THE Saipan Mayor’s Office will replace street name signs that were taken down or lost when the island was hit by Super Typhoons Soudelor in 2015 and Yutu in 2018.
The street name signs on the corner of Alahai and Sinser in Garapan are still on the ground over two years since Super Typhoon Yutu’s devastated the island.
Photo by Emmanuel T. Erediano
Mayor David M. Apatang informed the Legislature that his office already has a list of street name signs that need to be reinstalled on various street corners of the island.
But, he said, “we will need funding to order and erect replacement street name signs — that is, ordering signage, post and installing them in the ground.”
The contractor his office has hired has also identified more than 30 street names that were changed by local laws since 1998, Apatang said.
Many of these statutory changes of street names were not carried out, so funding is needed so that the master map would be in compliance with these local laws, he added.
The mayor said in developing the addressing master map in 2019, the contractor identified more than 290 streets that were not named, “partly because new ones were constructed after the adoption of the street name master map in 1998, and some were missed during the development of the master map.”
He said these streets have to be assigned names in order for his office to give homeowners and owners of buildings their full and accurate street name and address numbers.
To avoid duplication, Apatang said his office compared its list with that of the Department of Public Works for the street name signs that were lost following Soudelor and Yutu.
“To carry out the enormous task of implementing the street naming and addressing project, we need funds to pay our project expenses, which include personnel and operations costs,” the mayor said.
