Members of the Kitami family and employees of the Mariana Resort & Spa were \u201cshocked\u201d by the decision of the Department of Public Lands to solicit competitive bids instead of granting a lease for the Japanese-owned resort.<\/p>\n
\u201cKan Pacific has received the letter from DPL. KPS (Kan Pacific Saipan), the Kitami family, and our employees are feeling shocked because we were led to believe we were getting another lease,\u201d a formal response, sent by email by Gloria Cavanagh, Mariana Resort & Spa general manager, said.<\/p>\n
The letter said Kan Pacific \u201creceived reassurances of this as recently as two months ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe intend to discuss this matter with the DPL and hopefully come to an agreeable resolution in the near future,\u201d the letter further said.<\/p>\n
DPL Secretary Pedro A. Tenorio, in a letter, said \u201cafter considering all options, it is the position of this department that the best interest of the collective owners of public land are best served by conducting a global solicitation for proposals for the public land upon expiration of existing leases.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tenorio added, \u201cthis will be the rule for any expiring leases with our government.\u201d The letter was addressed to Yoshihiro Kitami, president of Mariana Resort & Spa. The resort\u2019s long-term lease with the government is set to expire in 2018.<\/p>\n
Wrong signal<\/strong><\/p>\n Rep. Vinson Sablan (Ind-Saipan), a lawmakers from Precinct 4, where Mariana Resort & Spa is located, said he is concerned that contributions of the resort to the community were apparently not being considered.<\/p>\n \u201cThe resort is employing hundreds of locals. It is very active in the community projects. They\u2019ve been here for more than 30 years now. These factors should all be considered,\u201d Sablan said.<\/p>\n He also said he cannot understand the reason on getting another lease from the resort when it already submitted a proposal, detailing more than $70 million in additional investments.<\/p>\n He said the DPL\u2019s decision is \u201calarming\u201d and might send the wrong signal to investors.<\/p>\n Sablan\u2019s fellow Precinct 4 lawmaker, House Floor Leader George Camacho (R-Saipan), echoed the same sentiments regarding Mariana Resort\u2019s planned investment.<\/p>\n \u201cDid he (Tenorio) even read the proposal of Mariana Resort?\u201d Camacho asked.<\/p>\n Rep. Joseph \u201cLee Pan\u201d Guerrero (R-Saipan) said he \u201cunderstands the DPL secretary\u2019s approach to get what is best for the CNMI.\u201d<\/p>\n But he said the investor in question is a Japanese investor, and the decision to issue competitive bids comes at such a time that efforts are being made to try \u201cto save the Japanese market\u201d for tourism.<\/p>\n He also said he would recommend the DPL to make a determination of the value of land where Mariana Resort is located and perhaps sit down with the resort\u2019s management and \u201cwork something out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Members of the Kitami family and employees of the Mariana Resort & Spa were \u201cshocked\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[175,3092,3077,5669],"class_list":["post-205034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-dpl","tag-kan-pacific","tag-mariana-resort-spa","tag-yoshihiro-kitami"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205034","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=205034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205034\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}