Four Corners site needs attention

I WAS completely shocked and embarrassed when I pulled up May 6 to the Four Corners Monument in the northwest corner of New Mexico. I should have been onequarter embarrassed, but the stark reality of the total lack of facilities, parking, helpful staff, safe walking space and bathrooms is overwhelming.

There is no parking, just jagged, uneven sandstone jutting up from the ground. Large rocks litter the “parking area.” There is no handicapped access. There is no running water. Some of the funky port-apotties don’t even close or lock.

Of course there are plenty of vendors in improved booths selling their crafts. Who knows if they pay for the privilege, draw straws or it’s a “who you know” system?

The problem is that the Navajo Nation oversees the monument, charging visitors $8 a pop. It was clear from the steady traffic we experienced on a Friday morning the Nation is making good money. The answer to where that money goes is lost behind sovereign doors. They definitely make enough money to invest it back into the facility, but it’s evidently not going there.

This is clearly an issue of the Navajo Nation’s inability to properly manage, staff and care for a heavily visited site. I understand because of the sticky sovereignty issue New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah cannot step in and save the Nation from itself. However, it would be a great project for one of our sleepy U.S. senators — I suggest Martin Heinrich; he’s got a college degree — to work with a senator from each of the other states and catch a bucket of those federal dollars raining down from the Biden administration.

If the four senators can’t convince a committee that it’s a good investment in a heavily visited public site, they could always play the Native American card and argue it would be good for the Navajo Nation.