K’é fails
Nygren and Montoya ‘working relationship’ broken

By Krista Allen and Nicholas House
Navajo Times

WINDOW ROCK

The relationship between President Buu Nygren and Vice President Richelle Montoya is strained, according to the two heads of the Navajo Nation.

“The relationship between the president and myself is none,” Montoya said in an interview with the Navajo Times on Monday night. “I don’t speak to him. He doesn’t speak to me. I haven’t seen him in quite a while.”

“I haven’t heard from her,” Nygren muttered in an interview on Tuesday night. “I haven’t heard from her … for several months. So, there’s no verbal working relationship.”

There is a significant lack of open and clear communication between her and Nygren, according to Montoya, who asserts that she is in her office inside the Office of the President and Vice President doing her work.

“Sometimes I’m hearing him in the hallways,” Montoya said. “But other than that––really, nothing.”

Lack of communication

Montoya alleged during a Facebook livestream April 16 that Nygren sexually harassed her during a meeting in August 2023. However, the lack of open and clear communication started around the Council’s Spring Session in April 2024, according to Montoya.

In mid-October, Nygren sent a memorandum to Montoya regarding “reassignment of tasks, tribal resources.”

In the memo dated Oct. 15, he mentioned that he had previously sent her memos detailing his expectations of her role as vice president.

“I was to receive a daily schedule from you, you were to attend all monthly meetings with OPVP staff and Division Directors, and you were to give me regular status reports on the projects that I have given you,” Nygren wrote. “Other than the two OPVP meetings you have attended; you have refused all other directives.”

The memo further reads: “I am saddened by your constant refusal to have any accountability to the Navajo people. You accept a salary from this Administration, and yet you take no action whatsoever to further its initiatives. Because I have no status reports from you, I am forced to conclude that you have nothing to show for your time in office.

“This is a great disappointment. Although I have not seen any tangible progress on any of your assigned initiatives, you have continued to turn in travel requests that are completely unrelated to this Administration. Instead, I have received requests for the Navajo people to pay for your attendance at film festivals, fashion shows, and sporting events.”

Nygren claims that he proposed Diné peacemaking to address their differences, stating that he had “forgiven” her attempts to undermine, discredit, and humiliate him.

“And the lies you have told the Navajo Council and the Navajo people,” Nygren affirmed in his memo. “I have also received many complaints of your disrespect and shaming of our OPVP staff members, division directors, and others such as the former Miss Navajo Nation.

“My offer to go to Peacemaking with you was a sincere effort to ‘talk things out’ and restore hózho between us. Your refusal of this offer reveals a desire for further hostility, instead of seeking restoration of our relationship for the good of the people.”

Montoya on Monday claimed she has no resources in the president’s office.

“I know that they’re (president and his staff) doing this on instruction from either the president or the chief of staff, Patrick Sandoval, or the executive staff assistant, Kris Beecher,” she said.

No security detail, terminating the vice president’s only staff

For over two months, Montoya has been without a security detail. The president’s deputy chief of staff, Kris Beecher, on Oct. 15 sent a memo to Josie Bowman, the vice president’s then only staff, informing her that the OPVP would be terminating her employment “effective immediately.”

Neither Beecher nor the president, nor his chief of staff, Patrick Sandoval, have reinstated Montoya’s security detail, leaving her vulnerable, according to Montoya. Nygren mentioned in his memo that executive protection services would be made available to her for her safety “and travel from your tribal house to the office.”

Montoya believes the president’s staff was told not to help her. “And that if I do request assistance from anybody in the office––that the staff has to report that to Kris Beecher,” Montoya said. “And then Kris Beecher will let them know if it’s OK for them to help me with the request that I have.”

Because of that, Montoya doesn’t bother with the president’s staff. She believes the president’s staff who do help her usually get terminated or demoted.

“It hurts my heart to see people lose their jobs because of me, so I try my best not to bother anybody,” Montoya said. “I do a lot of the work on my own.”
The Navajo Times asked Beecher if the president’s staff had been directed not to support the vice president.

Beecher said no, and there were never any directives. “She goes to anybody,” Beecher said on Wednesday afternoon. “It’s completely fabricated that anybody would be fired for working with her. That’s a fabrication. That’s not true.”

“The staff here has never been told not to work with the vice president,” said Candace Begody-Slim, the president’s legal counsel. “Actually, it’s to the contrary, he’s (Nygren) always said, ‘If you receive a request to help for her, that we should help her. Some of us have actually offered to help, and she has repeatedly denied any offer of help.”

Vice president ‘still’ travels

Nygren claimed he was forced to conclude that his vice president had no intention of working on the projects given to her by his administration.

“Your decision to sit back, draw a paycheck, and do nothing productive must come with consequences,” Nygren wrote in his memo. “I am reassigning every initiative that I have previously given to you. You will no longer represent to the public that you speak for this Administration.

“No further travel will be approved. No further travel will be approved. Since you have no further responsibilities for this Administration, your vehicle must be returned immediately to fleet management as this office will no longer pay the vehicle rental.”

Nygren ended the memo, calling Montoya to resign. “I am happy to accept your resignation to make room for someone who wants to do the work,” he stated.

Montoya isn’t resigning. She is still traveling within the Navajo Nation, visiting chapters and to a few other places, such as Farmington and Washington, D.C.

“And I still have my tribal unit,” she said. “My fuel card still works. I’m very happy when that happens.

“As far as flights and Uber, things like that, (are) paid by me because I’ve had a few (travel authorizations) I sent through––to the president’s office that came back as ‘denied.’”

Montoya estimates spending at least $5,000 out-of-pocket on flights and Uber rides.

The vice president’s projects and priorities right now include helping her constituents, working with the 25th Navajo Nation Council, and strengthening and updating Diné laws for a healthy and safe environment for employees in the Navajo Nation.

“I still go out, and I’m still referred to as ‘vice president’ by the Navajo people,” she said. “I don’t feel that way when I’m in the Office of the President, but I’m there. That’s what people voted me in to do.”

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