Arizona highway board awards Interstate 40 rest area contract

Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — The Arizona Transportation Board, meeting in Holbrook recently, awarded a contract to build an Interstate 40 rest stop southwest of the Navajo Reservation.

The $7 million contract to Show Low Construction, Inc., accounts for almost three-fourths of the money allocated at the monthly meeting for Navajo, Coconino and Yavapai counties. It is to tear down and build new restrooms, ramadas, kiosks and parking lots at Mile Post 235, near the Navajo-Coconino County line.

Work is expected to begin in April, according to the state Transportation Department, and take about a year for everything except landscaping, which is scheduled to be finished in the spring of 2007.

The board's newest member is Robert Montoya, from Coconino County. The Navajo Nation had asked Gov. Janet Napolitano to appoint a Diné from Coconino County, but to no avail. The appointments are rotated among the counties in each district.

The board also rotates its monthly meetings around the state and consists of seven people appointed by the governor for six-year terms.