Saying that you’re “for education, lower CUC rates and economic development” is not enough and is, in fact, an insult to voters who have heard the same meaningless pledges over and over again while seeing no progress whatsoever.
Voters should ignore candidates making the same old promises. Voters should demand specific details. You should ask the candidates how exactly they intend to do what they say they’ll do once in office.
It’s time to select leaders who are aware that times have changed.
WITH the coming restrictions in immigration rules, CNMI businesses will find themselves relying more and more on the skills and talents of the local youth. This is why local students must acquire the know-how needed by the new private sector that will emerge from the ashes of the CNMI’s third world economy.
For so many years, CNMI taxpayers have been subsidizing the education of young men and women who, due to the lack of meaningful opportunities in the private sector, end up either as government bureaucrats or conventional politicians. The CNMI has had enough of both. The commonwealth now needs entrepreneurs, artists, intellectuals, visionaries and employees with abilities that meet the demands of the 21st century.
How to help prepare the local youth for this new era must be a priority of the leaders who will be sworn in next year.
Destruction in Marpi
CRM never runs out of important issues to champion. A few years ago, it was the need to remove all small recreational craft from the shoreline because of the damage they would do in a typhoon. And never mind if many residents thought it was attractive to have so many small craft along the shoreline.
Now, CRM wants a resident to remove a wooden bridge that he constructed on his property in the Lake Susupe area. Aside from the potential permitting issues that may or may not have been violated, and aside from considerations about whether the existing bridge design may or may not fit in with the long planned Lake Susupe boardwalk project, isn’t there something of greater importance that CRM can do?
For example, the outright destruction going on up in the Marpi area, where huge bulldozers and other land moving equipment are decimating native vegetation and habitat in the name of “progress.”
If tourism is the only industry left, and government planners are promoting eco-tourism, why did the Department of Public Lands pick the only remaining pristine spot on island to build its next homestead project?
After 10 years of hearing CNMI leaders spouting about the advantages of eco-tourism, a small but growing eco-tourism business has emerged in Marpi — bicycle rides up and down that beautiful road in the area. The business is becoming more popular as more and more residents rediscover the peace and beauty of that area. DPL, however, decided that it was the best site for a homestead.
No additional planning or permitting appears to have been undertaken. There is no doubt that a private project would have been cited for the destructive earthwork that has taken place up there where there isn’t a single berm or erosion control screen or any other protective device or any evidence of planning by government officials at all. In their defense, Public Land officials are tasked with developing homesteads, and that is what they do. They seem to have no other mandate than to develop homesteads.
But there is little discussion these days about the merits or success of the program or whether some other arrangement might better suit the islands. DPL simply plows ahead, and never looks back despite leaving a blighted area during construction.
All this shows a decided lack of imagination and commitment to the people and the environment.
The CNMI’s main attraction for tourists is the beauty of these islands. Until now, northern Saipan was preserved intact for visitors, residents and future generations. That is now about to be altered forever unless it is stopped in favor of a smarter, more thoughtful approach to housing development — ideas that take finances, the environment and the economy into account. Short-term thinking, however, will doom these islands to a dimmer tomorrow. It is time for everyone to wake up.
