Newcomb enters Joint Powers Agreement

Agreement, first in N.M. allows state allocated funds to go directly to chapter

By Emy Zah
The Daily Times

NEWCOMB -- The Newcomb Chapter on Wednesday became the first New Mexico Navajo Nation Chapter to enter into a Joint Powers Agreement (JPA) directly with the state of New Mexico.

"This has never been done before," said Newcomb Chapter President Thomas Joe Yazzie.

Benny Shendo Jr., governor's cabinet secretary, represented the state in signing the six documents with Yazzie. The signing ceremony was attended by nearly 70 people, which included dignitaries from other Navajo Nation chapters, Navajo Nation government, and community members. The event was held at the Newcomb Chapter house.

"What this means is very significant because we can now deal directly with Newcomb and the state of New Mexico without having to go through the Navajo Nation," Shendo said shortly before he signed the documents.

"We're looking forward to working with Newcomb and hope that other chapters will follow suit," he said.

Newcomb became a "certified" chapter on June 18, 2004. As such, they are allowed to enter into a JPA with New Mexico under the Local Governance Act. What that does is allow state allocated funds to go directly to the chapter.

A chapter becomes "certified" by the Navajo Nation Council Transportation and Community Development Committee. In order to achieve certification, the chapter has to establish a "Five Management System," which is creating policies in five areas of local governance. Some of the areas include record and book keeping, property and personnel policies.

Newcomb is the fifth chapter in the Nation to become certified, but the first in New Mexico.

"State funds (used) to go through Window Rock," Yazzie said. Now, he added, Newcomb Chapter will get the funds without going through the Navajo Nation.

"It cuts out about 40 steps. That's an advantage," he said.

Sterling Manuelito, a Newcomb Chapter resident, said the agreement will help the chapter concentrate on funding that the community needs.

Yazzie agreed, noting the chapter already had ideas on where such funding could go.

"We have plans," he said, adding their more immediate plans include telephone, power and water lines for the area.

Included in the signed documents was an agreement allocating money to the chapter amounting to $45,000 for a backhoe and another $160,000 for a truck and trailer.

Speaking in Navajo, Leila Help-Tulley, staff assistant to the speaker of the house, said the JPA was "a concept of the evolving time of self-sufficiency."

She said the Nation has come a long way since its first government, when it was governed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). She told a story that former chairman Peter MacDonald shared with people during the funeral of former Navajo Nation Chairman Raymond Nakai.

Help-Tulley said MacDonald was the first leader to ask the BIA for keys to the Navajo Nation Council Chambers.

Now, she looks at Newcomb and other certified chapters and said, "It's like a light of what will be coming."

"This is an historic event," Yazzie said. The chapter treated the JPA signing as such.

Before the documents were signed, Sheepsprings Chapter President Kellywood Begay sang a Naataanii song -- leadership song.

Begay, who is a medicine man, explained the song before he sang it.

He said before the leaders of the Nation signed the Treaty of 1868, they sang a Naataanii song.

"We're signing an important document today," he said.