ABQJOURNAL NORTH: Gov., Owners Old Friends

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Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Gov., Owners Old Friends

By Phil Parker
Copyright © 2009 Albuquerque Journal
      As kids, Lance and Conrad Hool played baseball with Bill Richardson in Mexico City, where they all grew up.
       Forty years later, they reconnected with Richardson, donating to his presidential campaign and hosting a Hollywood fundraiser for him.
       It is their Santa Fe movie studio that is receiving $16 million in state and county financing, which will cover the majority of the cost of the project.
       “We had the good fortune of growing up in Mexico City with him and we played in the same little league baseball league,” Lance Hool, CEO of Santa Fe Studios, said of Richardson. “We were in different schools, but we met around the baseball field.”
       Lance Hool's brother, Conrad, and son, Jason, are presidents of the studios, which over the last year has secured the $16 million in public money for a movie-making campus off N.M. 14 south of Santa Fe.
       Both Lance Hool and a representative of the Governor's Office said the Hools' Richardson connection had nothing to do with the funding for Santa Fe Studios.
       The funding is in the form of a $10 million state economic development grant and a $6 million loan from Santa Fe County, with the loan funds to be generated by selling taxpayer-backed bonds. The $10 million grant was awarded to Santa Fe County to use for a film studio.
       For their part, the Hools have pledged to bring their experience in the film world, a minimum of $2 million in collateral, a design plan for the studio facilities and the creation of jobs.
       'Love' for N.M.
       Lance Hool's biography on the Santa Fe Studio's Web site says he was born and raised in Mexico City “in a family environment of international politics and art.”
       He said in an interview Tuesday that he knew Richardson, whose father was a banker in Mexico City, for a short period before Richardson moved to the United States' East Coast to attend boarding school.
       But about four years ago, Hool said, Richardson spoke at a function for the Director's Guild of America — of which Hool is a member — in Los Angeles and expressed his support for the film industry and the potential for productions in New Mexico.
       Hool said he'd long loved New Mexico — his parents had honeymooned here and he'd produced the Kris Kristofferson 1988 Western “The Tracker” in New Mexico.
       “I hadn't seen him in ... God, 40 years?” Hool said of Richardson. “He came to California and said there were incentives in New Mexico and New Mexico wanted to attract filmmakers. I took the first opportunity to go back (to New Mexico) and take a look. I fell in love again.”
       Hool's family offered hefty support of the governor when he was running for president in last year's election. Donations to Richardson's campaign from various Hools totaled almost $8,000 in 2007, and in the run-up to the election they held a fundraising party in Los Angeles for the governor.
       New Mexico state Democratic Party chairman Javier Gonzales, a former Santa Fe County commissioner who is a minority owner in Santa Fe Studios, also gave Richardson $2,300 for the presidential campaign.
       Hool said he was “saddened” when Richardson dropped out of the race for president.
       “We didn't donate for any benefit to us,” Hool said. “I'm a big supporter of the governor and I think he should have been president ... I think he's a world-class politician and whatever he does I'll be very supportive of him, with or without a studio.”
       Asked about other private projects which have received large economic development grants, Eric Witt, Richardson's deputy chief of staff, mentioned $6 million for the Hewlett Packard facility in Rio Rancho and $4 million for the $210 million Schott Solar plant in Albuquerque.
       Richardson's office said the state appropriated the $10 million between 2004 and 2008 to go to Santa Fe County government to help pay for a film studio.
       “(T)he Legislature made appropriations to DFA 'to plan, design, construct, equip and furnish a film production, education and training center and studio,' ” a copy of the November 2008 grant agreement between the county and the state says.
       “We didn't award that contract (to Santa Fe Studios), the county did,” said Witt. “That decision was not made by this office or the state.”
       Santa Fe County attorney Steve Ross noted in an e-mail that “the $10 million grant arrived after the county had entered into the agreement” with the Santa Fe Studio proponents.
       Site improvements
       The County Commission agreed in June 2008 to a deal under which Santa Fe Studios would buy the site from the county and the county agreed to provide water-line and road improvements. Ross said this week he didn't yet know how much those infrastructure improvements would cost.
       Santa Fe Studios doesn't have to begin paying off the $2.6 million purchase price of the site until it starts creating jobs, with installments of $520,000 for every 100,000 hours of above-minimum-wage job activity.
       Hool said the commissioners embraced and ultimately financed the Hools' bid to build Santa Fe Studios because, after two other failed attempts by other companies to put a studio on the same plot of land, his team brought a sound deal, along with more than 40 years' experience in the film industry and a board of directors that includes representatives from Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox studios.
       “The film industry has done very well through all the recessions,” he said. “In the great depression the film industry did fantastic.”
       Santa Fe Studios will have to make at least one more presentation to the County Commission before the deal is final.
       Hool said he's already put more than $1 million of his own money into Santa Fe Studios, and expects to spend more. The $16 million in taxpayer money is helping launch the project, but once the studio's first phase is finished, it will cost closer to $25 million, he said.
       “There's no way that $6 million won't be paid back even if the very worst were to happen,” he said.
       The county loan “gets paid back the way your mortgage gets paid back,” Hool said. “There's a monthly payment, including principal and interest.”

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