RB says DPL chief ‘careless, reckless’ with people’s lives

Saipan Mayor RB Camacho holds a press conference on Thursday morning at his office.

“I’m equipped with the equipment, I have personnel to work on these things but [DPL Secretary Teresita Santos] is playing games,” said Mayor RB Camacho, of his desire to fix coral roads on Saipan.

AT a press conference in his office on Thursday, Oct. 12, Saipan Mayor RB Camacho resumed his public broadsides against Department of Public Land Secretary Teresita Santos over access to base course materials at the quarry sites on island.

This time, the mayor also mentioned the effect that Typhoon Bolaven has had on the numerous coral roads around the island. 

“[A] typhoon just passed us and there’s a lot of heavy rains and lot of washed out gravel roads,” Camacho said.

He said he has been receiving numerous calls, some as early as five in the morning, regarding the need to repair the roads of constituents. But without additional quarry materials, there’s little he can do, he added.

“I really want to fix all the roads, but the material is not available,” he said “I’m equipped with the equipment, I have personnel to work on these things but [Santos] is playing games.”

He added, “She’s careless, reckless with the lives of the people here in Saipan. There are a lot of defective roads on the island.”

According to Variety news files, the Department of Public Lands allows the Saipan Mayor’s Office and other government agencies to extract 100 cubic yards of “raw materials” per year from island quarry sites. The first 100 cubic yards are available without charge.

There are six quarry sites the mayor’s office may extract material from, meaning that Mayor Camacho has access to 600 cubic yards of quarry material in total per year.

Secretary Santos was quoted as saying that the mayor’s office of Saipan “has obtained unprocessed raw materials above the 100 cubic yard cap from all existing quarries.”

She added that government agencies that need more than 100 cubic yards of materials from a given quarry must pay for them. 

But according to Mayor Camacho, 600 cubic yards of material per year are insufficient for the needs of island residents. 

Asked to estimate how much quarry material he needs, Camacho said: “I cannot say all I need is 1,000 cubic yards, [and then] once I finish that, because I committed myself to 1,000 cubic yards, [I can’t get] 2,000. Just open up the quarry for the mayor.”

He said when his office repairs roads it is for the “public benefit.”

Camacho believes that Santos is “politically motivated” to deny his office access to additional base course material.

“She made a statement within her core group in her office that she’s very disappointed in me as the mayor, because she claims she’s first cousins with the lieutenant governor [and former mayor], Mr. David M. Apatang…[and] I let go former employees of [Apatang] in the mayors’ office.”

In an October 12 letter addressed to Camacho, Santos said government agencies cannot be allowed to take an unlimited amount of quarry materials because it would be to the detriment of the Marianas Public Land Trust.

She said allowing unlimited materials to the mayor’s office would “significantly reduce the revenues DPL can collect from [quarry permittees] and would similarly reduce the amount of funds to be remitted to the [Marianas Public Land Trust].”

She reiterated that the mayor’s office is only allowed to take up to 100 cubic yards of quarry materials per site without charge.