­
Thursday, May 22, 2025 5:38:03 PM

Guerrero calls for unity as the new CUC chair

By
|
Posted on Jul 13 2004
Share

Francisco Q. Guerrero called for unity within the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.’s board of directors, which re-installed him as CUC chair on a 3-1 vote yesterday.

Guerrero got the post back from outgoing chair Herman P. Sablan, after he beat director Velma Ann Palacios by two votes. Guerrero had served as chair in 2002-2003 and vice chair in 2003-2004.

During yesterday’s election, Guerrero got the votes of outgoing chair Sablan and directors Allen Perez and Rufina Miles.

Joe Torres voted for Palacios, while the two nominees abstained.

Sablan was elected vice chair, Miles as secretary, and Perez as treasurer.

In his acceptance statement, Guerrero thanked the board members “for giving me your confidence.” He also asked directors to “reconcile our opinions and together, assist the CUC management.”

“All we have to do is put aside our differences and work together in supporting the management,” he said in an interview.

He added that he will be meeting with the board members in the next few days to lay out his agenda for the coming year and to appoint officers to the corporation’s standing committees.

Power generation, he noted, will be CUC’s main priority under his leadership, followed by improvements to the sewer system and the provision of 24-hour water to Saipan.

CUC is working toward the privatization of the CNMI’s power system. It recently put out a request for proposals from independent power producers to provide electricity to CUC.

“Hopefully, they can provide power at a less kilowatt-per-hour rate than it is costing CUC now,” Guerrero said.

Director Torres, for his part, remains skeptical about the new leadership, saying he was not satisfied by how Guerrero had run the corporation two terms ago.

“All I believe is things have to be done right in terms of management operations. I’ll see if things will change from his first chairmanship to the upcoming one,” he said.

He also expressed belief that Palacios could better lead CUC, considering her previous experience as the utility’s former deputy director.

Torres also noted that Palacios had numerous accomplishments over the past year as chair of the human resources committee.

Despite his reservations, the director said the board will just have to “move on.”

“This is not the first time [that we elected new officers.] It’s the same. As usual, politics has to kick in, but that’s always been the system. We’ll just move on,” Torres said.

Disclaimer: Comments are moderated. They will not appear immediately or even on the same day. Comments should be related to the topic. Off-topic comments would be deleted. Profanities are not allowed. Comments that are potentially libelous, inflammatory, or slanderous would be deleted.