Central Fair moves to Piñon

For the first time in its 24-year history, the Central Navajo Fair will not be held in Chinle.

And while there are Chinle residents who are none too happy with that decision, it became apparent after a lengthy Central Navajo Fair Board meeting Tuesday night that the alternative is to risk not having the fair at all.

After four hours of heated discussion, the board voted 13-0 with one abstention to hold the fair in Piñon Chapter this year while the board tries to find a suitable piece of land in Chinle for next year.

At issue are the current fairgrounds on land held by the Guy Gorman family. For years, the fair board simply leased the land from the Gormans, but when the Navajo Nation enacted business-site leasing policies in 2005, dealing directly with a grazing permittee became illegal.

In 2007, the Navajo Nation got wind of the situation and tribal authorities told the board they could hold the fair at the Gormans' one more year, after which they would have to comply with the law.

Under the current regulations, the Gormans would have to relinquish their land to the chapter and the fair board would have to apply for a business-site lease, explained Wilson Gilmore of the Small Business Development Office in St. Michaels, Ariz.

The tribe would have to perform the necessary environmental and archeological clearances, and with the fair less than two months away, fair board members worried that time would run out.

Compounding matters is the fact that the grazing permit holder is not willing to give up the land, according to Irene Bahe, fair board president.

Although Juanita Gorman said during the meeting that she was the landholder and she was willing to turn the land over to the chapter, Bahe said after the meeting that the name on the grazing permit is that of Gorman's son, and when the fair organizers approached him he surprised them by declining to allow the fairgrounds to be withdrawn.

Since "we have to have the fair," according to Bahe, the board last week sent representatives to Lukachukai and Piñon chapters hoping one of them would agree to host the fair. Piñon agreed.

"We huddled and told our go-getters to come to a meeting," Piñon Chapter President Bessie Allen said.

Within a day, Piñon had a fair subcommittee. Monday night, they held a chapter meeting and approved hosting the fair.

By scattering fair events around properties already withdrawn from grazing by the chapter - the veterans' center, the senior center, the schools - Piñon was able to avoid the hassle of a business-site lease, Allen explained.

But when the news spread to the individuals in charge of various fair events, Bahe had a mutiny on her hands. Thirty people packed the meeting room at the Cellular One office in Chinle, most of them to protest the decision.

"I cannot go to Piñon," declared Justin Tso, who's in charge of the horse race. "The Central Fair has to be in Chinle."

Some event managers threatened to secede and hold their own "Chinle Fair" rather than take their events to Piñon.

This upset Piñon Fair Subcommittee Chairwoman Carol Smith, who had thought her committee was doing Chinle a favor by staging the fair.

"This is a sad day," Smith said. "I don't know where we stand now. We've already met three times. You got us all excited, and now you guys are going to brush us off?"

Allen pointed out that the Central Navajo Fair Board and all the event managers would still be in charge of the fair and Piñon would merely provide the venue.

"I thought it was a Central Fair," Allen said. "We're part of Chinle Agency. It's an agency event, not a Chinle event. All we're doing is putting it in a different place."

A few Chinle residents, including Apache County Supervisor Jim Claw, thought a shake-up couldn't hurt the fair.

"Let's be realistic," Claw said. "Chinle's fair has gone down. It has deteriorated to such a point that there's hardly any interest in it any more. This Piñon group might bring it up and make it into one of the major events."

Patrick Sandoval, President Joe Shirley Jr.'s chief of staff, pleaded with the crowd to come to a consensus.

"Don't allow this to drive a wedge between you," he said.

Urging Bahe to call for a vote, he stated, "The longer we talk, the more the wedge is driven."

Also in contention is who will run the Miss Central Navajo pageant.

Shortly after last year's pageant, the winner, LaSasha Ross, was asked to relinquish her crown because evidence had surfaced that she had a boyfriend. Ross denied the charges and went on to appear as Miss Central Navajo in various events, while the fair board maintained the real Miss Central was Ross's runner-up, Renalda Gonnie.

Traditionally, the winner's family prepares next year's pageant and Ross's sister, LaShanna Ross, showed up at the meeting to report preparations were going fine.

Bahe said someone else had been appointed to organize the pageant, prompting an angry Ross to demand an explanation.

"We'll discuss this at another time," Bahe said.

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