The sponsor of LEGISLATION 0118-13 is DELEGATE JONATHAN HALE
These are projects that are Project Ready/Shovel Ready.
SPEAKER NAIZE points out that Hale removed himself as Sponsor and that Delegate Katherine Benally is the Sponsor now.
And with that Delegate K.Benally goes to the front of the Council chamber and sits in the Sponsor position.
DELEGATE LORENZO BATES
My amendment is to make it very clear in LEGISLATION 0118-13 that LEGISLATION 0118-13 is a Five Year Plan.
DELEGATE LORENZO CURLEY
I’m also concerned about how unclear LEGISLATION 0118-13 is about being a Five Year Plan and that also opens door for Revenue Generating Projects. And if that’s true then I want to add my community’s Convenience Store to list of Capital Improvement Projects.
DELEGATE LEONARD TSOSIE
I look at whole thing as mirage. Why do we give false hope to chapters if there’s no money in here. Some of you say it’s because Election Time. Do we have a lot of amendments? Because I’m seeing a lot of requests for projects to be added to CIP List. But according to the law, the Council is required to identify funding before projects approved.
And the real needs of reservation are powerlines, waterlines, not parking lots.
And if approve this, then have to do all these projects in five years and according to the Legislation 0118-13, the projects are scheduled to start in 2013 but it’s 2014.
I also talked with NM Gov. Martinez about state’s request for audit of chapters that received NM state funds. She explained that it was because audits showed that there were financial issues regarding the expenditure of state funds by NM chapters.
DELEGATE JONATHAN HALE
And reason not to identify funding source is not to bog things down. When we say “project ready” to chapter, the chapters understand that definition and the chapters passed resolutions identifying their projects.
And whose idea was the Five Year Plan? It was prior Council. And so here we are. And I keep hearing that prior Councils cannot approve a five year plan and so if we don’t approve then the next Council will have to go through this and approve a five year plan. But this is for the benefit of the chapters. And I’m not running for re-election.
And if we can’t finish these projects in five year, then we, as Council/as lawmakers, can amend to ensure project are finished in five years.
