IN his inaugural address over 41 years ago, the CNMI’s second governor vowed to, among other things, improve the islands’ health services and education system. He also said that the CNMI “cannot rely forever on the assistance from the federal government. Such an attitude of dependence can only result in the loss of our own self-respect.” His lt. governor, for his part, noted that four years after its establishment, the CNMI government’s record “glaringly shows carelessness and weakness…ranging from financial and fiscal mismanagement…to…lack of genuine initiative to soundly develop the economy.” At the legislative building (which is now Guma Sakman), the new Senate president said the Commonwealth was “in serious financial mess left behind by the previous administration.”
The following week, Variety reported that the new speaker of the House of Representatives was calling for three separate investigations regarding $16,000 (about $50,000 today) worth of missing House property: typewriters, calculators, tape recorders, desks, chairs, cabinets, air conditioner, floor polisher, vacuum cleaner, a safe, camera and radio equipment. Asked what he thought happened to the missing items, the legislative staff director said: “Your guess is as good as mine…. Maybe some of them grew wings and flew away.”
In his report to the new governor and Legislature, the CNMI’s first Washington representative said “fiscal accountability is of paramount importance to be persuasive or even credible in seeking future [federal] appropriations.”
The new governor, in a press conference, said “dealing with angry vendors clamoring for their money, some of it owed for three years, has been one of the most distressing experiences of the new…administration.” “There are so many unpaid bills,” he told reporters. These included $412,000 (worth about $1.26 million today) for medical referral services in Hawaii. “We got a bill for school supplies,” the lt. governor said. “The letter was very harassing and threatened to turn the account over to a collection agency. It’s creating a very bad image for us and endangers our ability to establish credit. It’s an embarrassment to deal day-to-day with requests for payment.”
At the legislative building, a senator introduced a resolution “directing the attorney general to conduct an investigation into the alleged misconduct” by the previous governor, the former planning and budget officer and the former finance director. The senator said these former officials should be held personally liable and accountable for the government’s deficit.
In police news, “burglars broke into two schools and four houses…over a three-day period.” Stolen from Marianas High School and Oleai Elementary School were seeds, plywood, cement, a cabinet, a refrigerator, baseball gloves, paper tissue, pencils, glue, legal pads and other supplies. Thieves also “siphoned 30 gallons of gasoline from two school buses parked at Lower Base….” On Capital Hill, burglars broke into the home of the attorney general, “taking liquor, cassettes and tapes, a recorder, a TV game, cameras and other property valued at more than $1,500,” which is worth about $4,700 today. A Koblerville resident reported “the theft of four packs of cigarettes and a carved shark…from his home….” Food and $345 (worth about $1,000 today) in cash were stolen from a Chinatown resident after burglars tore off a window screen, police told Variety. In San Vicente, “thieves who removed window louvres burglarized [a] home…and stole a $22 [worth about $69 today] battery clock and a $100 [worth about $314 today] portable typewriter….”
Variety would later report that “two adults and four juveniles have been arrested on burglary charges…even as reports of more break-ins piled up at the police station. Six of the burglaries were committed last weekend.” One of the burglars was a 13-year-old boy.
In court news: “Fishing with dynamite cost four Chalan Laulau men $100 fines each and two will have to serve two months in jail.” The prosecutor said two of the men made and threw bombs into water at Charlie Dock. (They “hacksawed a World War II U.S. Army bomb to obtain the powder to make the explosives.”) The two other men jumped into the water and collected fish.
In other court news, a 29-year-old man pled guilty to assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. He struck a 22-year-old man on the head with a machete during a brawl at Micro Beach. The victim was hospitalized with a split skull.
Finally, good (or at least not bad) news from January 1982:
“Students in the Gifted and Talented program at San Vicente Elementary School vie for the privilege of working during lunchtime. The attraction? An Apple II computer. Under the guidance of [the] program director…the youngsters are learning how to use the computer and will soon…begin programming it themselves.” According to the program director, “The advantage of learning by computer is individualization. Each student can work at his/her own speed and choose the program s/he wants to do.” She said computer learning “is probably a form of education for the future, so it’s good for the children to get acquainted in working with computers.”
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Apple II
