Hafa adai, tiroow waami, and good day Marianas. I finally got a chance to sit and watch a good portion of John Gonzales\u2019 show on the topic of legalizing casino on Saipan. I must say that I didn\u2019t watch it in its entirety. It was torture listening to House Reps. Eli Cabrera, Felicidad Ogumoro, and Joseph Palacios preach about how casinos are the only fix to our ailing economy. Casinos, they say, would fix all our problems and bring us back into the good old days. They avoided the questions and instead continued their condescending lectures about how life is so hard and therefore we must pass this bill without any further delay. It was painful, to say the least.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d like to ask these House reps why they feel they must go against the people\u2019s wishes and pass a bill to legalize casinos. I understand that they\u2019ve spoken to \u201ctheir constituents\u201d but why can\u2019t we put it up for another referendum? Why must they pass a bill without getting another accurate picture of how the majority feels about all this? Are we to just accept their decisions and believe that they know what\u2018s best for us?<\/p>\n
Palacios and Cabrera stated that they\u2019ve never \u201cheard\u201d of crimes at the Tinian Dynasty Hotel & Casino. Are we supposed to just take their word for it? Instead, they should show us proof that they\u2019ve done research and have concrete evidence that no crime has ever been committed there. It is not a secret that gambling brings in scores of social ills. So representatives, have you ever spoke to the people on Tinian about what sort of social issues plague their island? This is not a risk that everyone is comfortable with and definitely not everyone is willing to let you decide this for us. Show us the research you\u2019ve done and no, we\u2019re not asking you to take \u201cfact-finding\u201d trips to Macau and Vegas. It\u2019s amazing what the Internet can do for you; just ask the kids.<\/p>\n
Ti mudoru hami, todus ham en tingu\u2019 na makkat I lina\u2019la\u2019 pa\u2019go. Ti nisisariu na pon sangani ham put I baban ekonomia. We don\u2019t need any politician to remind us that we\u2019re in the \u201cdanger zone\u201d or that we\u2019re \u201csuffering.\u201d We\u2019re reminded every day by having to make sacrifices none of you can even fathom!<\/p>\n
So please, get to work on revitalizing our tourism industry! Marianas Visitors Authority needs a massive overhaul. I\u2019m glad to hear that Commissioner Mafnas of DPS is looking into beefing up security in Garapan. Our leaders should call him up and offer their support. Our visitors need to feel safe before even considering to visit our islands.<\/p>\n
As for trying to attract investors, why don\u2019t we start by supporting our businesses that are already on island. How are we supposed to attract outside investors when our local businesses can\u2019t even get their products from the port due to Customs delays? I\u2019ve yet to hear about how any of you are taking steps to address this issue. I\u2019m sure these investors would be more concerned about their businesses being able to run smoothly here versus how courteous our law enforcement at the airport are to them.<\/p>\n
The one thing I do like about the new casino bill is that poker arcades are to be phased out of our villages. But again, are we to just take their word for it? They mentioned on the talk show that these poker arcades are crime ridden and unsafe for our villages. How about they show us how serious they are by phasing them out now!<\/p>\n
They need not be reminded that the people have lost confidence in the legislative and executive branches of our government. They must be proactive and find out which hotels are willing to take in these poker arcades. Let\u2019s see how this works. Once the people have confidence in how gambling is conducted in these hotels, we can revisit the casino issue and put it up for another referendum.<\/p>\n
Again, we don\u2019t need to be reminded that these are harsh times and that we need another industry now. But please, let\u2019s master our current industry, which is tourism and then we shall think about something else.<\/p>\n
On a side note, I\u2019d like to ask that everyone please do your part in keeping our islands clean. Talk to your children and others about how important it is. You\u2019ve all probably heard that \u201ctourism is everyone\u2019s business.\u201d It is very true, so please let\u2019s all do our part to attract more visitors. Our beaches are the No. 1 reason why tourists visit, so please be especially aware of litter on our beaches. I saw on TV that Guam has started a litterbug program where people can call a hotline to report litterbugs. This is a good idea, I hope DPS can also look into implementing this in their enforcement efforts.<\/p>\n
Kudos to www.exploresaipan.com for an awesome website. The Internet is definitely an effective way to attract visitors from around the world, not to mention the relatively low cost and mass audience.<\/p>\n
[B]Ron Muna[\/B]
\n[I]Saipan[\/I]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hafa adai, tiroow waami, and good day Marianas. I finally got a chance to sit and watch a good portion of John Gonzales\u2019 show on the topic of legalizing casino on Saipan. I must say that I didn\u2019t watch it in its entirety. It was torture listening to House Reps. Eli Cabrera, Felicidad Ogumoro, and Joseph Palacios preach about how casinos are the only fix to our ailing economy. Casinos, they say, would fix all our problems and bring us back into the good old days. They avoided the questions and instead continued their condescending lectures about how life is so hard and therefore we must pass this bill without any further delay. It was painful, to say the least.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157379\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}