THE four-member Rota Legislative Delegation was not able to act on Sen. Paul A. Manglona’s Senate Local Bill 22-6 due to a lack of quorum. Sens. Victor Hocog and Teresita Santos were absent.
The measure, which would abolish the annual salary of the Rota casino gaming commissioners, and other local bills have been on the bill calendar for action since last month, but the previous scheduled sessions had also been postponed.
A delegation session was supposed to be held Tuesday in the Rota Mayor’s Office conference room, but delegation co-chairman Rep. Donald Manglona said it had to be postponed again.
He said Hocog, who was on Saipan, told his colleagues that he was sick and Santos, the delegation’s co-chair, sent Manglona a memo on Nov. 29, “respectfully requesting” that the session be postponed “until I receive my fifth day Covid-19 test results scheduled for Dec. 2, 2021.”
In an earlier memo, she notified Manglona that she would be off-island to attend a memorial service for an immediate family member. She said she returned to the CNMI on Nov. 27, but added that effective Nov. 19, “travelers verified as fully vaccinated and verified as residing in a fully vaccinated household or lodging are not required to quarantine at all, but will be required to get tested for Covid-19 between days 3 to 5 after arrival, depending on their day of exit from the CNMI.”
Santos said she had yet to be tested and in consideration of the significant increase in the number of individuals tested positive for Covid-19 on top of the news about the Omicron variant, “it is significantly important that I remain on Saipan until such time that the CNMI Covid-19 Task Force is given the opportunity to test me and my results return back negative.”
Manglona said the delegation session has been postponed again until further notice.
The delegation’s other member is Sen. Paul A. Manglona.
Aside from S.L.B. 22-6, the other bills on the delegation session calendar were H.L.B. 22-23, which would appropriate $1 million in exclusive casino license fee for various Rota projects and programs; S.L.B. 22-4, to appropriate the $400,000 repayment that will be made by Luta Mermaid LLC and the island’s local poker fee collections for Rota’s medical referral patients, medical subsistence program and Rota municipal scholarships; and S.L.B. 22-8 to allow for legislative amendment to the Rota Casino Act and provide for a limited time to act on the confirmation or rejection of the Rota mayor’s appointment of the Rota Casino Gaming Commission members.
S.L.B. 22-6 would allow Rota casino commissioners to receive $60,000 per year only when there is an active casino operation on island.
Pointing out that the Rota municipal government spends $300,000 each year on the Rota commissioners’ salaries even when there is no casino on the island, Rep. Donald Manglona said the commissioners’ compensation “is a huge burden on the municipality’s obligations.”
This concern was raised by Rota residents during a town hall meeting that the delegation held on May 6, 2021.
Donald Manglona
