Lavonne Tsosie is a Navajo-Hopi relocatee with a long career across all three branches of the Navajo Nation government, running for the Nahatá Dziil area Council seat. Her interview with Cal Nez was personal and detailed, centered on relocatee issues, accountability, and council reform. Below are the main topics from the interview — the key question Cal asked on each, short summaries of Tsosie's answers in our own words, and follow-ups a voter might still want answered.
Watch or read the full interview, and see the scorecard, on Lavonne Tsosie’s profile. This page is a nonpartisan summary; the Diné Civic Center does not endorse any candidate.
Tsosie is a Navajo-Hopi relocatee — moved to the New Lands (Nahatá Dziil), giving up her land for a house and $5,000 — who went on to a long career across all three branches: council staff from 1989, the Navajo Housing Authority, the prosecutor's office, work under President Russell Begaye, and chapter secretary and commissioner roles. She holds a political science degree and attended law school.
Tsosie wants to be the first council delegate who is a relocatee, arguing the Nation has done nothing for relocatees in 35 years while benefiting from their land and money. She points to overcrowding — families stuck on one acre with no provision for children and grandchildren — as proof the community has been overlooked.
Her core issues are housing, the lack of jobs, and stalled economic development for relocatees, along with long-delayed infrastructure like the N403 road from Sanders to Allentown that communities have raised for decades without action.
Tsosie says she's been “blacklisted” by the president's office for demanding answers about the missing $24 million tied to the Zenni Homes issue, and she's frustrated that council accepts agency reports without truly hearing them and doesn't respond to community emails.
Tsosie is candid that she'd need to do her homework on 638 specifics, but she raises real concerns — the local 638 clinic lacks services (she was sent to Fort Defiance for an ultrasound) and should be built up toward a hospital, oversight is weak (overbilling by non-Navajo doctors, with HEHSC lacking medical expertise), and the federal treaty obligation to provide care must hold. She doubts the Nation is yet ready to run its own hospitals given the shortage of seasoned doctors.
A self-described close reader of legislation who votes her conscience rather than following the board, Tsosie would remove the public vote board that invites bloc voting, rescind the virtual-meeting rule so delegates attend in person, push for a transition briefing for new delegates, and even question the “Honorable” title — arguing delegates are public servants first.
Topics a voter in this district might still want to hear about:
Not a judgment of this candidate — just what a specific, substantive answer includes, so you can weigh any candidate’s response: