The full board of trustees of the Marianas Public Land Trust chose Friday a new leader in the person of Martin Ada, who, this early, expressed a \u201cchange of heart\u201d in the agency\u2019s handling of longstanding issues with the Department of Public Lands.<\/p>\n
Ada was elected to the board chairmanship during a three-hour meeting Friday night. Maria Pangelinan and Melchor Mendiola were also elected vice chair and treasurer respectively.<\/p>\n
A former lawmaker, Ada succeeds two-time chair Pedro Deleon Guerrero.<\/p>\n
In his first order of business, the newly elected chairman specifically assigned Pangelinan to handle all DPL matters, a decision that was strongly opposed by Deleon Guerrero.<\/p>\n
According to him, Pangelinan\u2019s appointment to handle \u201call and any DPL issues\u201d will take away the matter from the full board. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re moving forward with the issues on DPL. In fact, we did meet with the governor and there was a request that we wait until the completion of DPL\u2019s 2013 audit report. [So] I don\u2019t believe we should continue to prolong the issue on DPL because it\u2019s way overdue. I for one, I\u2019d like to see we continue to move forward in resolving the issue with DPL,\u201d said Deleon Guerrero.<\/p>\n
It will be recalled that the MPLT board has had a consensus since last year to take DPL to court for failing to remit lease monies to MPLT. This \u201cconsensus\u201d was reached after DPL reportedly failed to cooperate in providing MPLT with financial records and remittances. <\/p>\n
Deleon Guerrero said that, based on MPLT\u2019s initial information, DPL failed to remit to MPLT some $8.5 million in revenue from public land leases.<\/p>\n
But according to Ada, Pangelinan\u2019s appointment is not meant to take away the matter from the full board since Pangelinan is tasked to report all and any DPL matters back to the board. Citing Pangelinan\u2019s good relationship with the current DPL leadership and the Inos administration, Ada is confident that the parties will reach an amicable solution on the unremitted funds. Ada further pointed out that Pangelinan will serve as the \u201cpoint of contact\u201d on DPL issues.<\/p>\n
Deleon Guerrero reminded Ada that he was among the trustees who previously pushed for a lawsuit against DPL. \u201cIn fact, you moved that \u2018we take them to court,\u2019\u201d said the former chairman.<\/p>\n
Ada, however, stood firm in the \u201cnew direction\u201d he wants MPLT to take at this time, specifically on DPL matters.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we do take them to court, would that force DPL to remit us the money?\u201d asked Ada.<\/p>\n
Deleon Guerrero remained adamant on the issue. \u201cEven before I got in, even before we all got in here, we have these issues with DPL and MPLT has been so patient. The way, Mr. Chairman, you want to have it handled now will only stall these issues,\u201d argued Deleon Guerrero, adding that \u201cmaking such an appointment is contrary to the fiduciary duty of a trustee.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pangelinan\u2019s appointment to handle all DPL issues was later adopted by a 4-1 vote. Others who voted in favor of Pangelinan\u2019s appointment are Melchor Mendiola, Pete Cruz, Pangelinan, and Ada.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The full board of trustees of the Marianas Public Land Trust chose Friday a new leader in the person of Martin Ada, who, this early, expressed a \u201cchange of heart\u201d in the agency\u2019s handling of longstanding issues with the Department of Public Lands.<\/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-175522","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\/175522","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=175522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175522\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}