Gallup Independent 11-19-99

Chinle may be model
Juvenile center moving ahead

By Jim Maniaci
Diné Bureau

CHINLE, Ariz. — A new long-term rehabilitation center for boys and girls convicted of serious crimes is expected to be completed here in the spring.

Supporters hope the Central Navajo Youth Corrections Center will be a national model that could attract U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno to a dedication ceremony in May.

In addition to the standard Western culture-oriented juvenile corrections programs, the center will provide traditional Navajo restorative justice programs.

The Hozhoogo Nooseili Bil Haahodi' Neeh seeks to turn around the troubled lives of the young by teaching them the 4 Rs responsibility for their actions, restitution to return to harmony with their victims, rehabilitation through learning new skills and restoration to restore broken relationships.

This is the same sort of program being considered for a proposed mega-jail for adults by the Navajo Nation's Department of Corrections and Public Safety Committee of the Navajo Nation Council.

Old school site

The youth center is being built on the site of the former Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school on Navajo Route 7 across the highway from a voluntary youth mental health and substance abuse treatment center.

The $9.5 million corrections center for medium and high-security risk boys and girls will cost an estimated $2.3 million a year to operate with a staff of 70.

Two housing pods will hold 24 people and are divided into four cellblocks containing six beds per block. The concrete block wall dividers would allow, for instance, six girls to be held in one block and 18 boys in the other three.

A total of 48 regular inmates can be served at one time. Two correctional officers will staff the control center in each pod.

According to Jon Colvin, president of the center's advisory council, the hope is that a fence topped with concertina wire won't have to be added later.

The architects designed the facility with sally ports so that the interior door must lock before the exterior door will unlock. The facility is about 30,000 square feet.

But because of a lack of facilities, Wilbe Antone, director of the Department of Corrections, told the advisory council Thursday that short-term incarcerations may be required.

Don't mix inmates

Advisory council members strongly objected to the mixing of short and long-term inmates because the treatments are different.

They had no objection to emergency overnight stays as long as the children would be transported first thing in the morning to the short-term centers in Tohatchi or Tuba City. There are four temporary holding cells at the main control center, plus two isolation cells.

Members of the advisory council also were briefed on school programs planned for long-term inmates. The latest proposal for an existing charter public school, Educational Services Incorporated, provide the curriculum with the Pinon Unified School District sponsoring the charter.

This would avoid the opposition encountered by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio who wants to establish his own charter public school program for the thousands of inmates in his system.

A need to educate Navajo court judges also was discussed. Members feared the judges would overload the center, leading to the revolving-door practice used with adults to avoid overcrowding the Navajo Nation's jails.

Antone has said he has a limit of only 103 adult prisoners who can be held at any one time due to the 1992 Window Rock District Court order.

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Navajos ask tribe for action on RECA

By Tom Purdom
Staff Writer

GRANTS — Navajos want to see action, not words of support, from Navajo Nation leaders concerning the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.

Melton Martinez, a Navajo who is co-chairman of the RECA Reform Coalition Group, said Navajo Nation President Kelsey Begaye and Vice President Taylor McKenzie each have indicated they support RECA reform.

But their support, he said, has come only in words and not action.

With a stronger RECA reform bill now before the U.S. Senate, the bill needs Begaye and McKenzie to write letters of support, Martinez said.

Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has written the RECA reform bill. The original bill, passed in 1990, covers only a small percentage of miners stricken with illnesses brought about by uranium mining.

Hatch's reform measure will expand RECA compensation to include millers as well as families and victims of radiation fallout from above-ground nuclear tests.

The bill also expands coverage for other types of radiation exposure illnesses cancers of the brain, colon, ovaries, bladder and salivary gland. An amendment attached to the bill includes renal disease (kidney diseases).

Paul Hicks, president of the New Mexico Uranium Workers Council, said Senator Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., was responsible for the amendment. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved Bingaman's amendment about two weeks ago, Hicks said.

Hatch's bill also reduces the burden of proof victims need to establish for the amount of exposure they experienced.

"It is hard to understand why our own elected (Navajo) leaders have not been more active in their support of these reforms,"

Martinez said. "President Begaye told us that uranium issues would be a priority with his administration." Martinez said that priority has not materialized.

"We've tried three times to get it on the (Navajo Nation) council floor, and three times we've failed," Martinez said. Martinez said a 10-point RECA reform package is needed. Hatch's reform legislation reportedly addresses about 60 percent of the 10-point platform. "We need to get behind this, because 60 percent is a whole lot better than zero percent," Martinez said. "We can work on the other points later."

"These reforms will benefit many, many DinÚ (Navajo) radiation victims," Martinez said.

At one point, a few senators were holding up the RECA reform bill, Martinez said.

"When we heard that some members of the Senate held up Hatch's bill, we were hoping that our own Navajo Nation administration might take a stand," he said. "Even though the vice president knows how important this bill is to the DinÚ, he didn't show any sign of support until someone called from Bingaman's office."

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Young people urged to unlearn violence

By Sekai K. Mutunhu
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Violence prevention begins with the individual. This was the message that resounded through the conference hall at Red Rock State Park Thursday, where hundreds of middle and high school students gathered for an all-day anti-violence conference...

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$3M needed to fix bridges, BIA says

By Jim Maniaci
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — More than $3 million will be needed to fix almost four dozen deficient bridges on the Navajo Reservation, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has advised. The money might come from the new federal budget recently signed by President Bill Clinton...

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A push for safety

GALLUP — Johnnie Belone thinks a stretch of College Drive alongside Gallup Indian Medical Center needs some attention before someone gets hurt. Belone, a hospital employee, said he has come close enough to getting hit that his shirt was torn by a passing car. Belone wants more signs, clearer crosswalks, perhaps even some flashing lights, to slow down passing cars...

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BIA sets Chuska fires

Diné Bureau

FORT DEFIANCE, Ariz — Two fires in the Chuska Mountains this week were deliberately set as controlled burns by the Bureau of Indian Affairs fire management unit. Two gigantic columns of smoke rose into the sky over the Chuska Mountains Wednesday, Thursday and today as the Fort Defiance Agency staff cleared out brush and small trees to keep them from fueling catastrophic conflagrations later...

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Local woman wins big bucks with Roadrunner Cash

Staff Report

GALLUP — When Suzanne Schaaf of Gallup makes her business rounds to area Giant Convenience Stores, she sometimes picks up a lottery ticket. Last week, she bought a Roadrunner Cash ticket and forgot about it...

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