ALBUQUERQUE — No words were minced when the character Ed Bailey jumped out of his seat in one of the early scenes of Tombstone and told the slick gambler and gunslinger Doc Holliday — played by actor Val Kilmer — to scram after their poker game went sour.

"Take your money and get out 'cause I'm tired of listening to your mouth," Bailey yelled.

Well, some of Kilmer's real-life Northern New Mexico neighbors share Bailey's sentiments. They're upset with him, saying he made disparaging comments about San Miguel County and for chasing away people fishing on the Pecos River at his ranch.

The bitter feelings that have been brewing over the last several years have reached a boiling point. But unlike Holliday, Kilmer won't be able to settle this with a knife or a pair of six-shooters.

Kilmer has been asked to appear before county commissioners to explain himself during a meeting next Wednesday.

Calls and e-mails to Kilmer and his publicist have not been returned, but commission chairman David Salazar said the actor has indicated he will show up.

"I think it's a chance for him, an opportunity, to straighten out the record," said Salazar. "I think if he goes ahead and explains what happened, if he was misquoted or if he said something and somebody took it the wrong way, I think it's to his benefit to clear that up."

The hope, Salazar said, is that something good — for Kilmer and the community — comes from the meeting.

The flap started when Kilmer's Pecos River Ranch sought to open three guest houses to paying customers. The county zoning and planning commission approved the proposal 3-2 in March, but Rowe resident Abran Tapia appealed to the commission.

"He's not a good neighbor. That's all there is to it," Tapia said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Tapia has never met Kilmer, but he proceeded to tick off a list of reasons why the actor is on the bottom of his list. Included were the disparaging comments Kilmer allegedly made in two magazine articles years ago and the "no trespassing" signs posted around Kilmer's sprawling ranch, which includes a few choice miles of the Pecos River.

In October 2003, Rolling Stone published an article that quoted Kilmer as saying he lived in the "homicide capital of the Southwest" and 80 percent "of the people in my county are drunk."

Despite Rolling Stone standing by the article, Kilmer denied the statements and said he had actually bragged about New Mexico during the interview. Days later, he took out an ad in the Santa Fe New Mexican, saying he loved New Mexico and Pecos.

To make matters worse, Kilmer tried to explain for an Esquire writer two years later the emotional toll acting takes on an artist by talking about the soldiers who were shipped off to fight in Vietnam and how they were mentally unprepared for the horror of war. He ended up saying most of them were sent to the war because they were "borderline criminal or poor."

An Army veteran, Tapia was offended. He said his cousin and friend from school had fought and died in Vietnam.

He also accused Kilmer of being racist, claiming that the actor is trying to create "a segregated facility" at the ranch by charging people to stay at the guest houses. Tapia reasons that local Hispanics in the area would be excluded because they wouldn't be able to afford a night at the ranch.

Kilmer recently told the Albuquerque Journal that the accusations against him have been upsetting for his friends.

"I'm not worried at all about the reaction because I just see it as an opportunity to bring people together," he told the newspaper. "No one would make a false statement like this statement of racism if they knew what we were doing."

The flap has caught the attention of everyone from the New Mexico chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which has offered to defend Kilmer's 1st Amendment rights, to the California-based Committee on Chicano Rights and Gov. Bill Richardson, who is known for his diplomatic problem-solving skills.

Richardson, who is friends with Kilmer, said he has been pushing for all sides to meet.

"Val, he's got his rights," the governor said. "The First Amendment protects him to say anything he wants, but those comments he made a long time ago were not good comments. So I think there's a possibility of a gracious exit for both sides with the meeting coming up."




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