Navajo MVD, licenses nearing
Will ease long waits, raise funds for Nation

By Natasha Kaye Johnson
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — Those who are anxious to purchase an official Navajo Nation license plate will have to wait just a bit longer.

The November 2006 legislation that authorized the creation of a motor vehicle authority to issue drivers licenses is still being formed.

"We look to implement it pretty soon," said Patrick Sandoval, chief of staff for the Navajo Nation. "The Nation wants to exercise its sovereignty."

Some people have become confused about whether the Nation has implemented the program because of license plates they've seen with the Navajo Nation symbol.

"People think those are actual Navajo plates, but that's a vanity plate," Sandoval said. "We just get small proceeds from that."

While implemention of the legislation will create jobs and some revenue flow, Sandoval said that the sovereignty component is the most important. Because no funding was mandated when legislation was approved more than seven months ago, the process has been slow, but Sandoval assures that it's on the way.

The idea of a Motor Vehicle Department came three years ago, when now 26-year old Shawn Redd, heard about President Joe Shirley, Jr.'s suggested $500 million bond.

"My company and I came to him and said, 'If you want to do this bond, that's great. If you're going to do economic development, you need to look at the automobile industry.'"

Redd, who owns both Gallup and Shiprock NAPA Auto Parts and Redd's Laundry in Dilkon, explained that automobile industry is multimillion dollar industry that ranges from new and used cars to dealing parts. But before any of that can really take off, Redd said that having an established motor vehicle department was crucial.

"If we're going to be selling a lot of cars, there's no sense in having our in-house title clerks sending it to surrounding states when we could be doing it in our house," Redd said.

The idea received support from the Office of the President and Vice President and of the Intergovernmental Relations Committee, and legislation was drafted for the project.

"Everybody was excited about it, but really just didn't know how to make it happen," said Redd. "There were so many open ends we needed to tie up."

Although a sovereign nation, the government was concerned about how the states would react, especially New Mexico. Of the three states that make up the Nation, New Mexico is on the only one that charges Navajo Nation residents those same rates as New Mexico residents. Navajos who reside on the Arizona and Utah reservation are exempt from the charges.

"Nearly 45 percent of the population is currently paying the full rates to the state," Redd said. "That estimate is somewhere around $8 million to $10 million annually."

Unlike Arizona, who has three state Department of Motor Vehicle offices on the Nation, New Mexico doesn't have any. The result, Redd said, is overcrowded MVDs in Gallup and Farmington.

"People are forced to go to border towns that are maxed out," Redd said. "We're definitely going to be providing services to the people."

In early 2005, the Nation received support from Gov. Bill Richardson to move forward with the project.

"We have an inherent right to move forward on this project as a right of self-governed Nation," Redd said. "We wanted to make sure that we did this the smoothest way possible and make sure that we were all working together as a team."

From there, a think-tank was formed on how to move the project forward.

"(The think-tank was) An interesting thing that came out of that meeting," Redd said.

Shortly before the 1989 riots, a law was passed that supported a license plate and motor vehicle project. Redd said it was spearheaded by former Division of Public Safety Director Bill Kellogg.

But the politics and the upcoming change of government knocked the project off the priority list.

"The project just died," Redd said, adding that memos he's read from 1989 basically spell out that there were no experts who could make the project happen.

The project then fell to the Department of Highway Safety, where Redd said Lawrence Garnanez began pushing it for the next 15 years.

"He worked on it a lot and did the best he could, but he just never got the support," Redd said.