Green Rubber Global, a subsidiary of a Malaysian company that planned to open a first-of-its-kind tire recycling plant in Gallup, was hoping to get $2.9 million from the New Mexico Legislature as part of an incentive package that would be matched by a $1 million from the city and McKinley County, according to earlier reports.

But the project -- which featured a high-profile trip to Gallup last year by movie star Mel Gibson, one of the company's backers -- appears to have screeched to a halt, according to The Gallup Independent.

Gallup Mayor Harry Mendoza told the Independent he had a somewhat tense conversation with Gov. Bill Richardson during the recent McKinley County/Gallup days at the Legislature in Santa Fe in which he said the governor told him the $2.9 million won't be coming because Gallup has decided not to hand Red Rock Park over to the state.

"I said, `Wait a minute. Those are two different issues,'" Mendoza told the paper of his discussion with Richardson.

Allen Oliver, deputy communications director in the Governor's Office, told the Independent in an e-mail he wouldn't comment on the governor's private meetings, but said the state was committed to taking over the park.

"The governor has been a long-time supporter of Red Rock Park and is disappointed that the city of Gallup reneged on over two years of negotiation aimed at saving that park," Oliver said in the e-mail.

The Gallup City Council voted last December to hold on to the park, saying they were concerned about the state's commitment and the potential loss of a city asset, the Independent said.

Oliver also told the paper that the decision not to fund the green rubber plant had nothing to do with the park issue.

"The governor has also been a strong supporter of rural economic development across New Mexico -- including the green rubber plant -- and is concerned that several economic development initiatives have not yet been funded by the Legislature," Oliver told the Independent.

Mendoza said he told the governor that it was a previous administration that had agreed to hand Red Rock Park over to the state and that he had never suggested or agreed to any such deal, the paper reported.

The mayor also told the Independent that  he asked the governor why he needed the park and that the governor told him he didn't need to know that information.

"I think the people of Gallup need to know we're not going to get the money because of how the governor feels," Mendoza told the Independent.

Green Global president Rick Homans, a former state Economic Development Department secretary, said last September as saying the company was scaling back some of its earlier optimistic forecasts -- due in part to some skepticism about the tire-recycling technology, according to The Associated Press.

City and company officials had hoped to break ground this summer on what was originally billed as an eventual $30 million investment, the AP reported.

The plant was expected to employ from 140 to 150 workers. 

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