Thursday, April 21, 2005 | 10:58 a.m.
AG says county agreement with pueblo is flawed
Attorney General Patricia Madrid said Wednesday the courts probably would strike down an agreement barring any future Dona Ana County Commission from opposing a proposed Jemez Pueblo casino in southern New Mexico.
A previous commission voted last December to approve the agreement, which covers an off-reservation casino that the northern New Mexico pueblo and Santa Fe art dealer Gerald Peters want to build near Anthony.
The attorney general, in an advisory legal opinion, said there's no law allowing one county commission to bind future commissions on the key question of whether to oppose the casino.
Madrid said the agreement goes even further -- requiring future commissions to defend it against any challenge, "even a well-founded one."
"Such provisions would likely be found by the courts to be void and unenforceable," she said in an opinion issued in response to a question from Sen. Mary Kay Papen, D-Las Cruces, who opposes the casino.
The agreement attempts to override the county's powers and might be an impermissible violation of the separation of powers doctrine, she wrote.
Casino still on track
A Washington County supervisor says the new Bali Hai Casino and Resort could open for business in about a year if development goes as planned.
Although the gaming facility will be considered a Mississippi operation, most of the property it's renting from the Refuge Hunting Club is in Arkansas.
The casino and all of its attractions will sit on about 29 acres of land, said Supervisor Paul Watson. The parking lot will be on 24 acres in Arkansas. The casino will occupy the other five acres on the Greenville side of the Mississippi River.
Watson, speaking Tuesday at a Greenville civic club, said the site, which was approved by the Mississippi Gaming Commission last year, is located near the foot of the U.S. 82 bridge and future U.S. 82 bypass.
Watson said the casino would tap into the customer market from Arkansas and Louisiana.
Owner plans apartments in former hotel and casino
Another former hotel and casino near downtown Reno apparently will be converted into apartments.
Kamran Farhadi, the managing partner of Reno Regency Apartments, thinks UNR, two area hospitals and downtown businesses provide a market to fill the former Ramada Inn-Speakeasy Casino with apartment tenants.
"Our vision is that this building would be high-rise luxury apartments for senior citizens, graduate students at the university, employees at the Saint Mary's or Washoe hospitals or employees of downtown," Farhadi said.
He has asked the city for a special use permit to allow conversion of the hotel rooms into apartments. The request is scheduled to go before the Reno Planning Commission June 1.
Most of the hotel rooms would be converted into studio apartments and retrofitted with full kitchens.
About 20 units currently are being rented as month-to-month extended-stay hotel rooms, and seniors mainly occupy those units.
Farhadi also hopes to lure a grocery store into the first floor of the building, which he plans to convert to retail space.
If a grocery store wont come, he plans to divide the space into shops that could cater to the university students.
The idea of connecting the property to the university isn't new.
UNR's University Inn once was reportedly interested in the property to expand its operations near the campus, but officials didn't pursue the idea.
It has been a difficult decade for property. In 1998, MTR Gaming Group Inc. bought the property, then known as the Ramada Plaza Hotel, for $8 million.
It also was formerly called the Reno Hotel Casino and the Reno Ramada.
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