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Seven years after the Utah Legislature agreed to pay $33 million to settle a lawsuit over mismanaging royalties from oil and gas drilling on the Navajo reservation, the state is again taking over as trustee for the multimillion-dollar fund.

For decades, the state, acting as trustee for the oil and gas royalties, mismanaged the money, prompting a massive lawsuit by the tribe. In 2008, the Legislature agreed to pay $33 million to the tribe to settle the lawsuit and asked the federal government to appoint a new trustee to oversee the fund.

But for seven years, Congress didn't act on the request. During that time, the royalties accumulated in the account, but little was paid out — only enough to complete projects that had already been started and pay scholarships promised to Navajo students.

Now the fund has $64 million that was meant for water lines, roads, electric lines, scholarships and other investments on the impoverished reservation in San Juan County.

On Monday, Gov. Gary Herbert signed SB90, which returns the state — with a board chaired by the State Treasurer Richard Ellis — to the role of trustee over the funds.

"For me it's not only important to remember our past and build on that foundation but learn from the past so we build a brighter future," Herbert said Monday during a signing ceremony at the Capitol. "That is the point: That we are looking for the future. We know mistakes were made in the past. We all made them, but the important thing is we learn from them and move forward."

Navajo Nation Council Speaker LoRenzo Bates said that the council strongly endorsed the bill reinstating the state as trustee over the royalties and the nation is not concerned about the past mismanagement.

"That's the past. We're looking forward to, as the governor indicated, opportunities and developing those opportunities and beginning to come together and talk on other needs of the nation where the governor and administration as a whole can work together," Bates said.

But John Pace, an attorney who represented trust beneficiaries in the drawn-out lawsuit against the state, said the bill leaves a lot of Navajos feeling once again cut out of the loop.

On the other hand, he's glad that more than $60 million that has essentially been frozen for several years in a holding account will now begin to flow to Navajos for such things as health care, education, housing and other services.

"I think [Utah Navajos] would have much preferred an outcome in which the Navajo beneficiaries themselves had a much greater role in making administrative decisions," Pace said. "I represent a lot of people with a lot of different views but I think a large number of them, while being happy to see the trust money freed up for the reasons it should be freed up, are still disappointed that the state is still going to be making all the final decisions."

Count Mark Maryboy, former San Juan County commissioner, as among those unhappy about SB90.

"It's bad legislation in my opinion," he said. "It's going back to the business as usual. You know the history, all the mismanagement, all the lawsuits; we're just going to the same system."

Maryboy claims there was no consultation with Navajos, though the bill's sponsor, Sen. Kevin Van Tassell, R-Vernal, said he had obtained letters from all seven tribal chapters in Utah signing off.

"That doesn't happen very often," Van Tassell said.

The money will help the children of the nation and their children's children, Van Tassell said.

"You have a lot of priorities that are needed: highways, utilities, all those things that will mean a more meaningful life for the natives of San Juan County," he said.

Requests for funding for projects will come from the various chapters of the nation to the state board, which will approve the funds.

Maryboy said the chapter leaders who signed the letters are "politicians who don't have very good communications with their constituents."

"They should have had public hearings" for the Utah Navajos to weigh in, he said.

Twitter: @RobertGehrke 397 bills signed, 98 to go

Gov. Gary Herbert signed 86 bills on Monday, including a resolution honoring Vietnam veterans, a bill designating part of State Highway 84 as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Highway and a bill establishing a veterans court.

"We can't thank our veterans enough," Herbert said. "We want to honor our brave Utah men and women in uniform who fought so bravely in the Vietnam War. They have returned with honor and now have some challenges. We want to help them with treatment and rehabilitation."

Herbert also signed a bill that would make cockfighting in the state a felony on the third offense. Utah was one of the few states in the country where it was fighting the roosters was a class B misdemeanor, regardless of how many times an individual is convicted.

Herbert has now signed 397 of the 495 bills he is required to act on by Wednesday.