Saipan lawmakers wrestled for hours yesterday over how to spend $3.2 million in poker license fees that\u2019s not even in the bag yet. Most of the amount was eventually set aside for scholarship; the rest ended up being divvied up among a fishing derby, an economic development summit, a leadership memorial, and to help fund a high school band, among other things.<\/p>\n
Rep. Ray Yumul\u2019s (R-Saipan) House Local Bill 17-68 was amended three times as members of the Saipan and Northern Islands Legislative Delegation debated where projected poker license fee collections for fiscal year 2012 should go.<\/p>\n
The bill passed by a vote of 19-0.\u00a0 It now goes to the governor for action.<\/p>\n
The three adopted amendments were offered by Rep. Joseph Palacios (R-Saipan), Rep. Felicidad Ogumoro (Cov-Saipan) and Sen. Ralph Torres (R-Saipan). Rep. Janet Maratita\u2019s amended was defeated by a single vote.<\/p>\n
Of the $3,228,050, the bulk or $3 million will go toward the Saipan Higher Education Financial Assistance.<\/p>\n
The remaining $228,000, however, was the one that lawmakers really fought over.<\/p>\n
Of this amount, $100,000 will go toward SHEFA operations. Maratita offered to slash this in half and give it to the actual SHEFA grant for students, but it was defeated.<\/p>\n
SHEFA administrator Henry Hofschneider said it\u2019s the actual cash flow that matters\u2014whether the program operations funding is $50,000 or $100,000, although he said SHEFA needs more than one staff so it would be better to keep the operational budget at $100,000.<\/p>\n
Saipan lawmakers gave $25,000 for the Saipan Little League, $10,000 for the 31st Annual Flame Tree Arts Festival, $2,000 for the Fire Division, and $3,300 for the completion of the Karidat Manhoben Center renovation. They also gave $2,700 for the Leadership Memorial Courtyard, also known as the Kios-Ku Project.<\/p>\n
The delegation also gave $28,000 to the Saipan Mayor\u2019s Office for the repair and maintenance of heavy equipment and $5,000 for the Parole Community Outreach Program.<\/p>\n
– $12,000 will go to the Saipan Southern High School\u2019s Manta Ray Band, and $14,000 to the Mount Carmel School to send its Mock Trial Team to the final competition in New Mexico.<\/p>\n
– $5,000 will go to the Saipan Fishing Derby, and $16,000 for the Little League District Tournament.<\/p>\n
– $5,000 will be for the Northern Islands Development Summit, which was strongly proposed by Ogumoro. This is in addition to $5,000 that a local law has already appropriated for the summit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re broke. We should emphasize on areas where we can generate money,\u201d she said, referring to the need to develop the Northern Islands\u2019 economic potentials and possible resettlement. <\/p>\n
Confirmation<\/p>\n
By a vote of 20-0, the delegation confirmed the re-appointment of Diego Blanco to serve another term on the Zoning Board.
\n\u201cI thank the governor for his reappointment and the SNILD for unanimously confirming me. As always, I look forward to working with SNILD to improve our island and protect our community,\u201d Blanco told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saipan lawmakers wrestled for hours yesterday over how to spend $3.2 million in poker license fees that\u2019s not even in the bag yet. Most of the amount was eventually set aside for scholarship; the rest ended up being divvied up among a fishing derby, an economic development summit, a leadership memorial, and to help fund a high school band, among other things.<\/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-160064","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\/160064","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=160064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160064\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}