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The Independent
PO Box 1210 Gallup, NM 87305
500 N. 9th Gallup, NM 87301

Indian dollars grease Gallup economy

Editor's Note: This is part of an occasional series on the economics of Gallup.

Walter Howerton Jr.
Santa Fe Bureau

GALLUP — Call it habit or try to make it sound better by hailing it as tradition. Either way, Gallup has a complex and specialized local economy that runs on wheels willingly or unwillingly greased by Indian dollars.

In many ways, it is a co-dependent economy built on the way people have a habit of seeing each other.

Pat Gurley, the owner of Gurley Motors understands the economy of Gallup is built on Native American dollars.
"Indians are our bread and butter," he said. "We're going to take care of them."

Gurley, whose father owned the local Ford dealership before him, spoke with genuine feeling for his Native American customers.

He described the way his company, like others in Gallup, has established its own finance operation, its own insurance business. Gurley said finance rates currently fall within the 18 percent annual rate recently mandated by Navajo Nation law, but claimed they never were much higher than that anyway.

He said businesses like his make it possible for people who cannot get credit elsewhere to purchase expensive items. "We don't look at repossession (on a credit application) as bad," Gurley said.

And he cited the efforts his company has made to meet what he sees as the specific needs of Native American customers, including trying at all costs not to repossess vehicles.

He recalled a loyal customer whose truck was impounded because she was behind in her payments. She couldn't drive it, but she kept paying on it and paying on it. Although she never drove it again, she finally paid it off. And after that? "We sold her another one," he said.

"Do we make money?" he said. "Yes. Everybody wants to make money."

Gurley sees companies like his as providing a necessary service to a community with particular needs. But he was not unaware
of the paternalistic white-man's burden attitude implicit in what he said.

"They expect to be taken care of," Gurley said of his Indian customers. "It's the white man's fault. We've brought this on ourselves. Indians are our lifeblood, but they need us, too."

Still, he believes it is an economy that works.

But he also believes it is an economy easily misunderstood by what he called "liberal-minded" outsiders who Gurley said do more harm than good when they try to tamper with the system.

He said it was just such tampering by the government that destroyed the trading post system. He had similar feelings about the usury law which limits annual interest for Navajos living on the reservation to 18 percent passed last year by the Navajo Nation. "It is not good, and it will hurt the customer in the long run. The customer is the loser."

Whether it is a racist system as recent flyers claim and local people are quick to deny, often with the phrase, "We're not like Farmington" it is a system built on the way people are in the long habit of seeing each other, the wary way buyers and sellers have of looking at each other not quite as equals.

Native Americans want to buy stuff. And in Gallup, there is someone who will sell it to them, for a price usually plus interest, finance charges, late fees and whatever else can be added on.

It is no bargain there aren't many bargains for poor people anywhere but the deal was struck long ago, and Native American cash keeps Gallup alive now as it has for generations.

A delicate economic balance has been struck somewhere between reality and rationalization and between benevolence and predation.

Merchants have convinced themselves they are providing a service tailored to people in need, rationalizing high-interest charges by saying they deal with a "high-risk" population, mostly poor people who want new things. They claim they have customized the economy to meet the needs of needy people.

And their Native American customers keep coming back, even if things cost more in Gallup than other places and even if they usually pay for them several times over before the final payment is made because that is the only way they know.

It adds up to business as usual with Gallup able to promote itself as one of the best gross receipts generators in the state, despite the fact it also has among the lowest in per capita income and highest in unemployment rates.

It also means many Native Americans are caught in a web of monthly payments and are at the mercy of merchants' schemes for profiting from people with limited incomes.

The way Charleen Bates-Arthur, legal director of DNA-People's Legal Services Inc., in Window Rock, sees it, it is a business relationship built around Native American people who have neither the knowledge nor the resources to take their business elsewhere.

The way she sees it, Indian people come to Gallup not because they choose to, but because they have to and because they don't know any other way.

"It is an erroneous perception to say that people know enough to make other choices," she said. "If they were educated, you could say they've chosen. But they haven't. Many people here can't make long trips to Albuquerque, where competitive choices are available. Border towns like Gallup are their only choice."

From time to time, the Gallup economy develops a squeaky wheel.

A few weeks ago, flyers appeared on the streets calling for Navajo people to "Take no more mistreatment from local businesses." The flyer asked: "Although you feel you have been mistreated do you go back? To the same place?"

A second flyer was addressed to "The Navajo People" and said, "This town feeds upon us! We give money to the pawn shops, to all the stores, to the restaurants. WE sell our jewelry, our crafts and they get richer and richer."

Both flyers claimed to aim at ending racism in Gallup.

Neither flyer went so far as to suggest that Navajos boycott Gallup businesses, as black Americans did in Southern cities in the 1950s and 1960s in pursuit of their civil rights.

As one Navajo shopper, confirming Bates-Arthur's assessment of the situation, said, "Where else are people going to go?"
So flyers appear and disappear, but the wheels keep turning. And they never come off.

As one piece of promotional literature touting the Gallup economy brags: "The community is known for having a steady goods and services economy through both prosperous and lean times."

Bates-Arthur was unwilling to call it a predatory economy despite the fact that about 25 percent of the work handled by her legal office is consumer cases. "I still like to think there are good and decent people" doing business with Native Americans, she said. "But it's hard seeing what I see in this kind of work."

Bates-Arthur had a file on her desk of a man who was facing 300 percent annual interest on a small loan.

"High interest rates are not unusual," she said, citing such big-money items as vehicles or mobile homes where interest rates often run well into the double digits.

Bates-Arthur cited instances when "people go in and sign contracts thinking they have a deal (at one interest rate) when the seller is still looking for financing." This often leads to people ending up with higher interest rates than they initially bargained for simply because they want to keep what they have bought.

She also said her office is concerned with such things as the various tax preparation services offered in the area because they encourage people to spend money right away on goods and services.

"Sometimes people are encouraged to use tax returns to make down payments on big ticket items, but they can't really afford the payments," Bates-Arthur said. "Of course, the seller has no interest in finding that out."

She believes educating Native American consumers is the key. Her office offers brochures on such things as buying used cars, dealing with debt collectors and repossession law, pawn regulations and tax preparation. It also sponsors legal "minutes" on the radio.

Bates-Arthur bristled at the widely held local notion that Navajo buyers somehow have a different relationship to money than those who sell them things.

"That is just wrong," she said, citing traditional Navajo philosophy requiring that "before you do anything, you really plan."
But she did see a danger in the eroding of traditional Navajo ways of doing things, especially in the young.

"Over half our population is young, and many of them are lost between two worlds. They don't have their roots planted anywhere," she said. These young, television-influenced Native Americans have developed a "things and me" way of viewing the world that Bates-Arthur said is "very non-Navajo."

And she sees the danger in broader terms. "In America," she said, "We don't teach our children to handle money very well."

Pat Gurley argued that "unscrupulous businesses only last a short time" in Gallup and that "dishonest businesses should get the hell out."

Bates-Arthur argued that depending on such a system of natural selection might not be enough. "People are making too much money to stop."

As the economic landscape changes in places like Gallup, as old ways of doing business on a personal basis disappear, she said, the danger for the future increases.

"Large corporations will take advantage of anybody," Bates-Arthur concluded.

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Navajo township wants freedom

PHOENIX (AP) — On the Navajos' high desert near the towering buttes of Monument Valley, Pete Deswood Jr. is overseeing some startling changes in Indian country.

Bulldozers are clearing the way for a $45 million housing subdivision with upscale features. The drywall is being hung on a new, burnished stone post office, a project which had waited in the wings 10 years through traditional tribal channels. Trucks wheel with great regularity into a new waste-transfer station.

And Deswood, manager of Kayenta Township, isn't through with his assault on the red tape and bureaucracy that has hampered development on Indian reservations for decades.

He talks up the idea of transferring titles to lots within township boundaries on the reservation to non-Indians as long as the buyers are willing to agree to live locally and swear off land speculation.

Kayenta Township began levying a local 2.5 percent sales tax nearly three years ago, the only Native American community to do so. The township is prepared to set another precedent soon: selling tax-exempt bonds for municipal projects. This after the Navajo Tribal Council relented in January and granted the township the authority.

"We're seeing a very intriguing thing going on here," said Stephen Cornell, director of the University of Arizona's Udall Center. "This is an actual devolution of power to the local level. And this looks like something which can be replicated throughout Indian country."

The township has had a stream of visitors from other Indian reservations looking to use it as a model for development. Deswood also travels extensively, extolling his vision of local control, open public meetings and running Kayenta like an off-reservation town.

It's a slippery slope, Deswood acknowledges.

A decade ago, the Navajo community of Chinle tried to become the first incorporated Native American community in the state. The Navajo Nation quashed the movement, saying it was an infringement on its rights as a sovereign nation to control the future of its communities.

Kayenta took a different route.

They aggressively pursued the initiative in the mid-1980s when the Navajo tribal government embarked on a program to increase local control. Local ranchers in the Kayenta area gave up their grazing rights and allowed 5.5 square miles to be used for a township.

The township idea sputtered along, more an idea than reality, for a number of years. Then in 1996, the township was granted taxing authority and a year later began collecting the 2.5 percent sales tax.

The five-member Township Council won more power when the tribe concluded in a legal opinion that leases for business sites need be approved only by the local governing body. It was a momentous decision because historically, approval of business leases were a cumbersome process involving review of numerous tribal boards and the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The township has local detractors, most notably officials of the Kayenta chapter, the regional governing body in this northern portion of the Navajo Nation near the Utah border.

The chapter adopted a resolution this month for the Tribal Council to transfer all governmental functions to the chapter.

"The bottom line is that this is all about dollars and not helping people. They are building all these houses around here that our children will never have the income to buy," said Rose Yazzie, secretary of the Kayenta chapter. "We've had people go to them for help when they've had frozen pipes in their home or needed firewood and they do nothing for them."

Deswood said the township has no interest in providing handouts; the chapters have been doing that for years.

The tax money is needed for a variety of pressing matters that affect the community, including street lights on the main drag, where six people have been killed in traffic accidents during the past two years. Also needed, he said: a juvenile detention center for substance abusers, and a truck to pick up trash.

"To many of the bureaucrats on this reservation, we are this monster out here growing and they have no idea how to deal with it," Deswood said. "But the answer to that is simple. Give towns their freedom."

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State park employee files grievance

Staff Report

GALLUP — A Red Rock Park employee has followed through with his plans to file a grievance against his former supervisor, Joe Athens.

The grievance was field by Sammy Trujillo against Athens for a number of reasons, including yanking down the curtains to Trujillo's office.

That incident resulted in Trujillo, the park's manager, being placed on administrative leave with pay on Monday to allow city personnel staff to investigation allegations of an altercation that morning involving Trujillo and Athens.

Trujillo said Friday he was still on administrative leave.

His main grievance against Athens, who was replaced last week as acting superintendent of the park by Chris Mora, stems from Athen's refusal to allow him to hire more part-time help to cover the park over a weekend when several functions were planned.

Trujillo also claimed in his grievance that Athens refused to communicate with him about matters pertaining to the park and issued orders such as disallowing use of offices for breaks that were contrary to city policy.

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Hopi students get help with AIMS testing

Special to the Independent

POLACCA, Ariz. — Hopi Junior/Senior High School has developed a strategy to help its students pass the Arizona Instruments to Measure Standards test.

AIMS is the statewide test started last year. According to the current rules, students who are scheduled to graduate in 2002 will have to pass the test to receive their diplomas.

About 50 parents, students and staff attended a recent AIMS awareness meeting at Hopi High School...

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Witness: U S West slighted New Mexico

SANTA FE (AP) — U S West customers in New Mexico have waited longer than those in other states for installations of telephone lines, a witness for the state attorney general's office alleges.

Residential customers in the state waited 20 percent longer than the average throughout U S West's 14-state service area, James W. Currin told a hearing examiner.

New Mexico business customers waited twice as long as their counterparts elsewhere, he said...

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Confirmations a casualty of Santa Fe war

SANTA FE (AP) — One of the quiet casualties of the undeclared war between the Republican governor and the majority-Democrat Legislature is the process of approving his appointees.

By law, the state Senate gets to confirm the people Gov. Gary Johnson names to top jobs: his department heads, for example, and members of the most important boards and commissions.

It's a predictable battlefield for philosophical and political differences...

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School drill includes explosion

Diné Bureau

CROWNPOINT — People listening to their police scanners in Gallup heard reports of an explosion at a county high school, not realizing it was a drill.

Twice a year, a drill is held at the Crownpoint Junior-Senior High School by the Indian Health Service to check response time and the ability of local doctors to handle mass emergencies.

However, people who only heard part of the alarm thought the catastrophe happened at Gallup High School...

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Candidates file for positions

Zarana Sanghani
Staff Writer

GALLUP — The McKinley County Bureau of Elections reported this week the names of candidates who are running for five elected positions in the county in the June primary.

The election bureau named those running for state representative for District 5, Magistrate judge Division II, McKinley County commissioner for District 3, county treasurer and county clerk. The names of people running for several other positions which McKinley County residents will vote on will not be released until Tuesday.

In all but one of the races for these five offices, two or more Democrats will face off in the primaries. Only two races have a Republican candidate...

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Mural painting projects, drama workshop offered for children

Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Special to the Independent

GALLUP — The National Indian Youth Leadership Development Project's A+ Enrichment Program is currently offering two creative projects for local children. One involves mural painting projects under the direction of two local women, and the other is a drama workshop offered in partnership with the Gallup Community Theatre.

The mural project began with the volunteer efforts of a local artist, Colleen Marchand. Due to concern in the community about teen-age vandalism, she was inspired to think of a positive project she could work on with students.

Marchand had read studies that showed children who were involved in creative painting projects were less likely to become involved in vandalism acts of graffiti...

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After-school effort partners with families, community

Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Special to the Independent

GALLUP — A new after-school program, serving the needs of elementary school children and their families, recently became a reality in McKinley County. And, after less than three months of operation, the A+ Enrichment Program, is serving approximately 800 children at 14 county schools.

"We're at the beginning," said co-director Karl Lohmann. "It's going to get bigger and better."

The program is a project of the National Indian Youth Leadership Development Project. In spite of NIYLDP's name, the program does not service only Native American children. It is open to all students...

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