Artist Jerry Brown has just finished a mural in downtown Gallup entitled Resilience.

It can be viewed at 214 W. Aztec Ave. in the alley on the side of Dental Innovations.

Brown, who says his Diné culture influences his work, describes the mural on the gallupmainstreet.org web site.

“The birds are all found in our region of New Mexico. The Bluebird is made up of cool colors, It represents joy, happiness, and peace. The Varied Thrush is made up of warm colors,” he said in his description. “It is a symbol of speaking our truth and to pay attention to the language we use. The Hummingbird is painted in vibrant in colors. It represents good luck.

“The bee is a symbol of community, of being wise with our natural resources. The fly (can you find it?) can be a reference to the unhealthy nature of our relationships, it can also be a sign of persistence,” Brown explained.

Speaking about the title and the work as a whole, Brown said, resilience means knowing how to work through setbacks, or barriers, or limited resources. Resilience is a measure of how much we want something and how much we are willing to do to achieve it.

“Resilience is a word I have heard often in my life. This mural represents how our community has worked in the face of adversity. How we working (sic) on changing and adapting to meet new challenges. How we continue trying to work together to move forward,” he said.

The mural was sponsored by Gallup MainStreet Arts & Cultural District, with funding from BNSF Foundation, with thanks to Dental Innovations and Tanner’s Indian Arts for helping to make this possible.

How the votes get counted in McKinley County

John Quincy Adams agreed with Jefferson on one fundamental principal, government derived its legitimacy from the consent of the governed.  The rule of the ballot box.

Elections involve a lot more than voting and it’s not easy. There’s a lot that goes into making voting a successful venture for the ordinary citizen. I got an inside look when I signed up as a challenger representing a political party. Challengers from each political party are allowed by law to observe on a limited basis the “behind the scenes” of the voting process. The infrastructure and effort that is involved is substantial and was an eye-opener for me. Here are some of my observations about the process.

OVERVIEW OF THE VOTING PROCESS

First a discussion with Marlene Custer, McKinley County Bureau of Elections Director.

Outside of election time Marlene Custer has a staff of four. When election time comes around staffing requirements temporarily increase substantially.

At election time Custer supervises four coordinators, four absentee workers for receiving and date-stamping and maintaining a strong paper trail for absentee ballots, and an additional eight employees for the job of processing the absentee ballots. And during the actual election several hundred additional workers must be hired, trained and dispersed to voting locations.

Rejected absentee ballots numbered about 50. They were primarily rejected because the voter failed to either sign the envelope or provide the last four digits of their Social Security number. Staff has called these people and invited them to come back to the Clerk’s Office and add the information and almost all have done so, as of the morning of Nov. 2, the day before Election Day.

Taking over in 2018 as the Director of the Bureau of Elections was an eye opener, Custer said.  She is always so busy. There are so many rules and regulations. Politicians are intensely interested in elections, so there are many laws on the books to follow and frequent changes resulting from legislation. In addition, since the chief of elections for the state is the secretary of state, that office controls what happens at the county level covering every step of the process and every detail.  These requirements are laid out in a 352-page Election Handbook of the State of New Mexico authored by the secretary of state.

To gain a good understanding of these requirements the N.M. Association of Counties puts on a “County College” for county election officials. This is the prime opportunity to not only get up to date on the rules, but also to mingle with clerks from all 33 counties. Clerks get to ask questions and they help each other both during the college and later with phone calls and emails. Custer said due to this effort she is now close to many county clerks. She added that the whole voting process is a rule-driven operation.

Since she spent so many years in the City of Gallup Mayor’s Office as the executive assistant, she knows many of the political people and judges. Occasionally, a snafu requires her office to open a locked vote box and a court order is required.

In addition to the training put on by the Association of Counties, her staff must take training classes in every element of the voting process put on by the secretary of state’s office. After each class, participants are tested.  If the participant doesn’t pass, that step is repeated until the staff is competent in the process outlined by the secretary of state.

There are many voting places and the chief clerk for each of these must take this training and meet stiff requirements. Custer provided a legal-sized page with 14 steps, each to be signed off on by the clerk when completed.

Here are the first three of the 14 items:

BLUE POUCH WITH KEYS. After the election you can roll up (4) copies of the results with memory flash card & voting machine keys. Place in Blue Pouch.

BALLOT BOX KEYS. One key you can return to the clerk’s key envelope.

ENVELOPE DISTRICT JUDGE. One key gets mailed to district judge in the envelope provided with postage.

And so on ... As mentioned earlier, every step of the process is controlled by the Election Handbook and there are lots of steps.

After the election on Election Day there are five identical tapes from the voting machines made.  Custer as director of the Bureau of Elections keeps one. One is sent to the secretary of state and the remaining three go to the Canvassing Board, which is made up of McKinley County’s three commissioners. The Board meets on Friday after the election at 9 am. However canvassing this year starts at 8 am.

All votes must be time stamped by 7 pm on Election Day to be counted.

Custer loves her job. It is very fast-paced during the election season. There are so many things included in the voting process and there is lots of paperwork and many temporary employees.

Custer’s office hires 50 people for early voting and 200 for voting day. These are the people taking the Secretary of State’s classes and tests and they all must be certified. Before COVID they had large classes, but this year they have had to revise the process, with five students at a time.

The Bureau of Elections oversees many jobs such as advertising for the election, organizing and planning voting sign placement and preparing the Proclamation for Election Day. These are the election season extra jobs added to the regular work of payroll, budgeting, processing invoices and ordering, as well as maintaining staff relations.

COUNTING THE ABSENTEE BALLOTS

Many years ago I was a volunteer firefighter with the Bloomfield, N.M. Fire Department.  At one of our trainings led by a New Mexico State Police Officer the question was asked about doctors showing up to help at accident scenes.  He responded that doctors were generally of little help but that what really worked was when a head nurse showed up to help.  He said “they just roll up their sleeves and get to work.”  I was reminded of this when watching the team of ladies that was involved in processing the flood of absentee ballots this year. Normally the county gets several hundred absentee ballots. This year they received thousands.

After arriving and being checked in by Bureau of Elections staff, the absentee ballots were sorted into alphabetical order by “youngsters” [the word used by staff] and then turned over to the absentee ballot crew for processing. They work as a well oiled team, with some of these workers having done this for the county for 20 years.

One of these workers, Tammy Overman, was particularly adept at moving from job to job, multi-tasking throughout the process. The tasks include checking off the incoming mail with the list of absentee ballots mailed, opening two sets of envelopes, unfolding the ballots and then running them through the voting machine. For those of you voting, you remember that when your ballot went through the voting machine it made a loud “ding”.  Imagine three machines dinging as the ballots are run through the machines.

This crew must also hand tally votes from our military member voters who mailed in ballots.  This has something to do with the way the military handles the ballots. They also hand tally votes that the machines reject.

There was a total of approximately 4,132 absentee ballots submitted and of these about 3,569 were received.  Remember that some people asked for absentee ballots, but later decided to vote in person. Apparently about 40 of the absentee ballots did not have a signature and/or a Social Security Number on the ballot. Under law these cannot be counted without this information.

THE VOTING PROCESS

Watching the early voting I saw a well trained team assist voters in processing their ballots. At the front door hand sanitizer is offered. There are three check-in stations in the Courthouse Rotunda. Each voter approaches one of these, identifies themselves, and is given a freshly printed ballot—customized to that voter’s district.  I timed this process for several voters and it seemed to take about one minute.

The voter then heads to a voting station to vote.  Most completed voting in about 5 minutes, but a few people took ten or more minutes to vote.  There was a steady stream of early voters. After voting, the ballot is run through the voting machine and the voter exits. So, for most voters the process takes only about six minutes.

By Mike Daly
Guest Columnist

‘Sun’ reflects on uranium effects

Uranium mining carries a heavy meaning on the Navajo Nation, perhaps more than any other part of the American Southwest. While the mines are mostly no longer in operation, they are still having an impact on many facets of life across the region.

Specifically, some of the mines scattered around the reservation are still contaminated with radioactive materials from their days in operation. The pollution seeps into local water and air supplies, rendering parts of the Navajo Nation uninhabitable and dangerous for people and wildlife.

In the decades since the mines opened and then closed in the middle of the 20th century, livestock have grazed on crops grown over lands where uranium was unearthed. Locals drank the water and built homes and other structures with materials taken from these sites. The prolonged exposure to uranium has left countless residents of the Navajo Nation ailing from various health complications and has led to the effective closures and sealings of certain stretches of land across the region.

The battle to hold the mining companies accountable for the decades of damage and ensuing cleanup is still a heated topic today. But there are plenty of advocates shining a spotlight on the victims and advocating on their behalf. One of these advocates is the International Uranium Film Festival.

FESTIVAL STOPS IN WINDOW ROCK

On March 7-8 at the Navajo Nation Museum in Window Rock, guests gathered for two days of what the IUFF calls “cutting edge films on nuclear issues” on the festival website. These films are meant to educate and stir audiences on topics including the effects of uranium mining and nuclear waste, as well as war and accidents that involved nuclear chemicals.

Since being founded in 2010 in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, the festival has traveled through nine different countries including Germany, India, Portugal, Jordan, Norway, Canada, and the United States.

The festival was held in Window Rock for the first time in 2013. Navajo President Ben Shelly welcomed the guests to that event and reminded the attendants about the impact that over 40 years of uranium mining have had on the Navajo Nation.

“The Window Rock Uranium Film Festival was much more than just watching nuclear films. It was also a big gathering and platform to make friends and allies,” IUFF Director Norbert G. Suchanek said in a release published on their website. “Window Rock is the birthplace of the Uranium Film Festival. We will do our best to ensure that the festival returns to Window Rock [in 2025].”

Following the stop in Window Rock, the festival has traveled to nine other cities across the U.S. as of press time. Remaining scheduled stops include Salem, Oregon and Las Vegas, Nevada.

OTHER LOCAL Stories

There have been countless gatherings and meetings held about the ongoing effects of nuclear fallout on the Navajo Nation, some of which have been previously discussed by the Sun.

It is first important to remember that there is an important saying for the Diné people: Tó éí iiná' at'é, or "Water is Life." Without water to hydrate both themselves, their livestock and other animals, and to grow crops and maintain a healthy state of being, life is unable to exist.

The Sun has spoken to local filmmakers such as Deidra Peaches about the importance of water on the Navajo Nation and how contamination from uranium is one of the barriers to clean water. There have been published reports on the City of Gallup’s Annual Drinking Water Quality Report, which looks for contaminants in the city’s drinking water, one of which can be traces of uranium.

As for other annual events, the Sun publishes reports about the commemorative walk in Church Rock each July. The Red Water Pond Road Community, Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining, and the Pipeline Road Community on Navajo Nation host the walk every year to remember the Uranium Tailings Spill.

On July 16, 1979, an earthen dam that held liquid uranium waste broke, releasing 1,000 tons of solid radioactive mill waste and more than 90 million gallons of acidic and radioactive liquids into the Rio Puerco. It remains the largest accidental spill of radioactive materials in U.S. history.

The contaminants flowed downstream through Gallup and across nine Navajo chapters and into Arizona. There has been no reclamation; no study to see how far the contamination went and its impacts on local water systems and people’s health; and United Nuclear Corporation has not been held accountable for the spill.

This story is not unfamiliar for longtime residents of the southwest. But even when companies are identified for being involved with contamination from these mines, holding them accountable and demanding reparations is another story entirely.

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

In spite of the challenges that communities face including lingering health complications to other corporations either transporting uranium or resuming mining at new sites, advocacy continues across the Navajo Nation.

There are art galleries and shows dedicated to the showcasing the people most affected by the fallout. Media continues to be produced to educate the public on these matters, adding to a library that includes the short film Tale of a Toxic Nation and the book Yellow Dirt: A Poisoned Land and the Betrayal of the Navajos.

Groups continue to pressure Navajo officials including President Buu Nygren to call for strong accountability, cleanup, and reprimands to the corporations that have evaded the impact of uranium mining that the Navajo people continue to face.

Previous speakers with the Sun have affirmed that while the damage is done and is something that can’t fully be covered by monetary compensation, continuing to fight for change is a crucial step for the future.

For more information on the International Uranium Film Festival, visit https://uraniumfilmfestival.org/en

By Cody Begaye
Contributing Editor