SPEAKER JOHNNY NAIZE asks Delegates Dwight Witherspoon, LoRenzo Bates, Katherine Benally if they can meet at 8:30 am on Monday, 9-30-13.
The Naa’biki’yati’ Committee is still on recess because they lost a quorum of 13 delegates during Delegate Katherine Benally’s presentation of her legislation for a $220 million bond.
I posted a link to the $220 m. bond in my blog post: “Navajo Reservation 110 chapter projects”. I also posted a link to the legislation for Capital Improvement Projects for the Navajo Reservation’s 110 chapters. There’s also links to the list of CIPs by agency.
Speaker Naize is calling today’s Naabi meeting a bust. It’s about 2:30 p.m.
“We’re done…well done,” Delegate Katherine Benally says and then she laughs.
Under Navajo legislative rules, the Naabi Committee cannot adjourn because there’s no quorum and so the Naabi Committee continues until a quorum is reached. Speaker Naize is hoping that that will happen by 8:30 am on Monday, 9-30-13.
Well, I just spoke with some of the Naabi Committee members and they said that Naabi lost a quorum during yesterday’s Naabi meeting. Yesterday’s Naabi meeting didn’t reach a quorum until 3:15 pm. Today, the quorum of 13 delegates was reached at 12:12 pm and the quorum was lost about 30 minutes later. By Navajo law, the Council and its standing committee are to start their meetings at 10 a.m.
I recall that when the Council was reduced from 88 members to 24 that the thot was that there wouldn’t be any more problems with the Council and its standing committees reaching and maintaining a quorum.
The Council Delegates that were here today for the Naabi Committee were: Speaker Naize, LoRenzo Bates, Danny Simpson, Mel R. Begay, Katherine Benally, George Apachito, David Tom, Leonard Pete, Edmund Yazzie, Jonathan Hale, Dwight Witherspoon, and Joshua Butler.
As I was waiting for the Naabi to reach a quorum – again today, I talked with Budget & Finance Committee Chairperson LoRenzo Bates about the 2014 tribal operating budget of $571.6 million, which the Council approved on Sept. 9 and sent over to President Shelly for his review and action, which involves a full veto or line-item veto. The Council can over-ride a full veto but not line-item vetoes.
Bates said that Shelly has not signed off on the 2014 budget and that he has until Sunday, 9-29-13, to do so. The tribal 2013 budget ends on midnight 9-30-13.
