Boom truck meets fate of junk cars

This time, it’s no longer the lack of funding that is keeping the Saipan Mayor’s Office from collecting the over 250 junk cars scattered across the island. Rather, it’s the lack of a boom truck itself that is delaying the project.

According to Saipan Mayor Juan B. Tudela, their one and only boom truck finally joined the “big scrap yard in the sky” last year. The boom truck was previously a workhorse that helped the Mayor’s Office haul junk vehicles on the island and deliver them to the junk depot in Lower Base.

Tudela said the $30,000 funding that they have been waiting for has already been remitted to his office late last year.

“The money is not a problem anymore. It’s with us already. The problem is with the boom truck,” he said.

The mayor said they would soon bid out a contract for a new boom truck so they could continue the collection of junk cars. “We would gather the proposals to see who has the best boom truck for rent,” he said.

The office needs to gather at least three bidders, as per standard procedure.

The mayor, who will represent the CNMI at the 74th Winter Meeting of Mayors in Washington D.C., said he would probably hold the bidding process in mid-February.

The funding for this project came from a bill that hopes to address the environmental hazards posed by junk cars and abandoned vehicles in the CNMI. The bill was passed in September 2005. House Bill 14-347, authored by Rep. Justo S. Quitugua, had appropriated $30,000 from the Department of Public Works’ Solid Waste Management Division’s revolving fund for the removal of junk cars.

Under the Commonwealth Code, junk and abandoned vehicles are defined as “scrap metal.”

Tudela earlier said the boom truck broke down late last year. The truck had been going in and out of the repair shop last year. The truck had picked up more than 200 junk cars and transported it to scrap yards in the four years of Tudela’s term.

Earlier, a private junk car collector offered Tudela its services in handling the cars’ disposal but Tudela said that, under the Commonwealth Code, the transaction should be between the Saipan’s Mayor’s Office and the Department of Public Works. “The law says that the government has to do it and that it should not be contracted out.”

It was reported earlier that individuals who ask for the pickup of their decrepit vehicles are not charged for this service. The Commonwealth Code states that the mayor of Saipan is responsible for assisting private individuals in removing scrap metal from their property at no charge to the individuals.

Tudela said he would like the public to know that, under the law, an owner or lessee of any property who fails to remove scrap metal from their property would be notified to have the car removed and, if they fail to comply, a penalty of $50 per day will be imposed on them.

Earlier reports said there are about 15,000 abandoned vehicles in several sites in the CNMI, which pose a health and environmental hazard, but Tudela said he was skeptical about this figure because there are less than 15,000 operational vehicles on Saipan and junk cars could not possibly have the same number.