LOCAL community improvement advocate Keith Ada on Thursday said he will seek one of the two Precinct 2 seats in the House of Representatives.
An active member of Bantalan Sugar Dock Inc., Ada said he will run under the CNMI Republican Party banner.
Incumbent Precinct 2 Rep. John Paul Sablan is seeking reelection on the independent ticket of Lt. Gov. Arnold I. Palacios, who is running for governor, and his running mate, Saipan Mayor David M. Apatang.
The other incumbent Precinct 2 representative, Tina Sablan, is the NMI Democratic Party’s gubernatorial candidate. Her running mate is Precinct 5 Rep. Leila Fleming Staffler.
Ada, 48, the son of local farmer Bill Ada, is a certified heavy equipment operator. He has been away from the Commonwealth for a while to work in an oil field in North Dakota. When he came back to Saipan, he said, “I still see people suffering.”
He added, “I don’t want to talk ill about other candidates, but [in] all honesty, not much has been done around here.”
In Precinct 2, moreover, “there is a major meth problem right now. If you live here, you can see it with your own eyes.”
He added, “It goes on to, sometimes, the break of dawn. Unfortunately, a lot of them are my friends and family, so I am trying to figure out a way other than knocking on the door of the drug court to help these guys without them having to go to jail. There may be other drug abuse programs.”
Addressing this problem would be among his priorities if elected in November, he said.
Because he considers himself “a builder,” Keith Ada said he would also help low-income residents build affordable concrete homes.
“We all know that a lot of us can’t afford a concrete home. It is just incredibly expensive right now,” he said.
If elected, he said he would reach out to the Northern Marianas Housing Corp. and other agencies, local and federal, to secure assistance for low-income residents who want to build concrete homes.
Keith Ada, third left, listens as Infrastructure and Recovery Program civil engineer Mariano Iglesias, second right, briefs officers of Bantalan Sugar Dock Inc. and Gov. Ralph DLG Torres, right, about the pavilion project on Thursday at Sugar Dock in Chalan Kanoa.
