SENATE MEMORIAL 45

50th legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - first session, 2011

INTRODUCED BY

John Pinto

A MEMORIAL

REQUESTING THE COMMISSIONER OF PUBLIC LANDS AND THE STATE LAND OFFICE TO STUDY THE BENEFITS OF A LAND EXCHANGE WITH THE NAVAJO NATION.

     WHEREAS, the commissioner of public lands has issued a lease to the division of transportation of the Navajo Nation for eighty-five and sixty-eight hundredths acres of state trust land near the community of Tse Bonito in McKinley county, upon which the division of transportation is constructing a transportation center, consisting of office buildings, a parking lot and a road maintenance yard and support facilities; and

     WHEREAS, it may be in the best interests of the Navajo Nation to own the land upon which the transportation center is to be located rather than to lease the land from the state; and

     WHEREAS, the Enabling Act trust, administered by the commissioner of public lands, might materially benefit from a land exchange in which the state, through the commissioner of public lands, conveys to the Navajo Nation the land now leased by the division of transportation of the Navajo Nation and the Navajo Nation conveys to the state, for the benefit of the Enabling Act trust, non-reservation lands that can be used more productively by the state land office and its authorized users;

     NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that the commissioner of public lands and the state land office be requested to conduct a review and analysis of the lease of state trust land to the division of transportation of the Navajo Nation; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the analysis address the possibilities for a land exchange in which the state conveys to the Navajo Nation the land now leased by its division of transportation and the Navajo Nation conveys to the state non-reservation lands of equal or greater value that can be used more productively by the state land office and its authorized users; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the commissioner of public lands and the state land office be requested to work collaboratively with the division of transportation of the Navajo Nation to identify non-reservation lands of equal or greater appraised value than the lands now leased by the division of transportation that might be conveyed to the state in exchange for the state trust lands now leased by the division of transportation; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this memorial be transmitted to the commissioner of public lands.

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