Mel Gibson visits Gallup

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Rumors have a habit of evaporating in daylight. But this one is true: Mel Gibson yes, that Mel Gibson was in town last week.

No, the Oscar-winning director was not scouting locations for his next movie. But he was scouting locations for a rubber recycling plant.

City officials confirmed that Gibson visited Gallup May 2 with a team of three business associates to look at a few sites where they might build a state-of-the-art plant that would turn old tires into usable rubber.

They had hoped to keep the visit quiet, but a trip to the Ranch Kitchen for breakfast changed all that. Even a secluded table at the back of the restaurant could not keep news of Gibson's visit a secret.

"A lot of the word is already out," conceded City Manager Eric Honeyfield.

Honeyfield didn't actually meet with Gibson and his entourage. According to Assistant City Manager Larry Binkley, the table at the Ranch Kitchen included himself, former City Planner Lisa Baca Diaz, former Economic Development Director Glen Benefield, and City Attorney George Kozeliski. Frank Mraz of Gamerco Associates and Tim Hagaman, the New Mexico Economic Development Department's man in Gallup, also joined them. After breakfast, Baca Diaz, Benefield and Mraz showed their guests the sites.

City officials do not want to say too much about the visit. Though they're "excited" about the opportunity, Honeyfield said, it's still only a "prospect."

"We are still in fairly sensitive negotiations," he said.

Baca Diaz said Gibson and his team were considering a few other cities around the state as well, and that too much public disclosure at this point could jeopardize Gallup's chances.

With the pending closure of the Pittsburgh and Midway coal mine west of Yah-Ta-Hey next year, maybe sooner, the city is desperate to replace the 300 well-paying jobs that will go with it. But attracting new businesses even with the help of the state, which provided Gallup with the lead for the rubber plant isn't easy.

"In economic development you swing 10 times at the ball just to hit it," Honeyfield said, "even on a good day."

To help improve its batting average, the city puts together a package of incentives for prospective companies, anything from tax breaks to employee training credits. Honeyfield said the particulars for the rubber plans were still under negotiation.

But the risks, he added, were nothing short of "huge."

There's always the danger that a company lured to Gallup by lucrative, but temporary, incentives will leave as soon as those incentives dry up. And with this rubber plant in particular, there's the added risk that it involves what Baca Diaz and Benefield called an "emerging technology." They weren't aware of anything quite like it currently in operation.

The company behind the technology is the Petra Group, an outfit based in Malaysia with no stateside contact information. Its Web site describes a company with its hands in everything from environmental technology to sports and entertainment to financial services. The site does not say much about its rubber recycling technology, however, which it calls DeLink.

"With DeLink," it reads, "managing tyre (sic) waste can now become a commercially viable and environmentally friendly operation, recovering green rubber and thereby offering a premium product at a discount."

City officials were not clear about Gibson's role in it all. According to Baca Diaz, "he's jut one of the potential backers of this project." Benefield said he sits on the company's board of directors.

In any case, Honeyfield cautioned that it was important for the city not to get caught up in the celebrity of one of the company's partners, and to evaluate the project strictly on its economic merits.