SAIPAN Mayor Ramon “RB” Camacho said he is ready to protest and, if necessary, petition for the removal of Department of Public Land Secretary Teresita Santos.
He said DPL continues to give him the “roundaround” whenever he requests aggregate quarry materials for public use.
“This is nothing personal, but DPL Secretary Santos is only the custodian of public lands, not the owner of public lands,” the mayor said. “I want to ask the public to join me to protest or, if necessary, petition to remove the secretary of DPL because she does not want to help the local community. I will not continue to hold back by not serving the people. I was elected by the people, and I am answerable to the people. I am serious about my mayorship,” Camacho said in a press conference on Wednesday.
He said his office continues to receive a lot of calls regarding road repair, especially after a heavy rain.
“Every day, even nighttime I get calls. I’m not the only one who is getting calls, even the local delegation [members] — their constituents calling them, begging them…for road repair assistance,” Camacho said.
He added that he has raised the issue with the governor and the Legislature, “but no action up to now.”
“I care about road safety, the safety of the motorists — we have a lot of out-patients, dialysis patients, that must be transported by ambulance. Emergency vehicles cannot respond as fast as they could because of the defective roads — those are my concerns,” the mayor said.
“We cannot repair the secondary roads now because of aggregate/coral issues. There are a lot of broken roads because of the heavy rain. The roads have been washed out. Families who have lost their loved ones need to repair the road to provide accessibility to family members. There’s a lot of inconvenience in the residential areas, a lot of roads have not been paved, especially at the homesteads. DPL did not fulfill their infrastructure mandate of providing paved roads — those are the issues I am currently faced with.”
He added, “Why should the mayor’s office pay the quarry? Why should I pay the quarry when I am just transferring one government property to another government property.”
“The bottom-line here is,” he said, “DPL leased out public property, which is the quarry, the quarry is operated by a private entity and the mayor wants coral/aggregates to repair roads. It belongs to the CNMI people, so [DPL] must deal with quarry operators to allow the mayor get those coral and repair the roads. But she continues to give me the roundaround. Now I got all this complaints from our constituents. I am being pressured by the community,” Camacho added.
“It’s for the public’s benefit. I’m not building an apartment, I’m not building a hotel, I’m bringing the coral/aggregates to my property. I need coral/aggregates to fix roads,” he said.
Variety tried but failed to get a comment from DPL Secretary Santos.
In a letter to Mayor Camacho dated July 11, 2023, she approved Camacho’s request to avail himself of the public benefits under Article 11 of the temporary occupancy agreement with a quarry operator.
But Santos said “the government agency will be responsible for any and all costs associated with such project to include heavy equipment rental for the extraction, loading and delivery from the quarry site to the project site.”
She said “permitees will be notified of this approval to allow the Office of the Mayor of Saipan to obtain 100 cubic yards of coral or raw materials, annually and free of charge, for its roadway or for other public purposes.”
But according to Camacho, 100 cubic yards of coral or raw materials are not enough.
Saipan Mayor Ramon “RB” Camacho holds a press conference at his office on Wednesday morning.
Saipan Mayor Ramon “RB” Camacho hold press conference on Wednesday morning
