Please don’t fool the voters

Before writing this letter, I had to first convince myself if it was worth writing. After a quick thought, I strongly feel it is my duty as a registered CNMI voter and for someone who knew John Joyner professionally to inform the public voters just who is this candidate, a.k.a. Dr. John B. Joyner.

John Joyner is a candidate seeking a seat on the Board of Education, an autonomous agency created and mandated by our Constitution and laws to make sound policies affecting our education system that will improve our children’s quality of education. This is a BOE candidate who claims that there are Board of Education policies that need to be changed or abolished. This is a candidate who is also the chairman of the Statewide Independent Living Council, which services people with disabilities. He claims that extending his assistance to CNMI educators will also be a great achievement for an advocate like him. He told Marianas Variety on Aug. 3, 2005, and I quote, “terminating a teacher without cause is unjust.” Mr. Joyner does, in fact, has a very different view in his previous board membership on the CNMI Council on Developmental Disabilities. This is the same candidate who voted, not once but twice, to remove the executive director from the council without any merit or cause and someone who knew all along that it was wrong. Such case would have merit in favor of the executive director in the judicial system if the executive director had sued the council and the CNMI government for clear violation of the CNMI Open Government Act.

Still unsatisfied and unsuccessful at the first attempt to get rid of the council executive director, he supported a desperate move proposing to amend the CNMI Council on Developmental Disabilities Operating Policies and Procedures Manual just to make it easier for him and some members to terminate the director without cause. Thanks to the advice of the AGO, the ulterior motive could not have gone through because it would have violated the council’s operating bylaws and policies and procedures.

Sadly, Mr. Joyner’s record indicates that he would not only continue this trend of unethical conduct and ignorance of the law but would further it when he publicly contradicted himself when he stated in the media that terminating an employee without cause is unjust. My concerns are illustrated by Mr. Joyner’s Variety interview, in which he demonstrated conflicting statements, all in the name of misleading voters who are educators just to gain their votes and win a seat on the Board of Education. Voters in the CNMI, especially PSS personnel, teachers, administrators, officials and parents or guardians of children attending our Public School System, John Joyner, if elected, would pose a great risk.

I believe that a Board of Education member elected by the people should be a person of good intentions and judgment, trustworthy and with the highest integrity. John Joyner, to my opinion, would be best described as a candidate who is without principle, untrustworthy and definitely not a leader but a follower at best! Please vote your conscience on Nov. 5.

Thomas J. Camacho
Antioch, California