The Department of Public Lands said yesterday it could either waive or reduce its \u201cland fee\u201d for Garapan Street Market vendors\u2014if the Department of Community and Cultural Affairs requests and justifies the need to do so.<\/p>\n
Vendors at the Garapan Fishing Base every Thursday night are protesting the land fee, which they said is an added cost considering that sales have not been as good as they used to and is being assessed without proper consultation.<\/p>\n
The fee is equal to 1 percent of each vendor\u2019s gross sales.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe informed DCCA last year that the land fee can be waived or reduced by DPL, but DCCA has not requested a waiver or reduction,\u201d DPL Real Estate Division director Rachel Roque told Saipan Tribune yesterday. <\/p>\n
Roque said DPL previously reduced the land fee from 3 percent to 1 percent after then DCCA secretary Melvin Faisao asked for it.<\/p>\n
The land fee, she said, has always been in the temporary authorization that DPL granted DCCA. When the task of overseeing the Garapan Street Market was transferred last year to one of DCCA\u2019s divisions\u2014the Commonwealth Council for Arts and Culture\u2014executive director Angel Hocog tried to implement the land fee to comply with the temporary authorization from DPL.<\/p>\n
CCAC executive director Angel Hocog, for his part, said yesterday \u201cit\u2019s good to know\u201d that DPL can waive the fee.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to help the vendors. But they also have to consider that this land fee is one way of helping our economy too,\u201d Hocog said.<\/p>\n
Hocog said he still has to bring the matter up to DCCA Secretary Laura Ogumoro before deciding whether to request a waiver or reduction of the fee. He said DCCA or CCAC does not want to violate the terms of DPL\u2019s temporary authorization to use the Garapan Fishing Base for the every-Thursday-market.<\/p>\n
Jack Hudak, president of Thai House Restaurant, one of the pioneer vendors at the Garapan Street Market, said yesterday he would be communicating with CCAC\u2019s Hocog to request DPL for the land fee\u2019s waiver.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am speaking for myself but I\u2019m sure other vendors would agree with me that the land fee should be waived. Everybody would be happy. I believe there\u2019s only lack of communication on this,\u201d Hudak said.<\/p>\n
Juan \u201cPan\u201d T. Guerrero, general manager of Herman\u2019s Modern Bakery that is also a vendor at the Garapan Street Market, said DPL\u2019s statement is \u201cgood news.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Thursday market vendors are questioning the implementation and reason behind the 1 percent land fee, which is on top of the weekly fee and the business gross revenue tax they pay. <\/p>\n
Hudak, who opened the first Thai restaurant in the CNMI in 1993, earlier said he would not pay the fee until CCAC and DPL meet with the vendors to explain the matter. With yesterday\u2019s development, Hudak said there is still a need for vendors to organize to collectively ask DCCA to request DPL for a land fee waiver. He can be reached at 235-8424.<\/p>\n
There are currently 49 vendors at the Garapan Street Market, and another 20 are on a standby list, Hocog said. He had earlier said if the current vendors do not comply with the 1 percent land fee requirement, then CCAC won\u2019t have a choice but to let them go. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Department of Public Lands said yesterday it could either waive or reduce its \u201cland fee\u201d for Garapan Street Market vendors\u2014if the Department of Community and Cultural Affairs requests and justifies the need to do so.<\/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-174989","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\/174989","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=174989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174989\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}