Editorials

A good idea THE elimination of zoning was one of the many recommendations of the 2020 Fiscal Response Summit. Due to the Covid restrictions that shut down the CNMI’s only industry — tourism — the Commonwealth was facing a budget deficit of $64.8 million (!) and $85.2 million (!!) in FYs 2020 and 20…

Hard sell IN his remarks at the recent IGIA meeting in the nation’s capital, the governor reiterated his “pivot” policy, for which he has no mandate and, two years after announcing it, has not delivered the desired result of securing a federal bailout. The not-so-subtle message behind the pivot is …

The long and short of it FOR ordinary citizens, the key question in the case of CNMI vs. Shayne Blanco Villanueva was whether CNMI law trumps the U.S. constitutional right to remain silent. The case wasn’t about the alleged corruption involving the BOOST program. The defendant was charged with cont…

Piecemeal ‘transparency’ IN its latest financial report to the Legislature, the administration provided additional information about the pension obligation bond it issued, which was unknown to the public at the time. Now we’re told that the loan agreement was signed in December 2024, and the amount…

A tale of two jurisdictions THE words “Puerto Rico,” “best practices,” and “territory economic opportunities” are seldom strung together in a sentence, except when one is being ironic. But according to the administration’s latest newsletter, the CNMI Department of Commerce participated in an “Econo…

Respect reality THE CNMI Department of Commerce aims to be “business-friendly,” and so do some lawmakers. Bravo. To begin with, they and other government agencies and officials should be more supportive of their primary source of local funding: local businesses big or small. How? Rather than attemp…

Good politics, bad economics THE governor’s Jan. 17 letter to the Legislature’s presiding officers serves as an update to the CNMI government’s FY 2025 budget. It is a peculiar letter. On one hand, the governor noted the government’s “acute short-term cash flow challenges”; on the other hand, he ma…

 A tourism-based economy needs (wait for it) tourists  EVEN before the Japanese company that owned the local Hyatt decided to close and leave the island, tourism stakeholders had been warning CNMI officials about alarmingly low arrival rates and their potential to trigger more business closures. Su…

Economically unsound IN his latest report to the Legislature, the governor reiterated his administration’s intent to “invest…in infrastructure and workforce development to create a diverse economy that’s resilient and not reliant on factors beyond our control.” Who wouldn’t support that? It ticks a…

Where we at HAS anyone else noticed that the governor’s oral pronouncements on tourism and the economy — more often than not — differ from his written statements? In interviews, the governor, who has been in politics for a very long time, usually sounds like the sensible and practical leader that h…