“What a mess,” said Rep. Tina Sablan in an interview on Friday. She voted against the two bills and the confirmation of the nominees.
“We should shut down the Saipan delegation — all we do is take away money from the general fund that could have been put to better use,” said Sen. Maria T. Pangelinan, D-Saipan, in a separate interview. She and Sablan were the only ones who voted against the passage of House Local Bill 16-30.
Introduced by Rep. Justo S. Quitugua, D-Saipan, and House Minority Leader Oscar M. Babauta, Covenant-Saipan, the bill originally appropriated $9,742 for the installation of window and door shutters for the Saipan municipal council office, which had been burglarized eight times between Nov. 2002 and Nov. 2006.
As required by the Local Law Act, the bill “sat in the house for three legislative sessions and the chairman [of the delegation], forwarded it to the mayors of Saipan and the Northern Islands for a 30-day comment period before being introduced at the session,” said Sablan, Ind.-Saipan.
“But when we got to the session, we were given a substitute bill that completely changed it — by the time we accepted the substitute bill and were done with all the amendments, [the appropriation amounted to] over $380,000.”
Precedent
She added, “We were circumventing the law. Our legal counsel did say that it appeared to be circumventing the law, and that we should all vote our conscience. Some members said ‘we’ve done this so often in the past and that should set a precedent.’ My response is: just because we’ve done it in the past doesn’t mean it’s right, that it’s legal. If there’s any question that we might be breaking the law, we should err on the side of caution and follow the law.”
Sablan said the other members told her that “some of the appropriations were ‘time sensitive,’ like the nursing conference and junior statesmen students who have to leave in June, and every village apparently needs a bus shelter. They said these were urgent concerns that needed to be addressed and couldn’t go through the proper process for local bills — despite the lack of a fund status report.”
Upset
It was Pangelinan, the chairwoman of the Senate Fiscal Affairs Committee, who pointed this out.
“I was so upset,” she said.
“You cannot pass appropriation measures without a fund status report. They say they’re re-channeling funds. When you’re re-channeling that means the appropriation was not important or the money was never there because the projected revenue stream wasn’t realized. But now they want to pacify certain constituents in an election year and, among other things, build a bus shelter for $10,000 which you can do for $2,000,” the senator and former CNMI finance director said.
H.L.B. 16-30, which now goes to the governor, makes the following appropriations:
• Window and door shutters, repairs, and renovations for the Saipan & Northern Islands Municipal Council Office — $15,000
• A bus shelter in Tanapag — $9,742
• A bus shelter in Puerto Rico — $10,000
• A bus shelter in Kagman — $5,000
• A bus shelter in Precinct 1 and repairs to the San Vicente basketball court — $10,000
• Instructional materials, tools, and supplies for the Northern Marianas Trades Institute — $50,000
• Water and power line extensions at Bwooset Place, Talafofo, As Matuis, and Langasat — $200,000
• Junior Statesmen Summer School students — $25,000
• The American Pacific Nursing Leadership Conference, June 15-19 — $10,000
• Karidat — $30,000
• Northern Islands Mayor’s Office for operations — $25,000
• San Antonio Youth Center — $5,000
In an earlier interview, Quitugua said he asked the Department of Finance to confirm these figures.
No one knows
Sablan said Quitugua, the delegation’s floor leader, “assured us funds were available and he had checked — and so everyone went on his good word even though a lot of us had seen that bill for the first time that day, that morning, and there was no way for anyone to verify that.”
She added, “We were just moving around money for the political needs of the day, even though no one’s sure if the money is still there or where it’s coming from.”
Pangelinan was concerned about the appropriations for the junior statesmen program and the trades school.
“I believe that the junior statesmen program is very good for our students, but I’ve always pointed out that if the Legislature is really sincere in helping students then we should inform all eligible students that money will be appropriated for the program and that they should apply for it. But right now students from poor families can’t apply because they can’t afford it. But those who can afford are also those who know how to apply political pressure on their lawmakers. It’s just not fair — taxpayer money only goes to those who know how to get it from the Legislature. Those who don’t have a voice in the political arena are left out and this bothers me.”
Pangelinan said she also supports the intent of the trade school.
“But who’s accountable for all the taxpayer money given to the school? Before we appropriated the money we should have set conditions on how it must be spent. But no, [the other lawmakers] just want to require a report. Which means that the school will spend the money and will later tell us how it was spent. That’s it.”
Accountability
Sablan agreed.
“I was also concerned about accountability,” she said in an e-mail to members of the community. “Why were we appropriating $50,000 to the Northern Marianas Trades Institute, for example, a nonprofit organization that has already received over $100,000 from the local delegation and is eligible for educational tax credits, SHEFA scholarships, WIA tuition assistance, and grants? Why the variation in appropriations for bus stops? What were we giving an additional $25,000 to the Northern Islands mayor for? Had the students seeking financial assistance to go on the junior statesmen summer program done any fundraising of their own, as students used to do before the local delegation started appropriating money for them? Had the CNMI Nursing Association done all the fundraising that they could before coming to the delegation to ask for money? Moreover, what were we taking funds from?”
In an interview, Sablan said someone could challenge the local bill if it becomes law.
Zoning amendment
She also voted against H.L.B. 16-28 introduced by Rep. Rosemond B. Santos, R-Saipan.
This bill would amend the Saipan Zoning Law to require all nonconforming adult gambling machine businesses to be discontinued by Jan. 1, 2011, though the zoning board may approve extensions to allow for amortization of the business investment.
This bill had been referred to committee, but Santos asked the members to act on the bill that day, saying “it intended to correct an oversight in the Saipan Zoning Law of 2008, that the former zoning administrator had helped draft the bill, and that the bill had already gone through the required three legislative days on the House calendar, and received comments from the mayor of Saipan.”
But according to Sablan, “I received a communication from the zoning office and they had just found out through their legal counsel that this bill would be appearing in our session, and they asked for more time to submit comments. They’re doing a more comprehensive review of the law rather than [passing amendments] piece-meal. And there also may be problems with the bill’s language. Our legal counsel said that it was ambiguous and could create problems and that he, if given the time, could work on amendments that would clarify the language.”
However, she added, “for some reason everybody wanted to act on it — they said if the zoning board has additional amendments, they can always come back and change the law again, and I said ‘why do that?’ Especially since this bill wouldn’t even take effect in two more years. Why couldn’t we do it right the first time? I just don’t understand it.”
Some of the members spoke about how “poker arcades have been such a blight to the community, and I understand that — I’m not saying keep poker in the villages, but let’s do this right. I think the members wanted to say to voters that they did something about poker — but what we did might not be the best way to do it and may require that we go back and change it again, and this creates instability for an industry that, although not a lot of people might like it, right now it’s legal and they have the right to advertise their investments too and to be given due process notice.”
The local bill passed with only Sablan and Rep. Stanley T. Torres, R-Saipan, voting against it. Sen. Luis P. Crisostimo, D-Saipan, abstained.
Saipan Republican Reps. Ed T. Salas, Dave M. Apatang, Heinz S. Hofschneider, and Raymond D. Palacios, Covenant-Saipan, were absent on Thursday.
Nominees
During the session, the delegation also confirmed nominees to the zoning and the Saipan Higher Education Financial Assistance boards.
Confirmed were Henry Hofschneider for the Saipan Zoning Board, and Magdalena Camacho and Josephine Sablan for the SHEFA board.
“I voted no because there was no confirmation hearing — all we had were the drug test receipts,” Representative Sablan said.
Regarding Henry Hofschneider’s nomination, she said her colleagues told her that it was a reappointment.
“They said we didn’t need a hearing but I said we should have one anyway. We should call him in during a public hearing, get testimony from the community and ask him about his record on the zoning board, his plans, and policy issues we might have questions about. But nobody wanted to do it and they confirmed him.”
Representative Sablan said “when we got to the SHEFA board nominations, that’s when [Quitugua] told us that we should have a confirmation hearing.”
Pangelinan objected.
“They confirmed Henry but they wanted hearings on two SHEFA nominees,” the senator said. “We should have been consistent.”
Quitugua cited the problems with the SHEFA board.
“But those problems are with the current board,” Pangelinan said. “They do not involve the two nominees who are strong women and I know they will do the right thing.”
Rubber-stamp
“So what we did was to rubber-stamp all the nominations, and I don’t think that’s right,” Representative Sablan said.
“What’s the point of getting our advice and consent if we’re not going to ask questions but will complain later about how these appointees are running the agencies? Members said the nominees are more than qualified, but how did they know? We got a one-page summary of their job experience — I don’t know what their position is on certain policies, or their backgrounds.
“So we confirmed SHEFA nominees and will schedule a special hearing to ask the SHEFA board members about the problems regarding the program. But part of the problem is the way the board members have been running it, and they, I believe, were also confirmed without a single hearing. So here we are repeating history and complaining about it after the fact.”
Pangelinan said confirmation hearings are not “really helpful.”
“What do we do during these hearings? No one wants to ask the right questions.”
