User:Oceanflynn/sandbox/Rebecca M. Benally

Rebecca M. Benally has been a District 3 San Juan County Commissioner since 2015. Benally who resides in Montezuma Creek, Utah, is the only Native American serving on the commission in San Juan County. Benally, who is Diné (Navajo), the first Native American woman to hold the post. Benally, like fellow commissioners, Phil Lyman and Bruce Adams, opposes the Bears Ears National Monument designation. Benally replaced Kenneth Maryboy as County Commissioner.

San Juan County Commissioner
"The rise in the number of voters in 2014 led to the election of Rebecca Benally to the District 3 County Commission seat."

District 3 boundaries were established in 1983 following a 1983 Department of Justice ruling. Benally replaced Kenneth Maryboy as County Commissioner in 2015. Maryboy, who was also a Navajo Nation Council Delegate served as Commissioner from January 2, 2007 to January 1, 2011. Maryboy had replaced Manuel Morgan in 2007. The first Native American to serve was Mark Maryboy who was elected in 1983 and remained for four terms until the 2007 election. They were [Democratic Party (United States)|Democrats]]. Mark Maryboy served the Navajo Nation Council Delegates for 16 years.

Bears Ears National Monument
Benally opposes the Bears Ears National Monument designation. "Six of the seven Navajo Nation chapters—a political division within the Navajo Nation that is similar to a county within a state—in Utah support the proposed Bears Ears National Monument in order to protect 1.9 million acres of sacred and ancestral sites." The Kayenta Chapter encompasses land in both Utah and Arizona in Navajo County, Arizona and San Juan County, Utah. The population was 5,189 in 2010. Jones family were in attendance. Grandmother Jones and Grandmother Ada Benally gather native plants on BENM. Against environmental groups "romanticize." Accused Obama of stopping access to traditional plants. It's split families. Still have unpaved highways... The Stewards of San Juan—represented by Jamie Bayles, Ryan Benally, Rebecca Benally's brother, Suzette Morris, Wendy Black, and Eva Workman organized in the summer of 2016 to protest BENM. They presented themselves as a grassroots, local movement. They created the webpage [savebearsears.com Save Bears] Ears] or Rescind Bears Ears in July 2016. Sponsors include the Sutherland Institute, a conservative, free-market public policy think tank located in Salt Lake City, which was established in 1995 by Utah businessman and philanthropist and LDS Gaylord K. Swim.

San Juan County Resource Management Plan (RMP) for federal lands
"San Juan County amended its general plan on July 18, 2017, with the adoption of a Resource Management Plan (RMP)." "The Utah State Legislature recently updated the state code regarding general plans (HB 323 and HB 219) and now requires every county to address natural resources on the public lands within a county."

District 3
A lawsuit filed by the The 2014 election "The rise in the number of voters in 2014 led to the election of Rebecca Benally to the District 3 County Commission seatIn April 2016, Lyman, Adams Benally, and San Juan County, Clerk John David Nielson, filed a counterclaim against the plaintiffs—Navajo Human Rights Commission and seven members of the Navajo Nation—in which the county said that, "the suit is based on fabricated claims and an attempt to control the election of the county commissioner from District 3, in the southeastern part of the county. County in Utah denies vote-by-mail procedures hindered Navajo voters Pamela Manson The Salt Lake Tribune In September 2017 U.S. District Judge Jill Parrish threw out the counterclaims made by defendants Nielson, Lyman, Adams and Benally. Davis Filfred and Kenneth Maryboy are the local delegates to the Navajo Nation Council in Montezuma Creek.

Education
Benally and Maryboy work with the San Juan School Board for the Utah Navajo student curriculum, and Bruce Adams for the San Juan County affairs.

Montezuma Creek
Top of the World, the highest point in Montezuma Creek area...