County renews road agreement with Navajo Nation

BERNALILLO — Sandoval County has done its part to renew the intergovernmental agreement (IGA) and the memoranda of understanding (MOU) with Navajo Nation for the sake of roads in both areas.

The county commissioners approved two items related to the agreement at its Dec. 11 meeting.

Public works director,Mark Hatzenbuhler said that the approval is just to renew the agreement that the county did four years ago.

“We’re updating this with the new directors over there. We’re going to send it over there and see if they approve it. We had a meeting in October with all the counties in that whole nation, and none of their agreements have come back,” he said.

At this time, the only way the county can go onto that land is if there is a natural disaster of some kind.

Commissioner Josh Jones said there was a desire from the nation’s counties at the October meeting to have the counties take over the maintenance of those roads and asked if there was a way to include that with the MOU discussion.

Hatzenbuhler said that the nation needs to agree to the MOU and IGA before that can happen. Once that happens, he added, the intention is to have Sandoval County focus on the east and Navajo Nation focus on the west.

Sandoval County has been working with the Navajo Nation Department of Transportation, which has authority over Navajo Nation roads, to establish a working relationship for funding the maintenance operations and construction of roads on the Navajo Nation.

The MOU and IGA will re-establish a working relationship between Sandoval County and the Navajo Nation Department of Transportation.

Commissioners voted unanimously in favor of both items.