{"id":17314,"date":"2020-01-05T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-05T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.canyoncountryzephyr.com\/blog\/?p=17314"},"modified":"2020-01-05T13:27:43","modified_gmt":"2020-01-05T19:27:43","slug":"2019-in-review-a-sea-change-in-san-juan-county-utah-governance-by-bill-keshlear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.canyoncountryzephyr.com\/blog\/2020\/01\/05\/2019-in-review-a-sea-change-in-san-juan-county-utah-governance-by-bill-keshlear\/","title":{"rendered":"2019 in review: A sea change in San Juan County, Utah, governance …by Bill Keshlear"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a>
In 2019, longtime tribal activists Kenneth Maryboy, left, chairman of the San Juan County Commission, and Willie Grayeyes, District 2 commissioner, faced cultural and political fault lines in governing the county. (Bill Keshlear) <\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Last February, I asked <\/em>\u201cWho\u2019s the Boss in Utah\u2019s Bears Ears Country?\u201d<\/em><\/a> The following six-part essay<\/a> is an attempt to partially answer that question after a year of watching events unfold there.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL 6-PART ESSAY.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Part One…<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

San Juan County, Utah, comprises a splendor of canyons, cliffs and castles of sandstone. Anyone who has made a random discovery of 1,000-year-old artifacts of human habitation, trekked to the top of a Canyonlands National Park overlook at sunset or spent a deathly silent, crystalline night starring at the canopy of Creation can attest to its unearthly beauty.

However, representative government in the county, which will play a critical role in preserving that landscape, seems intractably bogged down by ideological dissembling, undemocratic \u201coutside influences\u201d accountable to no county voter, opaque tribal politics, lawyers and judges making public policy and environmental profiteers.<\/em>.. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part 1: Rule by resolution.<\/strong> Kenneth Maryboy and Willie Grayeyes took their oaths of office as commissioners a little under a year ago after what was described as a \u201chistoric\u201d election. They immediately staked their claim to power by choosing to govern primarily through resolutions written by their longtime private attorney and approved without advice or informed consent of virtually anyone in the county.

Part 2: The power of environmental nonprofits.<\/strong> It\u2019s hard to overstate the influence of Utah Din\u00e9 Bik\u00e9yah, the tribal-affiliated nonprofit founded and run by Grayeyes and Maryboy until they took office. They\u2019ve succeeded as leaders in attempts to create Bears Ears National Monument in a way that took results of a presidential election and proclamation to derail. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part 3: Open-records stonewalling. <\/strong>Numerous requests for public records filed under GRAMA were generated in 2019 due in part to the climate created by the new commissioners\u2019 evasiveness and open hostility toward many constituents and those constituents\u2019 forceful, if sometimes rowdy, responses. The county (Grayeyes and Maryboy) was ordered to produce records in three cases.

Part 4: Gutter rhetoric<\/strong>. Unfiltered comments of public figures were part and parcel of 2019\u2019s hard-edged politicking in San Juan County. It was on full display in the weeks and months leading up to November\u2019s special election that asked voters whether they wanted to form a committee to study possible changes in county government. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part 5: A defeat for good government. <\/strong>A full-court press of a campaign mounted by the San Juan County Democratic Party, its allies and prominent Navajo Nation politicians defeated an ostensibly non-partisan effort to change the way the county works. Results of November\u2019s special election hinged on rhetoric of retribution and the politics of payback. An alternative story line \u2014 charting a path toward better democracy \u2014 was a non-starter.

Part 6: But can they fix the roads?<\/strong> To a certain extent the new commissioners\u2019 relationship with officials of the Navajo Nation will determine their success in office. They\u2019ve played an insider\u2019s game of reservation politics for a long time, but so far they\u2019ve been unable to leverage that experience into discernible benefits for county residents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click Here to Read the Full 6-Part Essay…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last February, I asked \u201cWho\u2019s the Boss in Utah\u2019s Bears Ears Country?\u201d The following six-part essay is an attempt to partially answer that question after a year of watching events unfold there. CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL 6-PART ESSAY. From Part One… San Juan County, Utah, comprises a splendor of canyons, cliffs and castles […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.canyoncountryzephyr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.canyoncountryzephyr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.canyoncountryzephyr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.canyoncountryzephyr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.canyoncountryzephyr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17314"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.canyoncountryzephyr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17318,"href":"http:\/\/www.canyoncountryzephyr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17314\/revisions\/17318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.canyoncountryzephyr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.canyoncountryzephyr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.canyoncountryzephyr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}