The U.S. Department of the Interior\u2019s Assistant Secretary for Insular Areas Esther Kia\u2019aina paid a courtesy call to Gov. Eloy S. Inos on Capital Hill last Monday.<\/p>\n
According to Press Secretary Ivan Blanco, it was the first time for the two leaders \u201cto officially meet.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an earlier interview, Kia\u2019aina said her planned meeting with Inos will involve \u201cbilateral discussions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before the courtesy call, Kia\u2019aina delivered a speech during the groundbreaking ceremony of the closure of the Puerto Rico dumpsite held the same day.<\/p>\n
In the ceremony, Kia\u2019aina also gave a letter of approval to Inos grating the governor\u2019s request for an additional $1.3 million funding for the closure of the dumpsite.<\/p>\n
The courtesy call and speech at the groundbreaking ceremony were at the top of Kia\u2019aina\u2019s agenda on her visit to the CNMI.<\/p>\n
Within the same day, the official also met CNMI leaders to discuss the CNMI workforce and economic development and other concerns.<\/p>\n
She was also expected to discuss topics such as immigration, climate change, military training, and economic development. Kia\u2019aina also met with the Northern Islands Mayor Jerome K. Aldan and Tinian Mayor Joey San Nicolas.<\/p>\n
Overdue<\/strong><\/p>\n The long-awaited closure of the Puerto Rico dumpsite and its planned conversion into a park inched closer to reality on Monday with a groundbreaking ceremony led by CNMI leaders and witnessed by U.S. Department of the Interior\u2019s Assistant Secretary for Insular Areas Esther Kia\u2019aina.<\/p>\n This is one of the biggest federally funded capital improvement projects for the CNMI.<\/p>\n Armed with an initial funding of more than $20 million, the Inos administration awarded the project to a private contractor last March.<\/p>\n Monday\u2019s groundbreaking signals the start of work on the project, which took 12 years and a number administrations to finally take off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The U.S. Department of the Interior\u2019s Assistant Secretary for Insular Areas Esther Kia\u2019aina paid a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4912,46,26,90],"class_list":["post-203336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-assistant-secretary","tag-ceremony","tag-cnmi","tag-puerto-rico"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203336","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\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203336\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}