Sandia Pueblo, N.M. – The towering resort casino rises out of the empty edges of northern Albuquerque like a mirage in the desert – a symbol of the vast prosperity of a small band of American Indian farmers that has emerged as one of New Mexico’s richest tribes.
But as a symbol, Sandia Pueblo’s glimmering resort – completed in December – betrays more than is usually grasped by the thousands of gamblers who daily plunk coins into flashing slot machines or toss chips across the casino’s green velvet tables.
Among the projects funded by the resort’s profits: a private buffalo herd whose animals are used in ancient religious ceremonies, a 15-person environmental-quality department to manage land around sacred sites, and vast property acquisitions to protect the pueblo’s tiny village from encroaching growth.
They are examples of the fine line the Sandia are attempting to walk.
“The tables have turned, and it’s because of money. Our biggest challenge right now is make sure we don’t lose our identity – our culture, our language and our traditions,” said Stuwart Paisano, who led the pueblo for six years as governor until he was replaced in January.
That line also led the Sandia into the arms of indicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Paisano and other pueblo leaders concede. Last month, Abramoff admitted cheating his tribal clients out of millions of dollars.
$2.75 million to Abramoff
Court documents show that the Sandia – with just 481 members – paid Abramoff and his partner Michael Scanlon $2.75 million beginning in February 2002. The money was part of a lobbying campaign to reclaim control over land on nearby Sandia Mountain, threatened by development and which the pueblo considers sacred.
They won their 20-year battle a year later, when U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., helped pushed legislation through Congress putting about 10,000 acres of the mountain into a trust over which the tribe will have significant control.
“There was a decision taken early on to do whatever it took to get back the mountain. People might say it could have been done cheaper, but we don’t know that,” said Sam Montoya, 60, who directs a program to preserve the pueblo’s language.
Of the several tribes Abramoff is accused to have cheated, the Sandia have perhaps received the least attention. And Sandia’s association with one of the most vilified men in Washington raises few eyebrows here – perhaps because they won. They now control the craggy peaks that play a central role in the pueblo’s spiritual life, and are the location of sacred sites that are important to the tribe’s religious ceremonies.
For 20 years, the tribe sued the Interior Department and sent attorneys into courtrooms without a clear victory. Within a year of hiring Abramoff, they had their mountain.
“Lobbying is a new game for Indian tribes,” said Lawrence Gutierrez, the Sandia’s new governor. “We didn’t create it. We are using the system as someone else developed it.”
But it is also clear that Abramoff cheated the Sandia in much the way he did his other tribal clients.
A large part of the tribe’s multimillion-dollar fee went to Scanlon and his firm, Capital Campaign Strategies, for public relations and grassroots organizing, court documents show. Scanlon heavily inflated his prices and then returned 50 percent of what he earned to Abramoff in under-the-table kickbacks.
And there is the question of whether the money bought the tribe anything at all. A spokesman for Domenici said the senator never talked to Abramoff about Sandia Mountain or its fate.
“Late in the game, the pueblo chose to hire Abramoff’s firm. At that point, we made it very clear that they didn’t need a lobbyist to continue their contacts with Sen. Domenici,” said Chris Gallegos, the senator’s spokesman.
Pueblo leaders wouldn’t comment on Abramoff’s effectiveness or his role in getting the legislation passed.
“You have to pay to play”
Across Indian country, experts say the Abramoff scandal has raised a number of questions apart from its meaning for the corrupting influence of cash on Washington politics: Was the lack of checks and balances that allowed Abramoff to steal millions from tribes a failure of tribal leadership?
Would corporate America, with its broader experience in the ways of lobbyists, have continued to pay so much for so long?
“Is there any other industry where you see such a huge gap between the experience level of the people with the money hiring the lawyers and the lawyers themselves?” asked Robert Odawi Porter, a law professor and member of the Seneca tribe.
“At IBM and Ford, the CEOs have trained at the best business schools and been involved in their companies for decades. In this dynamic, we’re much newer to the money and we don’t have the same experience,” he said.
At 34, Paisano is the embodiment of the often contradictory tensions facing Sandia’s leadership.
The youngest pueblo leader in New Mexico history, Paisano sports tailored suits and media savvy. He was a member of Gov. Bill Richardson’s transition team four years ago and is a heavy Democratic fundraiser.
During his governorship, Paisano shepherded the resort project.
He also pushed the pueblo to engage all the tools of modern politics and often shuttled between the state capital of Santa Fe and Washington.
“A lot of decisions were being made on our behalf without our knowledge. I made it a priority that if decisions were going to made, they were going to be made by us,” Paisano said.
“I was at political events. I did a lot of political fundraising. We contributed quite heavily to a variety of campaigns. You have to pay to play,” he said.
But leaders here emphasize that unlike other tribes involved with Abramoff, Sandia wasn’t looking to open up a new casino or shut someone else’s down. The tribe’s wealth is being used to protect tradition and secure the community’s future.
Dominick Montoya, a computer technician, said that his parents wanted to send him to private school when he was young but couldn’t afford it. Now, 70 percent of the pueblo’s children attend private academies paid for by the tribe, and tribal officials have already presented Montoya and his wife with a range of private kindergartens where they can send their 3-year-old when she’s old enough.
Montoya said the current generation of schoolchildren will probably grow up to be the most affluent and well-educated in Sandia history.
He didn’t know about Abramoff’s lobbying fees but didn’t question the decision when he learned of it.
“I think most people trust the councilmen to make the right decisions, and they have been for a long time,” said Montoya, 30. “I’m proud we still have our traditions.”
And those traditions run deep.
Most of the pueblo’s members live in a modest village with dirt roads, tucked out of sight of the massive casino.
Houses are small, and in front of many are traditional adobe ovens, used to bake bread for feast days.
Religion plays a dominant role in public life. The tribe’s governors and lieutenant governors – always men – are picked by religious leaders after a period of seclusion.
Paisano was replaced two days before Abramoff’s plea agreement made many of the tribe’s dealings with the lobbyist public.
But the former governor said he has no idea why he was replaced or if it has anything to do with the scandal.
“Out of respect … for my culture, I didn’t ask,” he said.
Raking in millions
But that age-old form of government is also being buffeted by powerful forces of change.
Tribal members get free education through graduate school. There are interest-free mortgages and free home computers. A personal trainer cajoles pueblo members during spinning classes in a state-of- the-art gym.
According to William Eadington, a gambling expert at the University of Nevada, if you take the pueblo’s publicly reported revenues from slot machines, add estimates for poker and other games, and consider the 40 percent profits typical in Indian gaming, Sandia probably clears between $50 million and $60 million a year from gaming.
The annual city budget of Greeley, with 77,000 people, is $60.7 million.
“We are a government here, but what’s happened is we are also running these money- making businesses. We’re having this corporate culture come into the governing aspect,” said Lynn Trujillo, who grew up in the pueblo, went to college at Dartmouth and returned home to become the tribe’s attorney.
Trujillo, 33, said that when she was younger, she used to fight with her father over the restrictions of life in the pueblo. She wanted more democracy and the right of women to participate in governance.
But she also believes that the pueblo’s survival is intrinsically linked to the survival of its traditions.
“What I hope for the future of the pueblo is that we are able to be self-sustaining, that we have a healthy community. That probably means finding a balance between communal rights and individual rights, between traditional ways of life and the development that’s going on,” Trujillo said.
“You are really talking about a community, this place, that walks a fine line every single day in what we do.”
Staff writer Michael Riley can be reached at mriley@denverpost.com or 303-820-1614.
