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‘NMC may move to the La Fiesta’
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Posted on Aug 08 2004
Despite talks about the operational shutdown of the La Fiesta facility, some Northern Marianas College officials are actually planning to relocate the campus altogether to the newly acquired property in San Roque.
Saipan Rep. Justo Quitugua said that he received reports that some NMC officials have plans to move the campus in As Terlaje up north to the La Fiesta complex.
“They might move to La Fiesta,” he said.
This could not be immediately verified with NMC officials.
But the lawmaker said that such plan would require $6 million to renovate La Fiesta and $3 million to purchase classroom equipment and other collateral items.
“That remains the problem—the funding,” said the lawmaker, who is chair of the House Committee on Education.
He noted that he and other lawmakers would be meeting with NMC officials headed by its newly appointed president Antonio Deleon Guerrero Friday afternoon.
Quitugua said the meeting would center on Pell Grants issues but he said that he would get updates on several other issues that are facing the college such as the plan on La Fiesta.
The NMC purchased the La Fiesta property in Aug. 2003 for $7.5 million, using a $3.5 million federal grant to the Governor’s Office as deposit. The remaining amount of $4 million is payable in 20 years at $200,000 annually, beginning Oct. this year.
The financially distressed college is required to pay the annual debt whether it uses the facility or not.
Accreditation commissions that recently placed the college under warning due primarily to its finance-related woes earlier expressed concerns about the college’s acquisition of the La Fiesta complex.
The NMC board said that the Western Association of Schools and Colleges was “concerned about NMC’s finances and queried on our ability to operate two campuses.”
