Island-style welcome awaits USS Vincennes

Saipan Mayor Juan B. Tudela will officially welcome the officers, sailors, and crew of USS Vincennes when he fetes them to an island-style outdoor cookout lunch buffet at the Sugar King Estate today.

The USS Vincennes, which is under the command of Commander Mark J. Englebert, docked at the Port of Saipan yesterday.

While on Saipan, the Office of Military and Veterans Affairs Office led by Ruth Johnson will also engage the visiting sailors in a COMREL project at the Sugar King Estate in Garapan today.

The purpose of the COMREL project is an ongoing joint beautification by the Saipan Mayor’s Office and U.S. military at the estate ground, recently ravaged by Typhoon Tingting. The one-day community volunteer event will enable the U.S. military to provide relief at the estate ground in various areas such as tree trimming, raking, water blasting around the slab pavements and vehicle parking, repainting of the historic building under the Mayor’s care, planting of trees, flowers, shrubs, and other plants, cleaning of drainages, etc.

The project will start at 8am sharp and end officially at 2pm that same day.

The COMREL activity comes on the heels of the renovation being undertaken by the Saipan Mayor’s Office at the Sugar King Estate in conjunction with a coordinated plan to erect a Saipan multi-cultural performing center equipped with a locomotive rendition of the Haruji Matsue sugar cane industry in the 1920s to early 1940s. The project is spearheaded by a task force headed by Tudela, in partnership with local government agencies and non-government organizations on Saipan and Japan.

The Office of the Mayor of Saipan will host the visiting sailors to an island style spicy barbecue luncheon at the Sugar King Estate, where Tudela will personally join the sailors over lunch, and also preside over the presentation of recognition and appreciation to the USS Vincennes sailors.

“The Office of the Mayor of Saipan extends its appreciation to the efforts of Ms. Ruth Johnson from the Office of the Military and Veterans Affairs for her efficient coordination of the COMREL event with the Saipan Mayor’s Office,” a statement from the Office of the Mayor said.

For more information, call Florence Stephen at 235-7444 about the event at the Sugar King Estate.