Mayor Donald Flores changed his mind anew and scrapped his previous announcement regarding a one-day celebration of Liberation Day, the largest community event in the Commonwealth slated for next month, saying that the festivities will be for a week.<\/p>\n
Citing the lack of appropriation and support from the Saipan and Northern Islands Legislative Delegation, Flores said during a media briefing at his conference room last May 25 that the event, commemorating the liberation of Camp Susupe from the atrocities of war, will be celebrated on July 4 instead of the traditional monthlong festivities.<\/p>\n
But Flores, during an interview Friday, said that he has decided to go back to his earlier plan of hosting a weeklong observance of Liberation Day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really want to just stay with one week that I have considered because one day, to me, is very short for this honorable day to celebrate. With the support of the [Lt. Gov. Eloy S. Inos] on this, I seriously considered one week,\u201d he told reporters at the Saipan Seventh-day Adventist School 30th anniversary program.<\/p>\n
Flores said the weeklong celebration will start on June 28, a Thursday, and will culminate on July 4 when the customary Fourth of July parade and program take place.<\/p>\n
The June 28 starting date, however, still remains to be finalized since Liberation Day festivities will be held at the Garapan Fishing Base, which currently hosts the Garapan Street Market on Thursdays.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we cannot work together with the Street Market, then we will celebrate it [starting] Friday\u2026 [until] Wednesday. When we reach that time, we\u2019ll decide if we\u2019re going to be extending it,\u201d added Flores.<\/p>\n
Flores disclosed that the Liberation Day committee plans to work on a $25,000 budget for the event \u201cbut we would be aggressively seeking donations and encouraging businesses to help us out.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said this amount will come from the committee\u2019s solicitation and fundraising efforts, including one that aims to operate gambling games, patterned after Rotary Club of Saipan\u2019s Las Vegas Night, to be conducted throughout the festivities.<\/p>\n
Flores said they also plan to ask for in-kind contributions from various government agencies. For example, they plan to borrow from the Marianas Visitors Authority the stage used at the recently concluded Taste of the Marianas and from the Hopwood Jr. High School to lend them a sound system.<\/p>\n
There will also be additional funds generated through the fees to be charged on vendors that want to set sell their merchandise at the festival grounds or the ticket sales of the Liberation Queen candidates, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also encourage\u2026 everybody to come and join hands and celebrate this,\u201d said Flores.<\/p>\n
The mayor emphasized, though, that he will \u201cnot going to bother\u201d the Legislature regarding Liberation Day funding.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they want to help, if they want to join the community in this important and honorable event\u2014this is an honorable event for this island\u2026 This is an honorable even that I wish they stand up and support,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
According to Flores, he already has the support of Lt. Gov. Eloy S. Inos, who will work on asking regulatory agencies to waive the fees for the Liberation Day committee, which would give them \u201ca lot\u201d of savings.<\/p>\n
Inos, in a separate interview, pointed out that his role in the efforts would be \u201cto help facilitate\u201d the waiving of fees.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere I come in is I want to see working with them to make sure that the cost is kept to a minimum and we can engage the private sector participation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Inos expressed his support for the week-long celebration of Liberation Day which he underlined as a tradition in the island community.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that celebrating it is appropriate and I think we should all continue to do that,\u201d said Inos. \u201cIt\u2019s a tradition. The local community essentially expects that some kind of celebration would take place. I don\u2019t want to disappoint the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Inos called on the lawmakers to support \u201cthe one single event that majority of the people look forward to.\u201d<\/p>\n
He cited the Legislature\u2019s efforts to provide funding for specific groups or events in the community such as the fishing derby \u201cand it\u2019s okay.\u201d Inos noted that the Liberation Day celebration is \u201cfor the enjoyment of the entire community.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it doesn\u2019t take much in terms of the financial drain in the public funds when we do that [why not?]. It\u2019s for everybody,\u201d added Inos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mayor Donald Flores changed his mind anew and scrapped his previous announcement regarding a one-day celebration of Liberation Day, the largest community event in the Commonwealth slated for next month, saying that the festivities will be for a week.<\/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-161721","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\/161721","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=161721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161721\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}