The Guam Preservation Trust has terminated the grant awarded for the Guma Latte project because its validity has lapsed and the project has not seen any progress, according to Joe Quinata, chief program officer for GPT.
Frank Cruz, president of Traditions About Seafaring Islands, said the project was originally planned by his group.
However, the group split up because of disagreements over the project’s details. A breakaway faction formed a new group called Traditions Affirming Seafaring Ancestry.
“We got the grant, but we didn’t take advantage of it because of some technical issues,” Cruz said. “The project evolved into something way beyond the grant would allow. The people who were close to the project ran off and drew up these grand plans. It evolved into something much more elaborate and out of scope of the original proposal.”
Program officer Roseanna Barcinas said TASI first applied for the grant in July 2008 to build a 25-foot wide, 40-feet long, 25-feet high canoe hut.
But when the grant was approved in October last year, the dimensions increased to 25-feet wide, 60-feet long and 39-feet in height.
She further explained the grant was in the amount of $27,120 for the dimensions of the smaller version and which would be part of a $35,000 budget TASI was pursuing to build the canoe house. That amount went up to around $300,000.
As a requirement, TASI also had to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Department of Parks and Recreation to use the site, a building permit from the Department of Public Works, and a locally produced stamped drawing of the hut by an architectural engineer.
“We were getting submittals in 2009 from Ron Acfalle sporadically. We didn’t get the MOU signed until April 2009 and by the end of 2009, what the Trust was seeing from Acfalle was not endorsed by TASI and especially from their president Frank Cruz,” Barcinas said, adding that they never received the revised drawings of the now planned Guma Latte.
“Already a year and several months had gone by without an endorsed scope with the president of TASI so our office had to cancel that board motion and also not getting an approved scope from TASI,” she said.
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