New staff at NOSHA includes former Shirley appointees

The new staff at the Navajo Nation Occupational Safety and Health Administration includes three highly placed members of former President Joe Shirley Jr.'s administration.

Former Chief of Staff Patrick Sandoval is now heading NOSHA, which is tasked with enforcing federal and tribal workplace safety laws.

Sandoval acknowledged Tuesday that he hired former Division of Human Resources Director Julius Elwood, who promised him the NOSHA directorship before stepping down as head of DHR, which oversees the worker safety agency.

Elwood is now a safety technician in NOSHA.

On Nov. 1, then DHR Director Elwood fired all four members of the NOSHA staff and closed the office. Fired were NOSHA Director Tim Bitsie, office specialist Susie Ahasteen and safety technicians Edison Owens and Linda One Salt.

On Feb. 17 an audit was released that said NOSHA staff had used their tribal government credit cards to buy children's clothes, leather jackets, turquoise and silver jewelry, 10 cameras and four iPods.

Sandoval said he started his new job in early January, and that he was able to make the transition quickly because he had been interviewed and promised the job by Elwood a couple of months before his job as chief of staff ended. Elwood did not reopen NOSHA after the mass firing.

As for qualifications, Sandoval said that before joining Shirley's staff, he worked as a safety manager for several large companies, whose names he declined to give.

Sandoval said Elwood was similarly qualified and promised to supply his resume, but as of press time Wednesday the Navajo Times had not received it. Sandoval said he picked Elwood out of four candidates interviewed.

Sandoval also hired his former assistant in the president's office, Christopher Morris, to be the NOSHA office assistant. He said he hired Morris out of 20 applicants because he, too, was the most qualified.

Sandoval emphasized that his hiring of Morris and Elwood were based on their qualifications and had nothing to do with favoritism. He also stressed that no one handed him the NOSHA directorship.

"I was the only one qualified for this position," Sandoval said.

He named Shawnevan Dale to the position of senior safety technician.

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