A new year brings a chance for people to get a new start and set goals for the upcoming year. The Sun recently sat down with city leaders to discuss their goals for 2023.

The biggest shared goal among the city council was improving the city’s infrastructure.

“Infrastructure affects everything else,” Councilor Sarah Piano, Dist. 3, said. “If we don’t have money for infrastructure and we don’t put more money in the budget for that, then how can we build on top of it? How can we build anything if we don’t have infrastructure?”

Councilor Michael Schaff, Dist. 2, agreed with Piano.

“We need to get new infrastructure for the water and sewer lines. We’ve got some...

The most important thing newly retired Chief Franklin Boyd learned in his nearly 25 years with the Gallup Police Department isn’t something you can teach in a classroom: Compassion.

Boyd, who had been chief since April 19, 2019, joined the department in 1998 after attending the police academy in Gallup. He’d grown up and gone to school in Fort Defiance, Ariz., and spent seven years in the U.S. Marine Corps before that.

He started out on patrol and worked his way up from there. But those early experiences on the street taught him that the world isn’t black and white, even if your car is.

“When I was a very young officer, knowing the basics in terms of dealing with the public...

DOLLAR GENERAL FIGHT

Gallup, Jan. 20

A fight at Dollar General led to one man, John Shirley, getting arrested.

On Jan. 20, around 8:30 pm, an employee of the Dollar General at 805 S. Second St. called the police when Shirley, 50, started fighting with another store employee. According to the report, the caller said that Shirley was using his keys as a weapon.

The store employee Shirley had gotten into a fight with told the officers that Shirley had come into the store earlier that night and told him he was going to come back and rob the store. He then proceeded to drive off, swerving on to Second Street.

About five minutes later, Shirley came back into the store, and began...

WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. – The 25th Navajo Nation Council convened for the opening day of the Winter Council Session on Jan. 23 and elected Council Delegate Crystalyne Curley to serve a two-year term as the new Speaker and head of the Legislative Branch. This marks the very first time a Navajo woman has been selected to serve in the role of the Speaker.

“I extend my appreciation to my colleagues of the 25th Navajo Nation Council for having the confidence in me to lead the Legislative Branch and to serve as the Speaker of the Council,” Curley said in a press release published on Jan. 25.  “We have many challenging issues to address and I look forward to working collectively with my...