Tinian Mayor Ramon M. Dela Cruz said the U.S. Department of Defense should either use or give up its lease on the island so that the local government can come up with activities that would stimulate the island\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n
Dela Cruz said in an interview that the DoD leases two-thirds of Tinian that it has not used.<\/p>\n
According to Dela Cruz, it is \u201conly fair\u201d for the federal agency to use the lease. Otherwise, the land should be handed back to the Tinian municipality for subsistence or commercial farming.<\/p>\n
\u201cUse your lease on Tinian or get out of it so we can develop the two-thirds of the island into other economic activities,\u201d Dela Cruz said.<\/p>\n
Gov. Benigno R. Fitial had recommended Tinian as an alternative site for an emergency airfield for the U.S. military and Dela Cruz said he is \u201cvery happy\u201d with the governor\u2019s \u201cstrong recommendation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The U.S. Air Force held in October 2011 open house scoping meetings on Saipan, Tinian, and Rota to solicit public comments in preparation for an environmental impact statement or EIS to develop a divert airfield alternative location to Andersen Air Force Base.<\/p>\n
Dela Cruz, who is a member of the CNMI-Military Integration Management Committee, said he has been \u201cthe main proponent of actually designating Tinian as a divert operations for the Air Force\u201d and has been working very hard to see it become a reality.<\/p>\n
The mayor said he already sent his comments for the EIS, the final draft for which is expected to be done by May.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the time that we should work together to make this happen,\u201d added Dela Cruz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tinian Mayor Ramon M. Dela Cruz said the U.S. Department of Defense should either use or give up its lease on the island so that the local government can come up with activities that would stimulate the island\u2019s economy.<\/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-159044","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\/159044","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=159044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159044\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}