Aneth votes to formulate own position on trust fund

After a six-hour chapter meeting described by one participant as "Iran doo Iraq," Aneth Chapter decided Tuesday to formulate its own position on who should manage the Utah Navajo Trust.

The move came after the chapter voted 57-30 to reject a resolution proposed by Mark Maryboy to appoint two members to the board of the newly formed Utah Dineh Corp., which Maryboy is pushing to replace the state of Utah as the next trustee of the $30 million fund.

Maryboy has proposed his own consulting firm, M. Maryboy Consulting Inc., to act as CEO of the Utah Dineh Corp.

Utah Dineh, which is nonprofit, also has the support of Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, who has introduced legislation in Congress to designate it as the trustee.

But earlier this month, the Navajo Nation Council sent a delegation to Washington to lobby against Bennett's bill, saying that a committee of the tribal council would be better equipped to manage the fund.

So far Aneth Chapter has supported neither position. At a heated special meeting last month that saw at least one participant jailed for unruly conduct, Chapter President John Billie accused Maryboy, his brother Delegate Kenneth Maryboy (Aneth/Mexican Water/Red Mesa), and others of meeting with Bennett behind the chapter's back to craft the legislation.

Both Maryboys denied that accusation at Tuesday's meeting.

"Who am I to influence a United States senator?" Kenneth Maryboy said.

According to Mark Maryboy, the other six Utah Navajo chapters are supporting the Bennett bill, S. 1690.

But Billie said he sees no way S. 1690 will even make it out of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee since the Navajo Nation Council opposes it.

"Even John McCain (R-Ariz.), Bennett's fellow Republican, doesn't support it," he said.

Aneth Chapter has a unique interest in the trust because the fund is comprised of 37.5 percent of the oil royalties from 17 oil wells located in the chapter. When Congress added the so-called Aneth Extension to the Navajo Reservation in 1933, it stipulated that this portion of the royalties should go into a fund for education of the Indian children living in the area. The remainder of the royalties goes to the Navajo Nation.

In 1968, Bennett's father, the late Sen. Wallace Bennett, successfully introduced legislation to expand the uses and geographical area of the trust fund to include all Navajos living in San Juan County.

The fund was administered by the state of Utah - very poorly, according to a group of Utah Navajos who is suing the state for a full accounting - until last year, when then-Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman announced the state was pulling out as trustee and Congress would have to appoint another caretaker.

A grassroots group of Aneth Extension residents calling itself the Descendants of K'aayelii envisions the reorganization as an opportunity to claim more funds for the extension, which it believes was unfairly deprived of its heritage by the 1968 law.

K'aayelii ("Quiver") was a wily Navajo chieftain who led his band into the area around the Bear's Ears to escape the Long Walk.

The chapter voted 58-7 in support of a resolution proposed by K'aayelii descendant Andrew Tso to formulate its own position on who should control the trust.

After the meeting, Tso praised his fellow chapter members.

"We're finally standing on our own two feet," he said.

Tso said he would organize a meeting between chapter leaders, representatives of the Navajo Nation Council and BIA officials to formulate an official stand for Aneth Chapter that could be voted on at the next chapter meeting.

But Mark Maryboy said the resolution will have no effect whatsoever.

"You can pass a hundred resolutions," he said. "We're still going to go ahead with this (Utah Dineh) corporation. There's about 150 people here at this meeting, and 7,000 Utah Navajos."

Maryboy warned that the chapter's failure to appoint representatives to the Utah Dineh Corp. board will leave Aneth out of the loop on Friday, when the proposed leadership of the corporation intends to ask the interim administrators of the Utah Navajo Trust for $100,000 in start-up funds.

The alternative, Maryboy said, is to allow the Navajo Nation Council to take over the trust, which he feels would have disastrous results given the council's record on financial management.

Tso dismissed Maryboy's "scare tactics" and accused him of being self-serving, since his own company would function as CEO of the corporation that controlled the trust.

"I don't think the elders of Aneth liked being told their votes don't matter," Tso said.

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