Are delegates underpaid for mileage, food?

By Jim Maniaci
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — Navajo Nation employees can receive almost double the amount for meals and lodging that council delegates can receive, and almost one-third more for mileage.
Council delegates receive and have for the past decade 24 cents a mile and $60 per diem, to cover meals and lodging. Navajo Nation employees receive 31 cents a mile and up to $114 a day $34 for meals and up to $80 for lodging in Navajo country.
The approximately 6,000 workers also received cost of living increases of about 11 percent during the past two years, while delegates bi-weekly paychecks have stayed at $25,000 a year for almost 10 years.
These are the reasons cited by delegates for their unanimous support of fellow Delegate Alfred Yazzie’s resolution to remove a restriction from the Navajo Nation’s code of laws that requires two-thirds of the chapters, 74 of 110, to approve the deletion of the check and balance. The end result would be delegates setting their own salaries and per diem.
In replying to the veto of the resolution on Nov. 1 by President Kelsey Begaye, who said voters could perceive the move to be self-serving, Council Speaker Edward T. Begay charged his Executive Branch counterpart with taking away the people’s right to decide the matter. The veto, however, doesn’t affect the 30-day period allowed by Navajo law for the chapters to submit their resolutions of support or opposition. (As of Friday, the Office of Legislative Services had received only one, in opposition.)
Chief Legislative Counsel Steve Boos said the chapter actions can be taken at a regular or special chapter meeting. He also explained that if the council mounts a successful override of the veto, the alteration of the code would still fail if the necessary 74 resolutions are not received in time.
On the other hand, Boos said, if enough chapters submit resolutions of approval — before the Nov. 20 deadline — if the council mounts a successful override of the veto, and enough chapters turn in their resolutions of support again before that absolute deadline the law would be changed.
The chief legislative counsel also said this particular law differs from the normal procedure of a time limit for action starting 30 days after the council speaker certifies a resolution. The unique law gives only 30 days from the council’s action.
Council delegates point out the change itself does not give them a raise, since a second resolution would be required to set the amount of the increased pay.
During the entire controversy, no one has stated whether any previous council submitted a resolution seeking an increase in the annual salary. Such a resolution would have required 73 or 74 chapters to have submitted resolutions of approval. The New Lands Chapter was established after the law went into effect.

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Conflict at Pinon School not resolved
By Bill — Donovan Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — A six-hour meeting, lasting late into Thursday night, failed to resolve problems be tween school officials and parents of students going to Pinon Community School.
At the same time, officials of the tribe’s Division of Din Education said they have also received com plaints now about the school’s board but so far have taken no action.
Vicky Nez, one of the parents who brought complaints against the school for forcing her children to attend Navajo cultural courses against their will, said the school board basically did not change its position during the meeting.
School officials said the school board members listened to the concerns of the parents and plan to bring the matter up again at a future meeting for possible action.
Nez said she was disappointed, since she and many of the other parents who attended the meeting were hoping the school board would compromise on its position requiring all students to take cultural courses.
That didn’t happen, although a number of people at the meeting, including Bill Yazzie, the community’s representative on the Navajo Nation Council, urged the school board to address the problem at the local level.
Otherwise, he said, the matter would have to go before the tribe’s Education Committee.
Nez said she was not opposed to her children taking Navajo culture courses. Instead, she said, she was opposed to having the school teach Navajo religious beliefs. Such beliefs, she said, should not be taught in a federally funded school.
She and others have also sent their complaints to Geneieve Jackson, director of the tribe’s Division of Diné Education.
The complaints not only concern the school’s policy regarding Navajo culture but also the amount of money the school board spends annually on travel and the behavior of school officials to parents.

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Two men die in accidents
By Jim Maniaci
Diné Bureau

Auto fatalities
EASTERN NAVAJO AGENCY —
Two men died in recent separate traffic accidents, according to Navajo Nation Chief of Police Leonard Butler.
A 31-year-old man who lives two miles south of the Chaco plant died when he was ejected onto the right-of-way fence on County Road 7115 south of Huerfano at 3:32 p.m. on Nov. 4.
Navajo Department of Law Enforcement Officer Rosina Coho of the Crownpoint Police District identified the driver of the 1995 four-door Corisca as Byron Benally. The driver was speeding on a paved road when he hit a rough stretch, lost control, overturned twice. Benally was not using his seat belt, the officer reported.
Benally was taken by helicopter to the San Juan Regional Medical Center in Farmington where he died from his injuries.
On Oct. 29, at 9:46 a.m., a van reared ended a pickup truck with an elderly couple, at Mile Post 34.2 on New Mexico Route 371 northeast of the Becenti Chapter House.
The driver of the 1997 Chevrolet van was Orro L. Shindledecker, 45, of Blanco, according to officer Wayne Ramone of the Crownpoint Police District.
Harry Manuelito, 70, who lived five miles north of the chapter house, and his wife, Julia, 75, were ejected when the impact flipped their Chevrolet pickup truck over. Harry Manuelito died at the Indian Health Service hospital in Crown point. Julia Manuelito was flown to an Albuquerque hospital for observation and treatment.
The case was turned over to Detective Johnny Peshlakai of the Criminal Investigations Department.

Shots fired
TUBA CITY — A 17-year-old boy, who lives eight miles north of the Tonalea Chapter House, was arrested on five charges on Nov. 3 following a report of shots fired in which there were no injuries or damage.
The young man was charged with unlawful use of a weapon, two counts of carrying a weapon, criminal impersonation and obstructing an officer in the performance of duty.
After an NDLE officer heard shots fired from Warrior Drive at 4 p.m., Tuba City Police District officers conducted a search. Officer Jarvis Qumyintewa found a 1993 Chevrolet four-door Cavalier parked on Tumbleweed Drive, with a .22 caliber Jennings handgun under the right front seat, along with live rounds in the vehicle and on a suspect.
Assisting officers were Rowland Dash, Gordon Samp, Terrace Logg and Sgt. Timothy Lange.

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Families go homeless while NHA employees bicker
New houses sitting empty

By Walter Howerton Jr.
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Carl Smith and Vernice Gustine and their two daughters are ready to move into their new house. The new house has been inspected and is waiting for them, too. Everything is ready, but they are living with relatives, homeless, the apparent victims of a Navajo Housing Authority memo war.
Smith and Gustine are not alone.
Twenty-five brand new houses are sitting empty a few miles west of U.S. 666 in the Rock Springs Chapter, just north of Gallup. Families have been found for most of them, but, like Smith and Gustine and their girls, they, too, are waiting.
Originally the federally funded houses were supposed to be ready by late summer, but work on them was not completed until early in October.
Smith and Gustine and others had gone through the long qualifying process that included paperwork, being checked out for everything from the amount of income to their police records; classes in such things as maintenance, family budgeting and housing policies; and, finally, signing a contract called a “mutual help and occupancy agreement.”
Money had changed hands. Smith and Gustine had put up approximately $1,000. This is not a rental deal. Eventually, like others in the development, they will own their home.
Carol Wheeler, the housing director at the Tohatchi Management Office of the Navajo Housing Authority, is in charge of placing the families in the new homes. Placement was based on a point system and required extensive documentation.
Things were going smoothly. Everyone, including Wheeler, figured Smith and Gustine and the rest of the families were almost home in October.
Then Marilyn Watson, the division director of the housing management division at NHA in Window Rock, showed up at Wheeler’s Tohatchi office on Oct. 18, spent a couple of hours, picked up some papers identified by Wheeler as confidential family files that Watson hauled away “without signing out for it” and, on Oct. 20, faxed Wheeler a memo stating that “this is a directive not to proceed in moving in families” until certain concerns were addressed. So, Smith and Gustine are currently homeless. So are some people who came from as far away as Phoenix to live in their new homes. Some people have been living with relatives or out of their cars. Some had rented places short-term and the time is here when they must renew leases or move on. Even the dedication ceremony planned for a couple of weeks ago was canceled. “Two babies have been born during this time” to families waiting to move in, Wheeler said.
“What’s the holdup?” Smith wanted to know. He worries about his new house sitting out there with no one around. He worries about vandals. He worries about what will happen with no water running through the pipes. He wonders how people who have done everything the NHA asked of them including the paperwork, the meetings and the money can still be out in the cold.
Chester Carl, executive director of NHA, claimed Thursday that the delay in moving people into their houses was part of the “routine checks and balances” of his department to assure fairness in the selection of people to receive houses. “We did a final check and deficiencies were noted,” he said. “There’s no holdup.”
Wheeler, who has worked for NHA for 19 years, disagreed. She said there has been a delay and figures it has to do with her.
“This is aimed at me,” she said. “An attempt is being made to remove me and to bring in someone else.” She said that was the only explanation for the aggressive tone of the memo she received from Watson.
She also said that originally she had placed herself in the running for one of the houses, one of the things Watson questioned, but that she had removed herself from consideration.
Some of the houses are available to people with higher incomes, she said.
“I wanted a house, but I don’t want to be involved now,” Wheeler said. “I will stay living in the private sector.”
Watson’s memo discreetly asked about Wheeler’s application last, but Wheeler is convinced the holdup is about her more than anything else.
The other concerns Watson expressed had to do with waiting lists and a desire for a detailed accounting of how each family was selected. It also questioned whether all the applicants, including Wheeler, provided proper documentation to be included in the program. Watson’s memo claimed that her hasty review of the data “indicates that your office arbitrarily identified families without verification and without following the required ... policies.”
She also asked for immediate justification for how each family was selected and wanted to know exactly why 10 other families were not selected to receive one of the houses.
Six days later, Wheeler replied in a memo, claiming to be “appalled” by Watson’s allegation charging that Wheeler and her staff “arbitrarily” selected families for the new homes. She wrote to Watson that during her 19 years of work for NHA, “I was never charged with ‘arbitrarily’ or favorably selecting applicants, until now.”
She also informed Watson that she had pulled herself from the Rock Springs housing list, just as she has done three times before when her name came up on a selection list for a house in Coyote Canyon.
Wheeler said this week she was providing a “line-by-line, selection by selection” justification of why each family was chosen for the housing program and hoping to speed the process for the families.
She described the whole process as “kind of depressing” but vowed to stick it out and do her job “until the bitter end.”
Several attempts to reach Watson in the past few days have been unsuccessful.
Despite Watson’s allegations that some of the approved applicants were missing documentation or, in the case of four families, had no documentation, Executive Housing Director Carl said all of the problems — which seemed to loom large in Watson’s estimation — had been resolved by Thursday.
Carl said all of the families approved by Wheeler’s office had received final approval by late Thursday afternoon. He was not sure when the families would be notified, other than to say it would be “soon.”
So, Carl Smith and Vernice Gustine and the families who will be their neighbors wait for another memo, the one that says simply, “Move in.” Smith said he will believe it when he sees it.

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Man dies of natural causes at Na’nizhoozhi Center

By Sekai K. Mutunhu
Staff Writer

GALLUP — The death of a Tohlakai man whose body was found in a detoxification holding area at the Na’nizhoozhi Center last month was the result of natural causes.
Lt. Bobby Silva of the Gallup Police Department has confirmed that no foul play was involved in the Oct. 5 death of 34-year-old Earl Benally, who was found with small amounts of blood on his face and jacket.
Police were called to NCI, 2205 E. Boyd Road, just after 8 a.m. A supervisor found Benally’s lifeless body lying on a floor mat in the detoxification holding area where large groups of intoxicated men typically sleep within inches of each other.
Benally, along with about 75 other intoxicated men, had slept in the NCI holding area to sober up. According to NCI officials, Benally had been drinking heavily and was picked up and placed in protective custody for his own safety around 6 p.m. Oct. 4.
NCI staff members called police after they failed to wake Benally for breakfast around 8:15 the following morning.
Police reports indicate that Benally was laying face down on the floor, and supervisors became concerned when he didn’t respond to numerous nudges in the foot and leg.

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Mexican Water officials want more time to defend charges

By Jim Maniaci
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK— Mexican Water Chapter officials struck out Friday in their attempt to get the Ethics and Rules Committee of the Navajo Nation Council to either dismiss charges against them or to allow more time to prepare for their hearings in less than two weeks.
By 6-0 vote, the committee denied motions by attorney Henry Howe to dismiss, then dismiss with prejudice, the amended complaints against his clients, President Richard Bowman, Vice President Ruthy C. Bates and Secretary-Treasurer Vincent Muskett. The committee also voted 4-2 against granting a continuance.
Thus the committee will hear the alleged violations of the Ethics in Government Law on Nov. 17 and 18 in the conference room of the new Office of Ethics and Rules. Also to be heard the same days will be the charges against Timothy Bitsilly, the chapter grazing official. On Nov. 16, the committee will hear the complaints against Marilyn John, secretary-treasurer of the White Cone Chapter.
Mexican Water’s four officials were charged by the Office of Ethics and Rules with accepting $6,060 to attend unbudgeted meetings and doing it without approval in advance by the chapter’s residents. John was charged with unauthorized use of $900 worth of Navajo Nation funds.
Howe maintained even the amended complaints did not provide enough specifics of which laws allegedly were violated so that he could prepare a proper defense. The Gallup attorney also maintained that an erroneous story published in the official tribal newspaper, saying the committee had already convicted his clients, was prejudicial.
Bernadine Martin, director of the OER, replied that chapter officials are public officials with a public trust to maintain. She also said the amended complaint provided enough specifics for Howe to prepare a proper defense.
Martin also said the only contact she received about the erroneous story, which was retracted in the newspaper’s next issue, were from within the Navajo Nation government, and all callers knew the story was incorrect.
Committee members agreed with her and unanimously rejected both of Howe’s motions to dismiss the cases either with or without prejudice.
There was a bit more disagreement among committee members, who went behind closed doors with their attorney, Ron Haven, for a half-hour before deciding he did have enough time. Martin said, however, she did not oppose a continuance.
Howe then raised a fourth issue, that the amended complaint did not allow the required 20 days before a hearing. Again the committee upheld the ethics staff.

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Bureaucratic machine may get streamlined

By Jim Maniaci
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — The giant bureaucratic turtle of Navajo government, notorious for being slowed and overstuffed with paperwork, may go on a diet soon.
Three of the 11 committees of the Navajo Nation Council received visits Friday from Speaker Edward T. Begay and his key assistants, Chief of Staff Leonard Gorman, Chief of Legislative Services Rose Graham and Chief Legislative Counsel Steve Boos.
The quartet made the rounds to preach streamlining to get legislation to the 88 council delegates faster and cheaper. In addition to the Ethics and Rules Committee a presentation was given to a joint meeting of the Budget and Finance Committee and the Transportation and Community Development Committee.
If the number of autographs on the routing slip for each piece of proposed legislation can be reduced, proposed resolutions would go through the system faster, while at the same time saving an undetermined tonnage of copy paper, wear and tear on the expensive document reproducing machines, and staff time all of which cost money.
Navajo law now gives each reviewer five days to complete their legal or financial comments on the routing slips, officially called “Title 2 Section 164 Signature Approval Sheets.” Their most popular nicknames are “164” and “SAS.”

Each committee
The proposed resolutions also must go through each of the committees which have jurisdiction over the topic in question.
Although there are 12 committees, a resolution must go through at least two committees before it reaches the council. After the initial oversight committee determines its recommendation — either positively or negatively — the resolution goes to the Ethics and Rules Committee to be placed on the agenda. But proposed actions usually have to go through several committees before that step.
The entire package legally must reach the E&RC at least 15 days before the council session begins, but this law often gets violated, so the council has to waive the law for late matters to be placed on the agenda. During one session early this year, only eight matters came from the Ethics and Rules Committee for the agenda, with almost four dozen added from the floor.
A 15-day advance was put into the law to give the delegates time to study the tall pile of documents they receive.
Friday the Office of Ethics and Rules proposed to its oversight committee, as a plan to begin the discussion, to have the Office of the Speaker send the proposed resolutions to the committees he would select as appropriate for action. At the same time, a copy would go to the Office of the President and Vice President for comment by the Executive Branch’s appropriate departments.

Similar to Congress?
If the oversight committees approved the resolution it would go a Rules Committee then to the council. This would change the Navajo system to one more similar to that used by the U.S. Congress. Currently a Navajo resolution continues on because committee actions are recommendations, not decisions. Under the new system a resolution could be killed at the committee level.
Gorman and Graham, for Speaker Begay, proposed the Section 164 review process remain the same until it reaches the first oversight committee. Each committee, in turn, would add its comments with the whole package going to the council. Any changes to the initial resolution would be made on the council floor. This would change the current system where additional reviews are required as a resolution receives major alterations by each committee as the paperwork works its way up the ladder to the council.
In a related matter, Begay’s chief of staff also explained that the committees spend most of their time on administrative, rather than policy matters. He said the administrative managers should be handled by the departments to free the committees up to concentrate on legislation.
Earlier this year the 19th Council, which is in the first year of a four-year term, rejected the speaker’s proposal to convert the Ethics and Rules Committee into strictly a Rules Committee by transferring administrative hearings from the committee to the Office of Hearings and Appeals.

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