Police chief, delegates at odds over Dilkon move
GANADO, Ariz.
Dilkon Police District is still in operation in Dilkon, regardless of what some delegates may have heard.
“We are not removing services,” said Chief of Police Phillip Francisco to the Times. “We are not removing officers from the area. We are not dissolving the Dilkon district.”
But on Monday at a joint meeting held at Ganado High between the Navajo Nation Council’s Health, Education and Human Services Committee and Law and Order Committee, the information the delegates had heard was completely opposite from what Francisco has said.
“The decision was made to move an entire police department from one community to another community, without consulting the community it would be affecting,” said LOC Chair Eugenia Charles-Newton, during the meeting. “It sounded as if the decision was made and no one was informed. If you’re going to move a police department … you would have to sit with that community and tell them what’s going on.”
According to Charles-Newton, during a previous meeting at Twin Arrows, Dilkon Chapter officials told the committee that the entire police station would be moving to Twin Arrows.
She also said that the Dilkon police station and its officers are in dire straights when it comes to receiving adequate equipment, so much so the committee was surprised.
“I’ve said this continuously,” said Charles-Newton. “This nice picture is painted for us by the administration– ‘everything is fine.’ You get down and talk to the officers, that’s not what we hear.”
Earlier in the meeting, Reycita Toddy, human resources classified and pay manager, told the committee that she was told employees were relocated to Twin Arrows over the concerns that the Dilkon police station was hazardous.
She said she had approved the request to change the worksite two months after it was requested. According to Toddy, the 15 employees at the station acknowledged the move in writing.
Highway 264,
I-40, WB @ Winslow