Nahat’á Dziil Governance highlights housing concerns in meeting with Nygren

By Jan-Mikael Patterson
Navajo Times

WINDOW ROCK – The Nahat’á Dziil Governance Commission and President Buu Nygren met in the president’s office last Friday morning to settle questions and concerns.

“We wanted to fully get your attention on these issues,” said Lavonne Tsosie, the commission secretary. “We don’t want to be talking to a ‘middle-man’ because these decisions need to be made by you.”

The manufacturing housing plan opened the discussion, as the commission called for the contract with Building Communities to be reinstated. The commission members believed that Nygren and his staff did not communicate about the $24 million grant awarded to ZenniHome and that the company does not have a lease with the business regulatory agency.

“Shitsilí, this is the law of the land, so what we feel is that you’re breaking the law by not complying with us,” she said. “In all of the years that I worked with Council, the legislative and the judicial branch, I have never seen a president blatantly disregard and disrespect a legislation that’s in place.”

The commission members wanted to know why there was a lack of communication between the Navajo Nation entities.

“It would be nice if we got an e-mail saying ‘received,’” Tsosie said.

Before Friday’s meeting, January marked the last sit-down with Nygren in a town hall setting.

“On our part, we should have made a better explanation on why we made the decision,” Nygren said. “To me, there’s money there for housing manufacturing. We need homes right away. What is feasible? What can we get done real quick?
“I didn’t want to make the money be retracted back to the pool,” he said.

Nygren saw an opportunity to move forward with getting homes built immediately.

“Personally, I really want housing for our people across the nation, and I felt that communities like Nahat’á Dziil and other communities are a part of this because (making homes) got to be quick-ready plans,” Nygren said. “With this, what’s the quick turn-a-round? How can we get this done quickly?”

“The good thing about your community is it has the potential for economic growth,” said Chris Beecher, Nygren’s deputy chief of staff. “The initial disappointment, I understand that. I acknowledge it. As for the receipt of e-mails, we get about 700 e-mails a day. That’s a lot. Due to the volume of e-mails we get, it is hard to respond individually.”

Nygren’s staff moved forward with planning simply because of the risk of returning funds. Beecher and Patrick Sandoval, Nygren’s chief of staff, explained the financial breakdown per home and noted that the manufacturing cost was the key to their decision-making. The breakdown is the cost of material to build and contractors to bid for. With ZenniHome, each home to be manufactured is $250,000.

“That’s what I’m looking at,” Nygren said. “How many homes can we build with the money available?”

Manufacturing is the most efficient and cost friendly.

“If we let people build their own homes, that would cost up to $750,000 per home,” he said. Nygren’s staff’s financial breakdown was $250,000 per home.

The commission members presented an agenda with 17 other issues to address. Nygren wanted to focus on housing first but plans to continue meeting with the commission.

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