Navajo ranch bidding process unlawful

The process the Navajo Nation used to take ranch parcels from longtime lessees and auction them off to higher bidders was unlawful, a district court judge ruled. Crownpoint District Court Judge William Platero, in a 16-page order for dismissal July 28 ruled that the Navajo Nation did not have the right to repossess ranch lands outside of approval from key governing bodies. The Nation also failed to provide to lease applicants standards or qualifications for the bidding process, he wrote. "Even if the proposed competitive bidding procedures were approved, it still did not provide clear guidance to the applicants as to how their applications and qualifications were evaluated during the review and selection process," Platero wrote. "The qualified applications were selected arbitrarily without clear and unambiguous guidance or instruction as to what sound ranch management or conservation principles were going to be used in the evaluation of applicants' qualifications." The process "amounts to violation of the defendants' right to due process and the right to be informed as to what standard is being used in the evaluation of their qualifications for leasing a tribal ranch in accordance with the intent and purpose of the plan of operation," he wrote. The dismissal is the latest legal decision in a case that started in January 2010 when the Nation ended its closed-bid process and began awarding land occupied by ranchers and hundreds of heads of cattle to higher bidders...more