CUC puts off decision—again—on Malae hiring

The Commonwealth Utilities Corp.’s planned hiring of American Samoan executive Abe Malae continues to hang fire, with the CUC board canceling its meeting on the topic for the second time yesterday.

Acting CUC chair Herman P. Sablan, who postponed the meeting on Monday and again yesterday, said the board would reschedule the discussion for next week, when CUC chair Francisco Q. Guerrero and executive director Lorraine Babauta are expected to be back on island.

Guerrero is currently on a personal off-island trip. Babauta is attending a utility-related seminar in Hawaii and is scheduled to return on Sunday.

Sablan added that the meeting was postponed to accommodate board member Laura Manglona, who was sick yesterday.

“The chairman and board member Manglona want to participate in the meeting and we’re granting their request. It’s just a camaraderie thing,” Sablan said. “We’re also trying to wait for Lorraine to come back. We always give our people courtesy at CUC.”

Two CUC board members, however, said they were surprised upon hearing yesterday morning that Sablan had postponed the meeting.

Joe Torres and Velma Ann Palacios noted that it was too late for Sablan to start considering giving courtesy to the chair and executive director, given the publicity that the proposed hiring had drawn over the past week.

“From the beginning, I have raised concern that we should wait for Lorraine and the chairman to be back. But the meetings went ahead anyway. After all the discussion and the publicity about firing people, now we’re giving courtesy. I don’t understand where this board is coming from,” Torres said.

Palacios agreed, saying that the board should have discussed the plan with Babauta before it was released to the public.

Both Torres and Palacios were not present in the two meetings that the rest of the CUC board members had with Malae on Monday and yesterday morning.

Malae visited the island at his own expense and met with administration and CUC officials, among others.

According to Sablan, the board discussed CUC’s condition with Malae and sought his views on how the utility’s problems could be fixed. “We wanted him to see the real situation. We also talked about his vision for CUC,” Sablan said.

CUC initially planned to hire Malae as the new executive director. However, the firm decided instead to explore the possibility of hiring him as a consultant to Babauta, after the plan received opposition from elected officials and community members.