Chaired by Rep. Ralph N. Yumul, the special committee wanted to ask the Rota mayor questions regarding the expenditures and status of federal funds for disaster recovery on Rota.
Rep. Tina Sablan, one of the committee members, said staffers of the Rota mayor’s office confirmed receiving the invitation from the committee sent on July 9.
Sablan said, they waited for the mayor for almost half an hour, but he never showed up.
She said they have not received from the mayor’s office any notice explaining his failure to attend the hearing.
Because a Rota budget hearing was also scheduled for Tuesday, Sablan said she and the other members of the special committee asked Ways and Means Committee Chairman Ivan Blanco to allow them to ask the mayor questions pertaining to federal assistance and disaster-related funding.
The special committee members were allowed to do so, Sablan said, but the mayor, after reading his opening remarks during the budget hearing, left and did not come back.
Ivan Mereb, the Rota mayor’s public information officer, told the members of the special committee that the mayor had an “urgent matter to attend to.”
Mereb said, “There was confusion about the time and venue of the meeting” and that was why the mayor was not able to attend the special committee hearing on Monday.
Variety was unable to get a comment from the mayor.
Yumul said he was very disappointed that the special committee was not given the opportunity to ask the mayor questions about how Rota is addressing the Covid-19 pandemic with funding from the federal CARES Act.
He said other members of the special committee have questions in regards to the situation of furloughed government employees.
