Civic Academy · the offices, up close
Chapter Official 101
≈ 5 min read · or listen, or skim the bold lines
B · Established, plus the record The structure comes from the Local Governance Act (Title 26). The lived detail comes from candidates who held these offices, quoted verbatim. How we verify →
A chapter is the closest layer of Navajo Nation government to where people actually live — the 110 local units where roads, home-site leases, grazing permits, and community money first get decided. This page is not about what a chapter is; that has its own lesson. This one is about the jobs — who you elect, what they do, what it takes to run, and what it pays. Much of what follows is told by 2026 candidates who held these offices themselves.
The four elected offices
Under the Local Governance Act, a chapter elects four officials: a president, a vice president, a secretary-treasurer, and a grazing official. Several of this year’s candidates have held them, and their own words are the clearest description of the ladder.
Eugene Badonie walked the whole thing: “I ran for the chapter official. I was a chapter official for vice president. For one term, I ran for the president. I won the president.” Then the twist that shows how chapter government actually works: “three months after I won the presidency, I was promoted into chapter manager” — from an elected office to the hired one that runs day-to-day operations.
The secretary-treasurer is the office that touches the money and the records. J. Kaibah Begay held it a long time: a background “working at the local uh chapter as The chapter shiprock chapter secretary treasurer for 12 years.” Eugene (Eula) Yazzie served “as chapter secretary treasurer for two terms in White Cone” before going on to the Council.
The grazing official and the land and farm boards are where land use gets decided — and where the pay question gets honest. John Russell Jr. lays out the reality most candidates leave unsaid: “Land board, land board, grazing official, farm board. We get $1,600 a month.” He adds that the figure assumes you actually make the meetings, gas money and all. These are not lucrative offices. They are service, close to the ground.
The hired side: the chapter manager
Alongside the elected officials sits an appointed chapter manager, who runs operations. Christopher D. White describes the boundary from the president’s chair: “In my position as a chapter president, I do oversee the chapter manager, and then he takes care of the people under him.” Understanding that split — elected officials set direction, the manager administers — is half of understanding why some chapters run smoothly and some do not.
Certified vs. non-certified — and the five management systems
Not every chapter controls its own money. A chapter becomes certified — able to manage its own funds and contracts — only after passing five management systems reviewed under the Local Governance Act. Until then, its finances run through the Administrative Service Centers (ASC).
Relinda M. John frames certification as the job itself: “it’s gonna be my job to help them get out of that, to get out of the sanctions, to help them get through the five management systems so they can get certified.”
And Lavonne Tsosie supplies the caution that keeps this from being a fairy tale — certification is not a finish line: “here we’re a certified chapter. We’ve been certified for over 20 years now. We don’t really have a whole lot to show for it. We’re still running to ASC.” A voter should hold both: certification is the goal, and it is not magic.
You do not have to have held the office
Running matters more than winning-before. Cornelia Carm Wagoner is direct about it: “I’ve never been a chapter official. I’ve never been elected to any type of chapter positions. I did run for chapter president back in 2021, but I lost.” She served years on a school board instead. Chapter service is a common path to the Council — but it is not the only one, and candidates say so plainly.
OFFICIAL SOURCE
The offices, terms, and the certification process are set by the Local Governance Act — Title 26 of the Navajo Nation Code. One catch this site documents elsewhere: Title 26 was never printed in the published Code volumes, so the exact current text of these provisions is among the things not freely available to a chapter member who wants to read the rules governing their own officials.
There is one more gap worth naming plainly, because it affects whether you can even tell where your own chapter stands.
STILL LOOKING
One thing this page cannot yet give you: the current list of which chapters hold LGA certification. That roster — the five-management-system status reviewed by the Auditor General — is Still Looking item 1. If you can point us to the official list, it closes an open question for every reader. Until then, ask your own chapter directly: are we certified, and if not, which of the five systems are we still working through?
The short version
Four elected officials — president, vice president, secretary-treasurer, grazing official — plus a hired chapter manager, governing the layer of the Nation closest to home. The offices pay modestly and demand a lot. The prize many chapters are working toward is certification, earned by passing five management systems, which lets a chapter run its own money instead of routing it through ASC. And you can run whether or not you have held one before.
TAKE ACTION
Three questions for your own chapter — and for anyone asking for your vote.
Is our chapter certified — and if not, which of the five management systems are we still working through? · Who is our chapter manager, and how is that person held accountable? · When does our chapter meet, and how do I get an item on the agenda?
Next: what a chapter is, and the certified/non-certified divide →