THE House Special Committee on Federal Assistance & Disaster-Related Funding will look into the funds spent to promote and/or advertise the $17 million Building Optimism, Opportunities and Stability Together program implemented by the administration of then-Gov. Ralph DLG Torres in 2022.
Rep. Marissa Flores, during a committee meeting on Tuesday, moved to issue subpoena duces tecum and subpoena duces testificandum to Marianas Variety, Saipan Tribune and KKMP Radio.
All committee members present voted yes: House Floor Leader Edwin Propst, Reps. Blas Jonathan Attao, Diego Vincent F. Camacho, Vince S. “Kobre” Aldan, Angelo Camacho and Vicente C. Camacho.
Rep. Ralph N. Yumul, the committee chairman, was sick with the flu while another member, Rep. John Paul Sablan, was off-island.
Propst, the vice chair, served as the acting chair. Earlier in the meeting, he said KSPN2 News should be included, but Flores did not mention the cable TV company in her motion.
In his remarks prior to the roll call vote, Propst noted that Marianas Variety, Saipan Tribune, KKMP Radio and KSPN2 News were sub-contracted by Non-Stop Corp. and Roil Soil Advertising to print and/or air advertisements promoting BOOST.
Propst said the committee would like to find out how much is owed to these media outlets for the BOOST advertisements.
“It does not suggest any wrongdoing on their part,” Propst said, referring to the media outlets. The committee, he added, hopes to “reconcile” the amounts billed and invoiced for the BOOST media campaign to see if they matched the records that the committee obtained from Bank of Saipan, which administered the federally funded program.
House legal counsel Joe Taijeron said the committee could have sent letters to the media outlets to obtain the information lawmakers need.
But he said this type of communication is only possible with government agencies and public officials. He said the statute allowing the Legislature to utilize request letters does not extend to private entities such as media outlets.
Taijeron also noted that “these media entities have been particularly transparent with us.”
“We want to stress that subpoenas are not something that we want to do, but that is the only legal avenue available to us because the letters that we usually give or issue are for government entities alone,” he added.
The committee members then went into a closed-door session to discuss the response of Saipan World Resort’s management to the committee’s subpoena.
Propst said due to some sensitive information, they had to discuss the matter in an executive session.
It was at Saipan World Resort where the Torres administration held a gala and expo on Oct. 28, 2022 to announce the first recipients of BOOST grants.
In January 2023, Rep. Marissa Flores, as the newly appointed chairwoman of the House Committee on Judiciary and Governmental Operations, commended the previous House for conducting BOOST hearings that “were highly successful in exposing corruption and mismanagement.”
She said, “[G]iven the initiation of several criminal investigations into the BOOST program, the 23rd JGO Committee agreed that it would not conduct additional legislative hearings regarding the BOOST Program. The JGO Committee agreed on respecting the process and avoiding conflict with…ongoing criminal investigations.”
In May 2023, however, then-acting Speaker Joel Camacho announced the creation of a Special Committee on Federal Assistance and Disaster-Related Funding “to probe the previous administration’s expenditures of American Rescue Plan Act and other federal funds,” including BOOST grants.
The committee chairman, Rep. Ralph N. Yumul, said the “people want answers as we enter this fiscal year [under] austerity measures.”
