By Moneth G. Deposa
Variety News Staff

THE author of the federal minimum wage bill, Congressman George Miller, was very receptive to the CNMI’s concerns about the measure, according Finance Secretary Eloy Inos who was a member of the local delegation that was in Washington, D.C. last week.
Inos said Lt. Gov. Timothy P. Villagomez and Washington Rep. Pedro A. Tenorio met with the California Democrat.
“Mr. Miller is very cognizant of our concerns and issues and we’re hoping that there’s something that will come out of this for the NMI,” Inos said, describing their trip as “very constructive.”
He added that the CNMI delegation had 18 meetings with U.S. congressional members and staffers.
“We talked to them and they listened to us. The CNMI needs to have better and more dialogue with Congress. We have to take the initiative and make the effort to do it and, if we do, there will be people who will be willing and ready to help us,” he said.
Inos described the meeting with Miller as a “landmark.”
“This is a landmark dialogue that we established…the first that we were able to establish (with Miller) because no one so far was able to meet with the congressman about these issues,” Inos said
The administration, he added, is working hard to establish a more harmonious relationship with Congress, especially with Miller.
“We are very optimistic that this will open a regular dialogue between the federal and CNMI government,” Inos said.
The CNMI government is expected to send another delegation to Washington to testify in a Senate committee hearing scheduled for Feb. 8.
Besides Villagomez and Tenorio, the CNMI delegation included Attorney General Matthew Gregory; the governor’s special trade representative Richard A. Pierce; Senate President Joseph M. Mendiola, Covenant-Saipan; Speaker Oscar M. Babauta, Covenant-Saipan; Saipan Chamber of Commerce president Juan T. Guerrero; and Hotel Association of the Northern Marianas Islands chairwoman Lynn Knight.
According to a media release from the administration, the delegation, “communicated the CNMI’s unified position on the proposed application of a higher federal minimum wage rate” in the commonwealth
The delegation “communicated the CNMI’s current economic position in the wake of factory closures and weaker than expected tourism arrivals.”
The commonwealth’s “unified position is to increase the CNMI minimum wage rate based on a sound economic study and approval from a federal wage review board created to determine the sustainability of any proposed wage increase based on objective economic considerations rather than partisan politics.”
“Our position is to have a minimum wage increase we can afford under current economic conditions,” Gov. Benigno R. Fitial was quoted as saying.