HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Mayors are preparing lists of residential areas with several discarded tires or multiple junk cars mostly stripped of parts, so they can soon be inspected and more likely cited for environmental health, public safety or business law violations.
If they don’t have permits or a license to strip used cars of usable parts for selling, for example, the individual can be cited, Mayors’ Council of Guam Executive Director Angel Sablan said during the council’s meeting on Wednesday.
The mayors’ council is now coordinating with the Guam Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Public Health and Social Services’ Division of Environmental Health, which will soon make the rounds in different villages to inspect properties with multiple abandoned or junk cars, Sablan said.
These are vehicles that residents didn’t ask to be removed, yet they pose health and safety hazards to their neighborhoods, mayors said.
“Some villages are calling our office and say their property value has gone down because his neighbor’s got all these junk cars on the same road. They said the cars sat there for five years, never moved, now what they’re doing is chopping them up, selling the parts,” Sablan said.
Chalan Pago-Ordot Mayor Jessy Gogue said the Guam Fire Department should also join forces with Guam EPA, DEH and mayors.
One area in his village, for example, has abandoned structures where people still live with no power and water. A fire got out of control in the area a few years back, he said.
“They have 30 cars that obstruct even emergency personnel from getting into these abandoned structures that people are living in, and should there be another fire they’re putting their lives in jeopardy,” Gogue said.
To help the Guam EPA and DEH inspectors, mayors said they will start listing the residential addresses or streets where these junk cars and tires are located.
Sablan said mayors can take photos of the cars, which could also help identify the areas.
“They are not abandoned vehicles but junk cars,” Merizo Mayor Ernest Chargualaf said, adding that the government by now should have the ability to track the owners of these vehicles.
Guam EPA spokesperson Nic Lee Rupley said Guam EPA has partnered with mayors in the past.
“Guam EPA will certainly continue to work with the mayors’ council on collaborative efforts that go toward disposing junk and abandoned vehicles,” he said.
Agat Vice Mayor Chris Fejeran said the Chamorro Land Trust Commission should also join this multi-agency effort, since a lot of CLTC properties, he said, have been turned into “junk yards.”
From mayors to DPW
At the mayors’ council meeting, Sablan also said the Legislature’s appropriations committee and the Office of Finance and Budget are recommending that the responsibility and funding for the removal of abandoned vehicles be transferred from the mayors’ council to the Department of Public Works.
Some mayors welcomed the proposed transfer of responsibilities.
This is expected to be discussed during the council’s fiscal year 2022 budget hearing.
DPW Director Vincent Arriola, when sought for comment, said if his department receives funding for staff, equipment and disposal, then it could handle the responsibility.
A junk vehicle is pictured in Harmon, Guam on Wednesday.
