THE five candidates for U.S. delegate all stated that they will work closely with the federal government to help boost the local economy and ensure a higher standard of living for CNMI residents.
John Gonzales (Independent), Liana Hofschneider (Independent), Kimberlyn King-Hinds (Republican), Edwin Propst (Democrat) and James Rayphand (Independent) participated in a forum hosted by the CNMI chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists at the KSPN news studio on Saturday.
The candidates talked about how they would revive tourism, the high cost of living on Tinian and Rota, Article 12 of the CNMI Constitution, helping small businesses, and energy costs.
Cabotage
According to Rayphand, the delegate needs to identify policies that can help reduce costs and introduce a new industry to the CNMI.
“The cabotage exemption is a good example of how we might able to reduce costs in airfares for the tourists to come here and also to help the freight costs of products coming in,” he said. “As far as introduction of a new industry, I don’t have an idea why we are surrounded with the biggest ocean in the world and [yet] we don’t have fisheries export, and I like to see that,” he added.
Propst said he will continue to push for affordable airfare.
“That is something critical to the needs of the Commonwealth for many other reasons, not just tourism but well beyond that,” he said. “I just want to say how important it is for us to ensure that we are the gem of the Pacific. Part of our problem, why people are going elsewhere — they have more to offer…we are going to work on that,” Propst added.
Hofschneider said tourism “is a very volatile industry…. What I want to do is partner…under Covenant Section 7 with the U.S. Department of Commerce to ensure a progressively higher standard of living and to ensure this will also address our economy.”
For King-Hinds, the CNMI’s economy is strong when there is more than one industry.
“The fact of the matter is if you look at history, our economy is the strongest when there were two industries — the first time we had the tourism industry, and then the garment industry. The second time, the tourism industry and the casino industry. Now I do realize we…have…national security concerns with our strategic location. However, we must ensure that our national security interests are balanced with our ability to be self-sustainable. We cannot afford to not seek…all markets. Is tourism the only solution? Absolutely not. But developing other new industries takes time, as everybody knows. As your delegate, one of the first things I would do is to fight to open markets. I would reach out to my friends at the Department of Transportation who are very aware of this situation, and I would seek their help to give us the exception that is needed to freely open all the markets so we can start realizing the revenue that will put food on the table for all persons in the CNMI,” King-Hinds said.
Gonzales said if elected he would “relentlessly…work with the U.S. to ensure we mutually develop a newfound economic development with the U.S. military in a sustainable manner such as they become our stable long-term anchor tenant so we can resuscitate and rescue our economy.”
Article 12
All five candidates said abolishing Article 12 of the CNMI Constitution is not the solution to the islands’ economic problems.
Article 12 restricts the acquisition of permanent and long-term interests in real property to persons of Northern Marianas descent. Some say this provision hinders economic development.
Propst said, “A lot of our challenges have been said it’s about Article 12-related. I just want to say that it’s just a part of it. Should we abolish Article12, that is something that I cannot decide for myself. I don’t think a delegate can make that decision by himself. This is something the people should decide on their own in the future. I firmly believe that it will not solve our economic woes. Our economic challenges have really been through, I’m sorry to say, it’s a lot of misuse and abuse of funds whether it’s local or federal funds, not spending money appropriately, robbing Peter to pay Paul — historically, that has been our challenge; that is where we really need to look to.”
He added, “Article 12 is something that we can decide, but it has to be decided collectively, the indigenous people have to stand up and decide on their own. I do want to say thanks to Article 12 we don’t have the challenges that Hawaii has gone through, and what Guam is going through right now with homelessness, and outrageous costs for housing…now there are pros and cons to that.”
Hofschneider said, “The question is whether it’s going to improve the economy by removing Article 12 — absolutely not. Article 12 has been exploited left to right by every Governor that has been elected in the last 47 years, and every elected official has exploited that to unlimited proportion. Article 12 is not a problem.”
Rayphand said, “I don’t think there’s any question that there will be a positive economic impact if Article 12 were to be abolished. Do I support abolishing it? No! I don’t think the founders of our Covenant negotiated that with the intent to see the people could live with their newfound Covenant as paupers in their own land, right? The policy makers need to find the balance between preserving our cultural heritage and improving our economy. Abolishing Article 12 is not the answer.”
“I believe indigenous land must remain in indigenous hand,” King-Hinds said. “That is why I been going out speaking against the overturning of Insular Cases, which the court has been using to uphold Article 12, to uphold certain provisions of the Covenant. Because if the Insular Cases were overturned, it would mean that Article 12 is unconstitutional. Instead of talking about it, I have been going out and doing something about it,” she added.
Noting the economic boom of the late 1980s, Gonzales said, “Under Article 12, the Japanese [investments] ‘exploded’ and [they] invested millions in the CNMI. Article 12 is not the problem, unequivocally no, let’s keep Article 12, we must work together progressively learning from the lessons of the past for economic prosperity.”
Cost of living
As for addressing the high cost of living on Tinian and Rota, Hofschneider said, “With regards to Tinian and Rota, we know a lot of their challenges is with transportation. As your delegate, I will work closely with the Department of Transportation and the Department of Commerce, in collaboration with the Department of Defense, because there is a significant treaty/contract with America to ensure a progressively high standard of living. The high cost of living on Tinian and Rota is actually a humanitarian crime…to charge people that cost of living. As your delegate I will ensure that I will work to make sure people have access to affordable commodities.”
Reiterating the need to identify policies that can reduce costs, Rayphand said, “Transportation costs for Rota are insane, not just for people going to and from — the cost of living is just too high. Reduce the cost of transportation, and the next piece is just bring in new industry. What better place to bring an agriculture industry but in Rota?”
King-Hinds said for the past seven years, she has been working to bring essential air services to the CNMI.
“I know that it’s going to take some time,” she added. “One of the things that we can do right now immediately is to bring direct relief by allowing the municipalities to directly apply for grants to meet their needs. Mayors are the frontliners in these communities, and we need to be able to give them the flexibility and autonomy to be able to go after those resources to help their communities.”
Gonzales said, “The missing link, is affordable, sustainable inter-island transportation whether that be a vessel or airlines. We must do away with the cabotage law and allow airlines to serve the region and serve the people.”
According to Propst, the CNMI should be doing what the state of Alaska is doing in addressing interisland transportation.
“Transportation and affordable shipping…these are designated marine highways, between our islands. We need to do what Alaska has been doing and ensure that we have interisland ferries and shipping that is paid for and subsidized by the federal government as Alaska and other ports have been able to do,” he said.
Small businesses
As for supporting small businesses, Rayphand said, “Well-connected or not should not have an effect to do business here in the CNMI. It’s going to be about developing and modeling policies that affect that kind of work. Grants to small businesses, [but] absolute connection should not matter. Keeping them informed about what policies are for small business, what fundings are available, and making sure the funding comes to the CNMI.”
Rayphand said “a lot of that requires local effort — a lot of that [involves] educating local authorities to make sure connections are not in effect. Everybody can do business fairly and anybody has equitable right to access business opportunities here in the CNMI.”
According to King-Hinds, “I’m seeing military development in Tinian, but what I’m seeing are small businesses [that] do not have an opportunity to participate. What I’m working on right now is trying to get them to participate by availing themselves of the resources, and connecting them with the right people with [the Department of Defense. As your delegate, this is something I will continue to fight and work for.”
Gonzales said he will work with the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the White House, and “seek authorizations to immediately restore those post-pandemic economic relief for small businesses and employees, and businesses that have closed.”
“Equally important is to ensure that we execute the master plan for military development as anchor tenants, and to make sure we develop jobs and participate in procurement contracts for our small business here in Rota, Saipan, Tinian, and the Northern Islands,” he added.
Saying that small businesses are the “backbone” of a “very strong economy,” Propst noted that “the challenge is not so much of with the delegate because the delegate’s job is to bring in more funding. It’s on the local level.”
Propst mentioned the difficulty of opening a business in Precinct 1 of Saipan.
“The difficulty of opening up a business is crazy…with the restrictions…Zoning, DPW. Fortunately, we were able to work through it — a lot of these need to be erased,” he added.
Hofschneider said “It is important to involve the SBA, SBDC, and the Department of Commerce locally …to ensure there’s connection, collaboration, and engagement with every small business on the islands to ensure they have access.”
Energy issues
Asked to assess the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation’s management of the energy resources on the island, Rayphand said, “My assessment of CUC currently is that they are failing us. The [fuel adjustment] charges alone are ridiculous. I don’t know why I pay triple of my utility costs. As far as solutions, I just sat through a meeting where they are talking about wind power generation. Maybe that’s not feasible at the moment. I was told it’s a long process to get that going, but we do need to explore other options for energy but the message is we’re being failed by CUC right now.”
“We have been talking about this issue for as long as I can remember,” King-Hinds said. “It seems like when it comes to CUC and adjusting the infrastructure issues there…we are talking about the same issue over and over again. It’s time that we stop talking and actually do something about the situation [by] bringing in new technology, whatever it may be. [It] is something that we need to do today, and we just need to walk it like we talk it,” she added.
Gonzales said if elected he would make sure that the CNMI has access to Covenant 702 funds for comprehensive infrastructure improvement projects.
“We must leverage our Covenant and again work with the United States government and both aisles of the U.S. Congress and secure an immediate, near-term plan because our people deserve no less,” he added.
Propst said, “I was just recently in Guam, and they have a 60 MG solar power generation. It’s amazing what they are able to do. Imagine when we could have that here. We should have 20 years ago. It’s been six years to get that going…we need to move quickly, we need to put those old engine generators out of their misery.”
“There’s is no reason why we should not be on sustainable photovoltaic solar panels at this point when the sun is here 16 hours a day…. There is no use for us to continue to do with this kind of energy and we must do away with fossil fuels,” Hofschneider said.
