THE TRUTH of the matter is WE the People are now seeing what happens when an old-dog can’t learn new tricks, as Herman Guerrero is figuratively up to his OLD-Tricks. I’m not taking sides but I do know that Mr. Orsini is an honorable man, as he has always answered my calls and even attended a meeting when I was trying to “unite PSS, NMC, NMTI and our Legislature to come up with a Systemic (system-wide) Workforce Transition Plan that WE still don’t have today — just individual programs at institutions that don’t even come close to addressing our entire workforce. But more importantly, Herman is trying to make two members look bad when HE is the one causing all the fuss from the sidelines just so HERMAN can have it HIS WAY! FYI Readers & Legislature, Herman seems to think he owns PSS and has been using the Legislature to get his way instead of the Legislature enacting Laws to create more accountability over PSS FOR the People and our Children.
Herman now has the Board playing Education Politics AGAIN, when they are all adults and should be able to work things out based on the existing Law that has been fine until Herman couldn’t get his way. Changing the Law to make a quorum of “3” is literally handing the BOE over to three People — duh! The present Bill does give a big ship with a small rudder more authority but everyone with common sense should know the bigger the ship the bigger the rudder needs to be which is why “4 is the required number for a quorum to prevent the BOE from becoming a Political Arena.” There is nothing wrong with the Law of 4 being a quorum, as it has worked for decades because it demands “unity” not education politics. It seems Herman figuratively got a “young-puppy” in the Legislature to author a Bill which is really Herman’s bidding, not PSS as only Herman commented on the Bill. Herman is still trying to run the Board from the back-seat and there are three Loyal Board members of Herman who can’t get it their way so it has turned into a fiasco. Herman may have been on the Board for years but it was more because of “financial power to campaign, family & political clout” not actual talent & accomplishments.
The House has naively fallen for Herman’s OLD-Trick, as the House is thinking they are helping PSS when they are really putting it in jeopardy of three people running the BOE — the House has literally deleted two of the BOE members. Every time Herman runs to the Legislature it’s for something HERMAN wants and not necessarily what is BEST for PSS, Students & Teachers. Herman has been pulling his old Legislature Trick for years as far back as when I was the Teacher Rep. on the Board. Heck Herman TRICKED the entire CNMI & changed YOUR Constitution because of me (Ambrose M. Bennett) as he didn’t want teachers to exercise their “collective bargaining rights” that was in the CNMI Constitution. I was fighting for teachers to exercise their right but I refused to run a second term because it was “Herman’s Board & Teachers” fighting against me. When the People voted to change the Constitution to give PSS 25% of the budget, Herman’s Board had also put in the change to “delete the collective bargaining rights for teachers.” Voters thought they were helping PSS not knowing they were KILLING teachers’ rights in our Constitution. Lucky Collective Bargaining is also Federal Law and I hope teachers will get this all important right one day to really place a REAL check on BOE, as the only check on BOE now is voters — TRUE Wisdom of collective bargaining.
The Legislature should NEVER again allow “the bundling of issues to change our Constitution” because voters and even teachers were tricked by Herman’s BOE. I was the last Teacher Rep elected by “Teachers & Appointed by the Governor” as the Teacher Rep now is just a “token member not even chosen by teachers nor appointed by the Governor, which really violates our Constitution” — HELLER! What the Legislature should really do about the BOE fiasco is write a simple Law that will allow the Governor to “declare & emergency and appoint a Temporary Chair” until the BOE can come to their senses. We can’t & shouldn’t change the law every time Herman wants it changed, which is why the Senate should not even consider the Bill as it took an agreement to end the standoff in the Senate because Tinian & Luta were always controlling the Senate. So why even put PSS in the same position of only three people running the Board & PSS which is consolidated power that invites corruption because that is what will happen if the Bill becomes law. Make the adults at BOE act like adults and educate voters on the TRUTH so voters will know who to get rid-of, as their positions are for a “Public Service,” not 9 to 5 job. Get rid of the three who are causing this un-necessary fiasco as they even refused to even try and talk-it-out! One People One Direction.
Ambrose M. Bennett is an Economist who minored in Sociology, a Political Scientist, a retired teacher & former CNMI Board of Education Member, a James Madison Fellow (U.S. Constitutional Scholar), a Fulbright-Hays & lifetime Humanities Scholar who resides in Kagman III.
Ambrose M. Bennett
