Rep. Marissa Flores, left, and Senate Floor Leader Corina Magofna.
DUE to its author’s failure to get a comment from the Commonwealth Zoning Office, the Saipan and Northern Islands Legislative Delegation’s Zoning Committee on Tuesday tabled Senate Local Bill 23-3, which would limit the scope, authority and applicability of Saipan Local Law 20-25 or the Nuisance Abatement and Blighted Property Maintenance Act of 2018.
The bill’s author is Senate Floor Leader Corina L. Magofna.
She wants S.L.L. 20-25 to apply “only to real properties located along primary roadways or highways, tourists and industrial areas and within the central area of Saipan … and the abandoned or vacated building or structure located on such properties, public or private, inclusive and portion thereof, and appurtenance thereto, and the premises on which it is situated, used or intended to be used, whether for commercial, business, institutional, industrial, multi-family or residential.”
S.L.B. 23-3 also proposes to extend the “central area of Saipan” from American Memorial Park in Garapan to the Atkins Kroll intersection in San Jose.
It was the only bill on the agenda of the delegation’s Zoning Committee on Tuesday.
Present in the meeting were the committee chair, House Vice Speaker Joel C. Camacho, and members, Reps. Diego Vincent Camacho, Manny Gregory T. Castro, Marissa Flores and Malcolm Omar.
Vice Speaker Camacho said he received a call from Zoning Administrator Therese Ogumoro, who requested the committee not to act on the bill because she would like to submit her comment first.
Flores asked the vice speaker if the bill’s author had “reached out” to the appropriate agencies.
The vice speaker said, “It does not seem that [the] Zoning Office was aware that this bill was even drafted, and that is why she [Ogumoro] needs additional time to thoroughly review this piece of legislation before we take any action on it.”
Flores said she noticed that the author of the bill was also invited to the committee meeting.
She said she agrees that the committee should table S.L.B. 23-3 “for the reason that the author did not extend any courtesy to appropriate agencies for comments and this was since November and she is not here to support her bill.”
She said the committee also has questions to ask the author.
Rep. Diego Vincent Camacho moved to table the bill, which the committee unanimously approved.
Asked for comment, Magofna said, “I’ve decided not to respond or comment at this time. However, I will do so when the time is appropriate.”
