San Juan County: Who’s the Boss?
When Willie Grayeyes and Kenneth Maryboy took their oaths of office in January, San Juan County became the first in Utah to have a local governing majority of Native Americans and one that comprised activists who have played a leading role in a bitter multiyear, multimillion dollar political campaign to create and now litigate Bears Ears National Monument.
Its “historic” status survived a legal challenge that alleged Grayeyes was not a resident of Utah and therefore ineligible to hold public office in the state. In a controversial ruling on Jan. 29, 7th District Judge Don Torgerson cited, in part, the new commissioner’s “rich cultural history” and his observance of “traditional cultural practices” in the Navajo Mountain, Utah, community when he affirmed Grayeyes’ Utah residency.
Neither Grayeyes or Maryboy has publicly signaled an intent to curb their activism regarding expansion of tribal sovereignty beyond the Navajo reservation into Bears Ears country in order to represent the interests of conservative Navajos and ancestors of Mormon pioneers – a bloc of constituents that convincingly demonstrated in November’s election the county as a whole remains deeply red.
Democrat Jenny Wilson got only 31 percent of the vote countywide against Republican Mitt Romney in the race for U.S. Senate; Democrat and Navajo James Singer got only 27 percent against Republican incumbent John Curtis in the race for Congress; and Marsha Holland ran unaffiliated and got 33 percent against Republican Phil Lyman in a state House race that wasn’t even contested by Democrats. Likewise, Democrats could find no candidate to run against incumbent Republican District 1 Commissioner Bruce Adams.
For Maryboy and his brother, Mark, the Bears Ears project is a passion that began in 2010 after former U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) sought their help to resolve long-simmering land-use issues – a chance to right what they might believe are historical wrongs. Shortly after that they launched their own initiative with seed money from the David and Lucille Packard Foundation and technical assistance from Round River Conservation Studies, based in Salt Lake City. Grayeyes has been involved almost as long.
The effort morphed into Utah Diné Bikéyah and it took an assertive, high-profile lead: Leonard Lee, vice chairman of the group, remarked, “We don’t consider ourselves as stakeholders. … We’re the landlord.”
So here’s the $64,000 question: Will the policies of the new pro-Bears Ears county commission begin to align – to varying degrees – with the goals of a grand alliance whose members include the foundation established by mutlibillionaire Hansjorg Wyss ($2.2 billion), Utah Diné Bikéyah, Round River Conservation Studies, Friends of Cedar Mesa, the Conservation Lands Foundation, the Grand Canyon Trust, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Earth Justice, The Wilderness Society, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, Packard Foundation ($7 billion), William and Flora Hewlett Foundation ($9.8 billion), Wilburforce Foundation ($115 million), Pew Charitable Trusts, Leonardo Di Caprio Foundation and some of the nation’s most prominent and politically aggressive outdoor recreation companies?
Grayeyes and Maryboy offer clues about where their loyalties might lie in four draft resolutions that reflect their long-time pro-monument activism: one rescinds all of the previous San Juan County resolutions in support of Trump's monument; another directs county attorney Kendall Laws to conduct an inventory of all civil litigation in which the county is a party; and a third directs that some regular meetings be held in the southern part of the county, including parts of the sovereign Navajo Nation (“The County Administrator shall immediately contact the chapter managers of the Navajo Mountain, Oljato, Mexican Water and Aneth chapters, as well as the Town of Bluff”).
A fourth resolution directs county attorney Kendall Laws to withdraw the county from the big monument lawsuit – Utah Dine Bikeyah et al. v. Donald Trump, et al. – and sever ties with Mountain States Legal Foundation, which assisted the county in litigation and according to its website is “dedicated to individual liberty, the right to own and use property, limited and ethical government, and the free enterprise system that defends constitutional liberties and the rule of law.”
If the resolutions are introduced and approved by the majority of Maryboy and Grayeyes, they will have voted to terminate the county’s lawsuit against the nonprofit, Utah Diné Bikéyah, they run as board members.
Bill Keshlear is a resident of Salt Lake City and a longtime newspaper journalist, having worked at the Missoulian (in Montana), Fort Worth Star-Telegram, San Diego Union-Tribune and The Salt Lake Tribune. He was communication director of the Utah Democratic Party during the 2007-2008 cycle that led to the election of Barack Obama as president.