“We need to think of ways to lure our tourists back here and not scare them with trash and stray dogs and other problems,” the business owner added.
The business owners earlier complained about the failure to collect garbage bins for weeks, but this was immediately solved on the day it was reported by the Variety.
“We are happy that after the street market last week, the cleaners swept the whole area the following day and the place once again became a clean area for tourists and locals to stroll around,” the business owner said.
It is just sad that it had to be “broadcast for the whole world to know” before those responsible for collecting the trash acted on the problem.
Business owners said they are happy with the stray dog control program the Saipan municipal government is implementing, but they’re hoping that something will be done to remove stray dogs from the tourist district.
Congressman Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan recently secured technical assistance grant funding of $89,688 for the island’s stray dog control program.
The municipal government estimated that there are 10,000 to 20,000 stray dogs on island.
Shrinking funds
The challenge in implementing the dog control program is the lack of animal shelter.
Saipan Mayor Donald Flores disclosed on Wednesday that the $75,000 appropriated four years ago for the project is now down to $42,000.
Flores said the kennel money turned over to him when he took office last year was about $65,000.
“We have been using it now to implement the program,” Flores said.
The Saipan and Northern Islands Legislative Delegation in 2007 appropriated $75,000 or the construction of an animal shelter to address the stray dog problems on Saipan.
But the Division of Procurement and Supply cancelled the bidding on Dec. 27, 2007 because of the “unreasonable prices” offered by interested firms.
The lowest bid was $114,740 which then-Mayor Juan B. Tudela told Procurement and Supply Director Herman S. Sablan was “way above the funds available for the project.”
Sablan said it was Tudela who asked him to cancel the bidding.
Tudela said he wanted his own staffers to construct the animal shelter themselves. At the time, the proposed area for the kennel construction was Kagman.
No animal shelter was built during Tudela’s eight years in office.
Tudela later told his successor that portion of the kennel money was used for other projects.
Flores said he has been trying to address the island’s stray dog problem, noting that his office has already begun tagging dogs.
He said the animal shelter construction is still underway. The $42,000, he added, will be used for the “engineering work.”
Flores said he knows that the money left for the project is not enough but his office has to do what it can to complete it.
He added “We still need funding assistance from the Legislature.”
In a separate interview, delegation chairman Rep. Ramon A. Tebuteb, R-Saipan, said they will try “to assist this very good program.”
The delegation met with the mayor and his staffers on Wednesday to look into a Garapan resident’s complaint that her two dogs were “put to sleep” two hours after they were picked up by the mayor’s staffers for biting an auto shop owner.
