible social policy for a government to allow-and in some cases promote-something that injures its citizens," Guy Clark, director of the New Mexico Coalition Against Gambling, says. "There are 40,000 addicted gamblers in New Mexico. If the Hanta virus hit 40,000 people, the whole engine of government would be directed at confronting the problem. But because the Hanta virus doesn't give campaign contributions or revenue to the state, they look the other way."
Opponents of sanctioned gambling in New Mexico point out that-in addition to heightened rates of suicide, bankruptcy, domestic violence and crime-the state's most vulnerable citizens are affected the most. Namely, people like Albert. Most casinos could double as AARP convention halls. Many cater to the retirement crowd with special promotions like the "49er Club" at Cities of Gold or the "55 Plus" nights at Camel Rock. Casino membership cards and free shuttle services-like those offered at Cities of Gold-offer further enticement. But despite such practices, Rivera insists the pueblo isn't exploiting the elderly.
"We try to take care of people in our community from the time they're born until the time they move on to the next world," Rivera says. "Any of the elders in the valley will tell you that things have gotten better."
The parking lot at Cities of Gold is already filling to capacity on a Sunday morning. Bleary-eyed bikers eat off hangovers in the Golden Buffet and fortify their resolve with Bloody Marys in the Golden Cantina. The extras are all in their places, some with wheelchairs, canes and oxygen tanks propped against their perches as they navigate the complex galaxy of video poker.
They play Bonus Poker. Double Bonus Poker. Double Double Bonus Poker. Double Double Bonus Poker Plus. Triple Double Bonus Poker. And so on ad infinitum. They tap the buttons. They yank the levers. They wait for the sweet machine gun blast of bliss that alerts everyone within earshot to the fact that they have hit the Big One.
A steady line of people wait for their chances to strike rich in the weekly Slotsational Sunday tournament. Anyone who signs up for a "Gold Dust Club" card gets five minutes to win $1,000 in prizes. Those already on the clock are intense, focused and bludgeoning their spin buttons with robotic desperation. These frantic folks are inadvertently underwriting the future of Pojoaque.
"As a tribal leader, you try to make things better for your people all the time," Rivera says. "It's taken a lot of hard work and struggle to get to where we are. Now that we're here, it takes a lot of hard work and struggle to maintain what we have. You can't sit back and watch the world impact you. This pueblo is determined to create our own destiny."
Albert believes in destiny. At the end of World War II he was stationed in Guam, thousands of miles from his home in New Mexico. That's when he met a fellow soldier who-wouldn't you know it-hailed from Santa Fe. The two agreed to meet up when they both had returned stateside.
It didn't happen for more than 50 years. Then one day Albert was at Camel Rock pumping nickels into a slot machine when he glanced at the man sitting next to him and saw a vaguely familiar face.
"After all these years this is where we came across each other," Albert says. "Isn't that something?
It is. It's also the reason Albert requested his full name not be used for this story. He was worried he might not be allowed back in Cities of Gold if officials didn't like what he had to say. And that's a gamble he isn't willing to take.
Santa Fe Reporter