As many of you may know, the town of Tucumcari, N.M., is a candidate for a horse-racing track and casino license, which would be on the east end of town, right on Route 66.
Richard Talley, president of Smalltown America and owner of the restored Motel Safari in Tucumcari, wants roadies from around the world to lobby the state, before a July 24 meeting of the New Mexico Racing Commission, to award the “racino” license to Tucumcari.
Talley said in an e-mail:
Gaining the racino in Tucumcari would shift a whole new focus on Route 66 there, and a long way in improving the boulevard for all of our Route 66ers around the whole world! […]
Sooooo – I’m asking for everyone’s support to begin and overwhelming e-mail and mailing campaign, starting from right now and going all the way through July 24th? If we can get everyone involved in our community from around the world, to e-mail in and snail mail in, letters of their support for Tucumcari’s Coronado Park development, we can pull this off! […]
The long and short of it is that they’re looking for the best location to be able to pull out of state revenues and tourism from, which fits the Tucumcari location best, not to mention they probably have not even though outside of the box with regards to Route 66 being an International draw as well. The success of the racino here would be an enormous boost to the re-development of Route 66 here, and may even spur on the continuation of their Mainstreet America project as well.
Again, I cannot stress the importance of the successful outcome of a favorative decision by the New Mexico Racing Commission, as we are in competition with 3 other proposed sites in New Mexico, none of which will be on Route 66 or have the quad state/national/international draw of Tucumcari’s proposed location.
The contact information is here, both snail-mail and e-mail:
New Mexico Racing Commission
4900 Alameda NE, Suite A
Albuquerque, NM 87113
rosemary.leeder@state.nm.us
In case you want to attend the racing commission meeting, it’s at 5:30 p.m. July 24 at the Tucumcari Convention Center.
Tucumcari, which has seen a steep drop in population in recent decades, would get a huge shot in the arm if it landed the racino. New jobs would be created, more tourists would show up in town, more hotels and restaurants on Route 66 would see business, and the city’s coffers would gain more money to help fix its aging infrastructure. This is a no-brainer to support this.
UPDATE: Here’s a story today from the Quay County Sun about Tucumcari’s bid to land the racino.