Infrastructure: Roads, Water & Broadband

It’s a base layer — roads, water, and broadband sit under everything else — health, education, and business proposals have nothing to stand on without them. It’s slow for one reason — a single project can involve Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), tribal, county, and state authority plus braided federal funding, and coordinating them all takes years.

Every ‘bring jobs / better health / better schools’ promise runs through roads, water, and connectivity. The real test of a plan isn’t whether a candidate will build — everyone will — but whether they can name how they’d prioritize dollars and cut the coordination drag that keeps projects stalled.

Tribal Transportation Program — the main federal road-funding stream for tribal roads. Water rights — the legal question of how much water the Nation can claim and use — behind projects like Navajo–Gallup. Digital divide — the gap between areas with reliable internet and those without — it decides school, telehealth, and business access. Right-of-way — permission to run a road, line, or pipe across land; clearing them is a common source of delay.

Before asking what’s broken, it helps to know who’s even supposed to be in charge — the law, the referee, and the watchers. Why this matters →

What’s the law?Federal and tribal transportation and utility programs, plus water-rights settlements, govern most infrastructure on the Nation. Who regulates it? (the outside referee)Federal agencies — BIA (roads/land), Indian Health Service (IHS) (water/sanitation), and federal broadband programs — set standards for the federal dollars. Who oversees it? (the inside watchers)Tribal divisions (transportation, water resources, community development), the Council, and chapters.

Infrastructure 101 → — What’s broken — and what candidates would fix · Braided funding and overlapping jurisdiction stall projects — see below.

A starting map — confirm current laws and body names against the Nation’s official resources. General civic information, not legal advice.

• Roads. Unpaved routes turn impassable in weather, stranding families and school buses; jurisdiction is split four ways.
• Water. Many families haul water; fixing it means both pipelines and settling water rights.
• Broadband. Large areas are unserved, which blocks homework, telehealth, and business.
• The coordination drag. No single office braids the funding and clears the rights-of-way, so projects stall.

What this costs: kids who can’t get to school or do homework, clinics without telehealth, and families still hauling their water.

Read summaries of how they answered — each name links to that candidate’s full interview summary:

Andrienne Lister Cal asked: What happened with the broadband funding?Lister cites a $33 million broadband grant the federal government awarded the chapter directly that was then lost, which she raises as a major loss for local development.

Charlie Smith Jr — Cal asked: What are the main issues you'd tackle?Among the long-standing issues he wrote down, Smith puts area road conditions first.

Cornelia Carm Wagoner — Cal asked: What about roads, water, and basic services?Wagoner named roads, water, electricity, American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, and aging senior centers as priorities, in general terms rather than specific projects.

Debbie Nez Manuel — Cal asked: How do you unify a fractured education system?She'd address the disparities among BIA schools, grant schools, and public precincts through broadband — securing the services and funds so a student in a remote community has the same access as one in town — and called out the broken disconnect between Diné College, the school systems, and workforce development, which lacks a living plan that carries students into careers.

Eula Yazzie — Cal asked: What's your second priority?Her second plank is water — she flags several Navajo Nation land purchases where it's unclear who's using the land or whether the Nation receives any funds, and wants a workable, transparent solution for chapters.

Johnny Russell Jr — Cal asked: How much Navajo tradition belongs in government, and what about educated Navajos and broadband?Russell said Navajo tradition is important to bring into the three-branch government, would pay educated Navajos (master's and doctorate holders) according to their skills, and spoke candidly about the broadband gap from his own area's experience with an unreliable nearby tower.

Lavonne Tsosie — Cal asked: What are the biggest issues in your area?Her core issues are housing, the lack of jobs, and stalled economic development for relocatees, along with long-delayed infrastructure like the N9403 back road from Sanders to Allentown that communities have raised for decades without action.

Only candidates interviewed by Cal Nez appear, and only where the topic came up. A blank isn’t a mark against anyone — interviews weren’t standardized, so coverage isn’t comparable across seats.

Basics promised for decades while the same jurisdictional maze stalls each project — one coordination failure wearing many faces. See the root — Accountability & Justice →

Where the community stands: collecting — tallies and best ideas publish with the weekly findings.

Not promises — numbers you could actually check a year in:

• Miles of road paved or improved per year.
• Homes newly connected to running water and power.
• Broadband coverage — the share of homes with a reliable connection.

• “What’s your plan to braid the federal, tribal, county, and state funding on one project?”
• “Which infrastructure projects would you prioritize first, and why?”
• “How would you cut the jurisdiction delay that keeps projects stalled?”

• Infrastructure 101 →
• Why People Stay Sick (Social Determinants) →
• Hot Topic: Roads →

See who’s running and read their full interviews and profiles on the candidate list →, or line up their positions side by side in the comparison grid →.

Your part — do something with this. Read what a candidate said, ask them one of the questions above, and vote your own judgment. This is a conversation — keep it going.