Pro and con debate over transportation stimulus plan
Navajo Times | Ravonelle Yazzie Former chairman of the Navajo Tribal Council and president Peterson Zah speaks about the Transportation Stimulus referendum on Friday in Window Rock.
Stories by Times reporters Bill Donovan and Arlyssa Becenti lay out the debate on either side of a proposal over a Transportation Stimulus referendum for October 24. Below are their stories:
Pro:
Delegate says stimulus plan will address roads, gravel pits, bridges
By Bill Donovan
Special to the Times
WINDOW ROCK
Attempts to find someone in the Navajo Nation government to speak in support of the proposal to take money out of the Permanent Trust Fund to do road improvements is not as easy as it sounds.
Working with the public information office for the legislative branch on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Navajo Times came up with only one of the 19 Council delegates who voted for the referendum to respond with a request for comment.
Even Speaker LoRenzo Bates, who was around on Wednesday morning, was not available to speak on the subject, according to his staff.
Only Walter Phelps, who represents Cameron, Coalmine Canyon, Birdsprings, Leupp and Tolani Lake, was available but he was in Lupton, Arizona, where cell phone reception was iffy so he e-mailed a statement to urge voters to approve the proposal.
Anti:
Past leaders say let fund grow, there are other ways to pay for roads
By Arlyssa Becenti
Navajo Times
WINDOW ROCK
Leaders of the past who had the foresight to establish the Permanent Trust Fund are imploring Navajo voters to vote “no” in the upcoming Transportation Stimulus referendum set for Oct. 24.
Former Navajo Tribal Chairman and Navajo Nation President Peterson Zah, former Council delegates Jimmy Bitsui, Paul George, Samuel Yazzie, and Elroy Bahe, former chief justice Tom Tso and Navajo Nation Police Department chaplain Milt Shirleson have been meeting and discussing the upcoming referendum.
“The composition of the group is people who were on the Council when the Permanent Trust Fund was created,” said Zah. “This whole thing was about creating a security for the Navajo Nation, the discussion we had way back 32 years ago.”
What Zah is referring to is the Kerr-McGee v. Navajo Nation U.S. Supreme Court case, from which the Navajo Nation received $217 million.
“What the Council delegates at the time said was, ‘Let’s not do what the others did,’” said Zah. “Where the money came in one day and the next week it’s all gone.”
This money paved the way for tribal leaders at that time to create the Permanent Trust Fund and invest $26 million in it, as well as setting up other funds for scholarships, the handicapped, senior citizens and later for veterans.
Today, the current Council is looking to use the fund for the Transportation Stimulus referendum to pay for road improvements.
“The Navajo Nation’s road maintenance and improvement needs are enormous,” stated Council delegate Walter Phelps, who sponsored the bill for the referendum, in a news release. “There is not a single chapter on our Nation that does not have critical road improvement needs. An additional infusion of $36 million per year over the next six years will be a welcomed relief.”
As the first Navajo Nation chief justice, Tso said he understands that the Council is trying to address road issues but there are different avenues they can take rather than taking money from the Permanent Trust Fund.
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Highway 264,
I-40, WB @ Winslow