HERE AT NAVAJO COUNCIL WHERE COUNCIL DEBATING LEGISLATION 0118-13, recommending and approving the Navajo Nation chapters’ infrastructure improvement priority projects for 2013 to 2018.
DELEGATE NELSON BEGAYE
We need to approve this list. I think that the Council has been trying to approve a list since 2006. And it’s my community of Rough Rock that lacks a proposal.
DELEGATE JONATHAN NEZ
Yes, we have been discussing for along time. My constituents ask me to plead with Council to vote.
DELEGATE LORENZO CURLEY
To move water, you need power. The Navajo Department of Justice needs to assist us with water infrastructure plan, CIP plan.
DELEGATE MEL BEGAY
The CIP/capital improvement projects plan has been in works for several year but what i see is that it looks greats but it doesn’t show cost of more than $295 million. It’s more like fantasy. We are giving false hope to people. And once there is funding plan, our people may say that we are taking them to the “pawn shop”. We, the Council, didn’t provide funding for CIP program staff to work with chapters. Those are some of the mis-steps that we made. I asked President Shelly and told him I was disappointed with veto. He said he was sticking to veto. But he vetoed with BS all over it. (Delegate Mel Begay referring to earlier CIP legislation that included funding.) If he’s not going to use his veto pen based on veto law then council must identify the laws and 0118-13 lacks those laws.
DELGATE DUANE TSINIGINE
I remember this document, It was brought to use in the late 1990s. I believe we need to approve this plan first and then it is reviewed by legal entities for funding sources. the chapters i represnt, which are several, will pave way for matching funds such as Abandoned Mining Land, county, gaming, Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, etc, etc. This includes projects for former Bennett Freeze, former Navajo Hopi Land Dispute areas that are now identified as Navajo Partition Lands and Hopi Partition Lands. We have hired staff to meet requirements of capital improvement projects office.
DELEGATE ROSCOE SMITH
I support 0118-13.
