Council hopes to override veto

By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. vetoed legislation Monday calling for the expenditure of $6.6 million to buy the Inn of Gallup and another that would have reduced the Navajo Board of Education and stripped its power.

The legislations were approved by the Navajo Nation Council during the July 21-25 summer session.

“President Joe Shirley Jr. has spoken and now the 21st Navajo Nation Council has the option to override the president’s veto,” said Joshua Lavar Butler, communications director for Speaker Lawrence T. Morgan.

“There’s always that option. That’s the way we play the game,” said Resources Committee Chairman George Arthur, sponsor of legislation to purchase the former Holiday Inn. The inn would be bought with money from the Land Acquisition Trust Fund, for which Resources has oversight, and then leased to the Navajo Hospitality Enterprise.

In his veto message to Morgan, Shirley said a July 16 market analysis concluded that the purchase price of the hotel is two-to-three times higher than the market value of the property. The analysis was done by Rick Swig, an individual that the Nation’s Investment Committee looks to for advice in real estate discussions.

“In Mr. Swig’s opinion, the purchase is too high risk and he advises the Nation against the purchase,” Shirley said.

“According to the study, the hotel was originally built in 1966 and is overbuilt. The study looked at the average number of rooms sold per night in the Gallup area and concludes that only approximately 30 percent of the rooms would be sold on any given night.”

The president also said $2.6 million approved by Council to renovate the hotel would not be enough to make it competitive.

“I guess if you were looking for an excuse of not going forward, then you would use that,” Arthur said. “But it doesn’t make sense to me. If you read what input Swig has into it, he makes a qualifying statement by saying he’s not a licensed MAI appraiser.”

The MAI membership designation is held by appraisers who are experienced in the valuation and evaluation of commercial, industrial, residential and other types of properties, and who advise clients on real estate investment decisions.

“As I had indicated in my presentation to the Council, he merely took three existing Realty appraisals and evaluated those and came up with his own synopsis of what he thought. He had about two weeks to do this when the appraisals take about six months,” Arthur said.

Based upon Swig’s study, Shirley said, “it is highly questionable as to whether spending $6.6 million, plus an additional $2.6 million, is a wise expenditure of the people’s money — especially when this study shows that the market value is only worth $1 million to $2 million without renovations, and $2 million to $3 million with renovations.”

Arthur disagreed. “In the business world, everything is about opportunity. If you don’t take that opportunity, you basically kiss that damned thing goodbye, whatever it might be.
“It was always made known that there would have to be some work done. But to me, if you’re going to buy it, now is the time. You don’t want to buy when everything is profitable. Well, you could, but you expect to pay the price for it,” he said.

“I looked at it from the sense that the casino could feed off of it. We have to borrow from one pocket to finance the other pocket to build a casino. To pretend we can build something brand new and ‘ground up’ there in Gallup, we are fooling ourselves more than we are fooling anybody else.”

Resources Vice Chairman Curran Hannon said he thought Shirley had been in favor of the purchase, but added, “I’m pretty sure if he vetoes other stuff, there definitely will be an override session.”

Other business

Shirley also vetoed legislation that would have significantly amended Title 10 of the Navajo Nation Code, “undoing all that is good and special about the Diné Sovereignty in Education Act,” he said.

The amendments would have stripped all substantive authority to make decisions from the Navajo Board of Education and given it to the Education Committee, would have reduced the number of board members from 11 to seven, and unseated all of the elected members.

“The president’s platform has been education,” said Rebecca Benally, board vice president. “I hope that Council delegates see the importance of education, because we need a systemic change for the betterment of our children’s education.”

Shirley said that unlike the board, the committee was not established specifically to set educational standards and requirements.

“It is indisputable that this proposal arose in reaction to issues involving our former superintendent,” he said, cautioning against allowing personnel matters to ever be used to confuse the original intent and purpose of the Title 10 amendments to strengthen Navajo education.

The proposed bill would rescind votes cast in good faith by Navajo voters and “disenfranchise them about whom they want as their representatives on education-related matters,” Shirley said, adding that it “creates an unsound precedent ... tampers with our democratic process and violates the people’s trust.”

Shirley signed two resolutions into law: One appropriating $280,000 to the Navajo Division of Public Safety for personnel overtime and travel expenses during the Navajo Nation and community fairs this summer and fall, and a re-appropriation of $58,592 for a Fire and Rescue Services funding shortfall.

The other spending measure appropriates $101,396 as a grant to Hoosh Dooh Dii To’ Development, Inc., and $180,000 to the Office of the Speaker to allocate $20,000 each for the Navajo Nation Fair, and Eastern Agency, Central, Southwest, Kayenta, Western Agency, Utah, Alamo Northern Agency and Ramah fairs.