BRUCE L. Jorgensen said it “remains uncertain as to exactly what considerations persuaded Gov. Arnold I. Palacios to withdraw” his nomination to represent Rota on the Commonwealth Ports Authority board of directors.
“I respect his decision and, with that respect in mind, will leave to Governor Palacios and the CNMI Senate leadership the opportunity to provide those details,” Jorgensen added.
On Monday, the governor informed Senate President Edith Deleon Guerrero that he was withdrawing Jorgensen’s nomination. In June, Palacios was quoted as saying that he stood by Jorgensen’s nomination.
In a statement on Tuesday, Jorgensen said, “Since this matter was informally discussed about a week ago, the Governor’s decision was not surprising to me or to others.”
Jorgensen also said, “Some, including myself, found it curious that I received no advance courtesy call, and that our CNMI media learned about the decision before I later found an email providing disclosure to me.”
In any event, he said, CPA board members are politically appointed. “So it is not surprising that politics here played out,” he added. While he doesn’t know “what political considerations, angles, or dealings may have been discussed by and between the governor and the Senate leadership, Senate President Edith Deleon Guerrero for example, I will leave it to them to provide any such details,” he said.
A longtime practicing attorney in the Commonwealth, Jorgensen said “the opportunity to be considered a prospective CPA appointee is from any objective standpoint a privilege for any member of the CNMI community.”
“Quite frankly, an unpaid multi-year tenure on the CPA board was and will remain a daunting prospect for any…nominee, given the dire circumstances CPA imminently faces,” he said.
“On behalf of all in the CNMI,” he said his immediate hope is that “future CPA board nominees will be selected based on such foremost and essential qualifications as competence, experience, capability, fiduciary adherence, and transparency in past and future CPA dealings and activities.”
Jorgensen also noted “the equally important necessity of recognizing, divulging, and taking appropriate and swift action as to actual, tacit, and prospective conflicts-of-interest, which, in the past, appear to have been significantly overlooked or ignored within the CPA board.”
In these and other respects, he said, he made “crystal clear his intention, if confirmed, to shift the CPA board’s status quo, but many expressed opposition and hostility to any status quo modification preferring instead the ‘business as usual’ operational model.”
Jorgensen said, “It will remain interesting in the coming months, to witness whether necessary and meaningful changes in CPA’s status quo will be implemented and actually enforced, or whether ‘business as usual’ will yet again prevail.”
It might also be worth remembering, he added, “that appointments to CNMI board positions should not be based on or be treated as akin to adolescent popularity contests: necessities like professional competence should not be given a back seat to personal, political, or familial self-interests, loyalties, or agendas.”
“To all future CPA board appointees, I extend my best wishes and hopes for imminent and transparent CPA changes, for the improved well-being of the CNMI community,” Jorgensen said.
Those who opposed his nomination question his residency on Rota while those who support it said he is a registered voter of the island.
