Viva Las Vegas!
Navajo delegates meeting in Sin City

By Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — Just a little more than a month after receiving widespread criticism for traveling to Hawaii for the annual National Indian Education Association conference, more Navajo Nation Council Delegates have traveled or are traveling to Las Vegas for numerous conferences and committee meetings.

The meetings in Sin City come just in time for the annual National Finals Rodeo, which began Dec. 6 and runs through Dec. 15 in Vegas.

A majority of the Council’s standing committees were scheduled to be in Las Vegas this week or next week, according to the Office of the Speaker, including the Resources, Transportation and Community Development, Government Services, Education, Economic Development, Budget and Finance and Intergovernmental Relations Committees.

In some cases, Legislative Branch staff accompany the committees because they are required to record committee meetings for official record.

However, staff from the Executive Branch won’t be in attendance at any of the Vegas meetings. Staff had received a memorandum the early part of October prohibiting travel to Las Vegas this week.

George Hardeen, communications director for the Office of the President, said that an executive order from President Joe Shirley that discourages meetings held outside the Navajo Nation is still in effect. That executive order applies only to the Executive Branch. It is not known if the Legislative Branch ever followed suit with an order of its own. Legislative Branch spokesman Joshua Lavar Butler was on travel and could not be reached for comment.

While some of the conferences and meetings are set by outside entities and are essential for Navajo Nation business, some appear to have no clear ties to Vegas.

For instance, the Economic Development Committee is meeting with two Navajo Nation enterprises Dec. 12-13 and will be holding a joint work session with the

Resources Committee and Diné Power Authority regarding the Desert Rock Energy project on Dec. 14-15. No explanation why the committee is holding its meeting and work session in Las Vegas was provided by the Speaker’s Office.

The trip comes on the tails of a high-profile trip that representatives from the Navajo Nation took to in attend a National Indian Education Association conference in Hawaii in October. The trip that has been widely criticized in the media.

The U.S. Department of Interior is looking into whether federal money was inappropriately spent to send Navajo Nation representatives to an education conference in Hawaii.

The Inspector General is responding to a Nov. 16 letter from Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who asked whether federal dollars were misappropriated or misused, said a spokesman for Inspector General Earl Devaney.

The total number of Navajos attending has come under scrutiny after it was reported Nov. 3 that 362 tribal members preregistered for the National Indian Education Association conference last month in Honolulu.

Navajo officials confirmed they sent 50 representatives of the Navajo Nation government, including 15 Head Start workers, at a cost of more than $110,000. The Navajo Head Start program, which last year had its funding temporarily revoked after a scathing report on problems that included inadequate financial controls, spent more than $35,000 on its conference representatives.

In Las Vegas, three members of the Resources Committee are attending the national Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association convention. This is a trip that representatives from the committee usually take to negotiate with the PRCA to designate the Navajo Nation as one of its rodeo sites on the annual PRCA circuit with the intent of increasing revenues and national media coverage for the Navajo Nation.