Archives

Navajo open new hotel in Monument Valley

MONUMENT VALLEY PARK — An ancient Navajo prayer, “Night Chant,” begins in a “house made of dawn” and evokes transition, healing and restoration of hozho – or beauty, order and harmony.

Like a manifestation of the prayer, a promotional photograph shows the morning Arizona sun washing vivid color and new life over Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park’s man-made mesa, The View Hotel.

Monument Valley Park is located three hours northwest of Flagstaff on Navajo land in Arizona. The hotel is significant to the preservation of culture and to the healing of a depressed economy of the nation within a nation, say those close to the project.

“My biggest reward is knowing that whatever building I construct will create employment opportunities for people, and with this current project it will create employment opportunities for my people, The Dine People,” says Romona Tayah, assistant superintendent for FCI Constructors Inc., who built the hotel.

In a prepared statement, Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. said the project will create much-needed jobs while highlighting tribal culture.

“Job creation on Tribal land means economic opportunity but also translates into cultural preservation,” he said in a recent press release. “When family members can find employment close to their traditional homes they stay connected with their culture and their language. This fosters an environment where traditional ways of the Navajo people can be passed from generation to generation.”

TRIBE STRUGGLES FOR RECOGNITION

The road to projects like The View was a long and arduous for the Navajo, also known as the Dine People.

Beginning in January 1863, the U.S. Army forced more than 8,000 Navajo from their native lands on the Colorado Plateau in what is known today as The Long Walk, a roughly 300-mile trek to Fort Sumner in New Mexico.

“The instigator of this policy, General James H. Carleton, was involved in a wide variety of non-military activities that presupposed removal of Indians from their homelands …
Carleton was involved in a series of questionable activities regarding mining, the cumulative effect of which appears to have contributed to his decision to remove Navajos from their homeland,” wrote Neal W. Ackerly in his 1998 book, A Navajo Diaspora: The Long Walk to Hwéeldi.

But Carleton had underestimated the number of Navajos and Fort Sumner was ill-equipped to care for them, Ackerly wrote.

In May 1864, Dr. Michael Steck, then Indian Agent for the New Mexico Territory, condemned Carleton’s policy as a failure, stating that the captured Navajos surrendered largely because the Army could provide food.

“The rich and powerful portion of them are still in their own country … it will cost ten times the amount to catch and remove the wealthy portion of the tribe,” Steck wrote.

By early 1865, Carleton was losing federal and local support. Hundreds of Navajo began leaving Fort Sumner on their own, returning to their native land.

On June 1, 1868 the U.S. signed a treaty with the Navajo, officially allowing the remaining detainees to return home to a reservation of about 3 million acres, or 5,500 square miles.

NAVAJO ECONOMY IS TOP CONCERN

Today, the Navajo Nation covers 27,000 square miles in Arizona and New Mexico and includes 204,698 people, according to Trib Choudhary, a principal economic development specialist with the tribe. This makes the Navajo the largest Native American tribe in the U.S.

Government, mining and services such as hospitals and schools makeup the Nation’s main employers, however 50 percent of its people live below the U.S. poverty level. About 9,400 Navajo families nationwide depend on welfare programs to provide clothing, gasoline, and food stamps, Choudhary says.

The Navajo Nation government earned about $71 million from all mining revenue in 2005, accounting for almost 58 percent of the tribe’s $124 million general fund that year, tribal documents show.

When federal emission standards forced the coal-fired Mojave Generating Station in Laughlin to close on Dec. 31, 2005, the Navajo Nation’s pocketbook took a big hit.

“[The Navajo government] lost about $20 million,” Choudhary says. Replacing that revenue seems about as hard as the stratified formations speckled across the desert floor.

The next day, Peabody Western Coal Company shut down operations at the Black Mesa Mine on the Navajo reservation. Mojave was the mine’s only customer, buying about 5 million tons of coal annually.

About 240 people were employed at the Black Mesa Mine when it closed.

The overall unemployment rate in Navajoland, including non-Indians, is 52 percent. Among Navajo people, the rate is 57 percent, according to tribal documents. Bout three-fourths of the 4,195 people living near the View Hotel project are unemployed, Choudhary says.

“The Navajos are trying to bring industry, but they often don’t have the money for infrastructure,” Choudhary says. Navajo lands are held in trust and cannot be leveraged to fund private enterprise – even by its own people. “Private companies don’t want to build because they can’t own the land.”

As a sovereign nation within the U.S., it is understandable that Navajo leaders would look to capture more of the tourism revenue currently bypassing its economy for lack of services.

About 2.5 million tourists annually visit the reservation’s many attractions like Monument Valley, Canyon de Chelly and Chaco Canyon. They spent more than $100 million inside the reservation, according to the tribe’s 2006 economic report.

With only 13 hotels and few retail outlets on the reservation, much of the potential revenue leaks out to border towns.

So, borrowing from business models used by the U.S. Department of Interior and the U.S. Forest Service, the Navajo Nation set up a system to lease parkland through its Parks & Recreation Department.

OUTLOOK IMPROVES WITH THE VIEW

The View Hotel is the first such project. The Nation’s parks department leased land to ARTSCO, a family-owned company led by Armanda Ortega, of the Kiy`anníí – Dine for “Towering House” – Clan. The Ortega family has traded in Indian jewelry, arts and crafts since the early 1800s.

ARTSCO built the 90-room hotel with private funds on the site of a former campground that adjoined the park’s visitor center, using contractors that employ more than 90 percent Native American workers.

The project means a lot to Romona Tayah, assistant superintendent for FCI Constructors, Inc., who lives in a reservation home her parents built the year she was born.

“Maintaining ties to family land given to me and my sisters by my grandmother and mother is what keeps me coming home from wherever my work takes me,” Tayah says.

The View Hotel will employ about 100 people. A percentage of gross revenue on all sales will go to Navajo Parks & Recreation. The Navajo Nation will receive sales tax revenue.

“The hotel goes beyond what have become standard eco-friendly building practices using low-flow water devices, extra insulation, windows with energy-efficient values, and fluorescent lighting,” stated Mike Finney, owner of AZ Communications Group, which has worked with ARTSCO and the Navajo Nation office of tourism.

“There are operable windows in public spaces including the soaring two story lobby that allows for natural air flow for energy efficient cooling,” he says.

Modern utilities and a wastewater treatment plant will be in place before the hotel opens in mid-November, Finney says. Hotel management is taking online reservations now for arrivals beginning Dec. 6, 2008, he says.

QUESTIONS LINGER ABOUT GAMBLING, IMPACTS

Despite the much-heralded project and its promise of new jobs, the long-term effects of bringing more tourist services to the Navajo Nation remain unclear. Information regarding financial benefits – both to the Nation and its workforce – were not immediately available.

Speculation abounds about the role gaming should have in tribal culture. Gaming on Navajo lands was approved in November 2004 by the Navajo people in a referendum vote. The first tribal casino – Fire Rock Casino – is under construction in Window Rock and expected to open in November, Choudhary says.

Choudhary advocates for tribal casinos and would support a casino at the View Hotel. However, he worries about the profit-sharing models used by other Native American tribes, which give between $7,000 and $38,000 to native individuals. A Navajo parks officials says that there is no gaming ever planned for Monument Valley Tribal Park.

“It’s not right to give welfare to people who are able to work. It makes them lazy,” Choudhary says.

But a casino could help fill the gap in government revenue and jobs left by the mining industry, Choudhary says.

= = =

>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.

Indian gaming suit targets Arizona poker houses

TUCSON — The Pascua Yaqui Tribe is asking a judge to shut down a small chain of off-the-reservation poker houses. Otherwise, the tribe could give Arizona a smaller cut of its casino revenues under the state’s Indian gaming compact.

The tribe has about 3,000 members whose capital sits about 15 miles southwest of Tucson. It was formed in 1978 and enjoys a historic tribe status and gaming privileges under Arizona’s Indian gaming compact.

That deal does not allow unregulated gaming (including poker) on Indian lands. The tribe is asking the judge to apply that to unregulated gaming off tribal lands throughout Arizona in a case against the International Card and Game Players Association, a nonprofit.

The tribe is suing the association and its owners and franchisees based on an undercover operation it conducted at a Tucson poker club called Club Royale in July. Its lawyers hired a former sergeant from the Arizona Department of Public Safety to check it out.

Based on that visit, the tribe discovered that Club Royale was charging prospective players $20 per year to become a member of the nonprofit. This was also the price of admission to the club.

Then club owners charge players up to $3 for a "button fee," where players pay to play before any bets, antes or blinds are placed and before the cards are dealt. After paying these fees, players are then allowed to participate in various games, including $1/$2 Texas Hold ‘Em, according to the complaint.

The dealers receive 100 percent of their pay from tips, the complaint says, alleging that the club is not properly withholding state and federal income taxes.

Publicly, however, club owners have told a different story. In a letter to Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon in May, they wrote that the club is a place where poker fans can unite against "the abuse and ignorance that is impiging on our freedoms and liberties." The call-to-arms also mentioned the club’s commitment to building one house per year for Habitat for Humanity, and asked Gordon to be an honorary card room manager at a fundraiser.

Yet the Pascua Yaqui Tribe claims the essence of the operation does not square with Arizona’s definition of regulated gambling. It is asking Pima County Superior Court Judge Leslie Miller to intervene, adding that a decision against the tribe would allow it to reduce Arizona’s cut of gaming revenues.

Tucson lawyers Timothy M. Medcoff and Luis A. Ochoa are representing the tribe.

Casinos, culture drive Navajo presidential race

[Editor's note: Incumbent Joe Shirley Jr. ultimately won this race.]

TEMPE — The issues facing Arizona’s largest Indian tribe today range from inadequate social services to drug and alcohol addiction to a lack of good jobs. Sadly, they remain the same each election cycle.

But this time, a woman is running for the Navajo Nation’s highest seat. And this time, the debate lines are clearly drawn.

Incumbent President Joe Shirley Jr. says building casinos will raise loads of cash to solve these problems. His challenger, Lynda Lovejoy, says casinos will only make them worse.

The two squared off in a 90-minute debate tonight at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. The debate was held in Armstrong Hall, where about 180 people — most of them young Native Americans — filled the auditorium. [Video is available here.]

They listened and cheered as Shirley Jr., of Chinle, and Lovejoy, of Crownpoint, N.M., traded barbs about the state of the Navajo Nation — a tribe of more than 250,000 people scattered across Arizona, Utah and New Mexico.

The divide in the audience was obvious. Young Navajo women hollered and clapped for most of Lovejoy’s comments while older members — male and female — cheered for Shirley Jr., whose applause peaked while he gave his closing statements in his native tongue. Moderators repeatedly reminded the audience to hold all outbursts until the end.

The divide between the candidates was obvious, too. Shirley Jr. sees the construction of six casinos on Navajo lands as a way to create 4,000 jobs and bolster scholarships, social services, public infrastructure like water and electricity and drug interdiction on the reservation.

It’s the only major source of cash the Navajo have left to explore, Shirley Jr. said, because funding from the state and federal government — which he called “Washingdumb” — has flagged.

Shirley Jr. also said officials are in talks with two countries outside the U.S. to loan the Navajo $500 million to deliver water and electrical lines to rural areas of the reservation. He did not name the countries.

“You need the capital,” he told the crowd. “You need the capital big time, and it’s not there.”

Lovejoy, however, said the Navajo people should not wait for casinos to come online to solve social ills. She said government services in some areas could be trimmed and spread around to support medical services, public infrastructure projects and college scholarships.

Lovejoy also stressed the need to bring the reservation into the 21st Century. She supports setting up email networks for Navajo living off the reservation to get involved in policy-making, more promotion of Navajo small businesses, and outsourcing the nation’s consultant contracts to PhD-wielding tribal members instead of “non-Indians.”

Shirley Jr. is pushing his reputation as someone who has stayed in Arizona since birth, and needs four more years in office so that tribal members can see lucrative, job-producing ventures come true.

Lovejoy is stressing her background as a former New Mexico state legislator. She says she represents government transparency and stronger leadership at a time when the Navajo Nation is “stagnant.”

Both are from the east side of the reservation, which concerns members like Pauline Martin Sanchez, 53. She said the west side’s needs are often overlooked.

She came to see which candidate would be more connected “to the outside world,” more supportive of the reservation’s rural schools and households and more willing to modernize the tribe.

She waves her hand above her head and talks about cellphone calls and digital messages traveling through the air to illustrate her point.

“Our people have no idea,” Martin Sanchez said. “It’s a technology world, and we’re still trying to put electricity into the homes.”

Her daughter, April Sunshine Sanchez, 25, said luring young, college-educated Navajo back to the reservation is another top issue.

“They don’t feel like they have a place there because the reservation is so far behind,” she said.

Ten candidates competed in the September primary. Shirley Jr. finished first, and Lovejoy finished about 2,500 votes behind him for second place. The general election is Nov. 7.

= = =

>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.