Tribal leaders descend on State Capitol for lobbying day

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By DANIEL NEWHAUSER
Cronkite News Service

PHOENIX (Feb. 25, 2009) _ The 77-year-old Dilkon Health Center on the Navajo Nation can barely handle the volume of tribal members seek health care there, so its CEO joined leaders from other Native American tribes visiting the State Capitol on Wednesday.

“While the Hopis are dancing for rain up north, we don’t want rain because it will leak through the ceiling,” Sally N. Pete said, appealing to state lawmakers for money to build a new center.

Reps. Christopher Deschene, D-St. Michaels, and Tom Chabin, D-Flagstaff, who represent the Navajo Nation, met with Pete and other Navajo leaders to discuss health care, failing infrastructure, education funding and veterans’ needs. It was just one of many meetings held as tribal leaders  participated in Indian Nations and Tribes Legislative Day.

Deschene, a Navajo himself, said the volume of issues facing Arizona’s 22 tribes is overwhelming.

“A normal functioning society has all these issues. With the tribes, it’s all these same issues but with limited resources, limited expertise and limited awareness,” he said. “It can be pretty tough, but we’re elected to help out people.”

Unfortunately, Chabin said, Arizona’s budget situation is preventing the Legislature from being able to address every issue right now. And the massive cuts needed to offset the shortfall the state is facing for fiscal 2010 will make it even harder, he said.

“We need to have a very sobering discussion about the needs of the state and the cuts involved,” Chabin told Pete’s group.

Deschene reassured the group that he and his colleagues are hearing as many issues as they can to try to see what they face.

“We’re trying to look at a comprehensive picture of all these things we’re working,” he said, adding that the federal stimulus will hopefully help.

Earlier in the day, Gov. Jan Brewer addressed some of the same issues at the kickoff breakfast for the day’s events. She said stimulus funds have been specifically promised to tribes and that she would take them, but she said tribes should be cautious in using the money.

“I urge you recognize that these federal dollars are one-time dollars that may only delay the necessary cuts and reduction for one or two more years,” she told a room packed with tribal leaders.

Brewer said she is hoping to foster ties between the state and tribal governments to turn around the state’s down economy.

“I believe the tribal nations are essential in helping us carve a path out of this economic recession,” she said.

Though the governor didn’t elaborate as to how, Diane Enos, a resident of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, said in an interview that she hoped Brewer meant casinos.

Casinos have seen business dampened, Enos said, but if Arizona helped develop tribal land and build more businesses, the tribes could contribute to the state economy by employing people and buying from local businesses.

“Every step of the way there’s money to be made, not just for the tribe but for the state,” she said.

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CAPTION FOR BC-CNS-BUDGET-TRIBES: Rep. Tom Chabin, D-Flagstaff, criticizes budget cuts affecting Native Americans at a news conference held Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2009, at the State Capitol. (Cronkite News Service Photo/Daniel Newhauser)