To lessen the burden of waiting for quarterly rides to the Northern Islands, Northern Islands Mayor Jerome K. Aldan is considering the idea of having his office purchase a passenger and cargo ship.<\/p>\n
Aldan, along with Saipan and Northern Islands Municipal Council chair Antonia M. Tudela, met with the U.S Coast Guard Marine Safety Office last Sept. 8 at the Horiguchi Building to discuss acquiring a vessel.<\/p>\n
Aldan proposes to purchase a vessel that could carry about 50 passengers and cargo.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is part of the redevelopment process and we\u2019re trying to build our own goals and take off with the redevelopment of the Northern Islands so we could have a vessel ready and come and go when we need to,\u201d Aldan said.<\/p>\n
Right now, according to him, it takes about three months or more to charter a vessel for the Northern Islands and this is too long a wait.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we acquire a vessel, it would eliminate the timeframe and the frequency of the visit would be more readily available instead of every quarter,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we own one, it is a one-time purchase and we can use it anytime.\u201d<\/p>\n
He declined to come up with a projected cost for the project, saying they are still in the exploratory stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to tap funds and we\u2019re working with the CNMI Governor\u2019s Office Grants Management Office to do this and we\u2019re doing the legwork right now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The USCG office provided them information on the logistics of purchasing and operating a passenger and cargo vessel. The USCG recommended three options: One, acquire a U.S.- certified vessel that would go through initial inspection under U.S. standards; two, purchase a vessel and put it under a foreign flag that would still be inspected by the U.S. and required to comply with the rules of the country it is under; and three, get a foreign-built boat and the U.S. can certify it under U.S standards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To lessen the burden of waiting for quarterly rides to the Northern Islands, Northern Islands…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6497,1266,541],"class_list":["post-210154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-horiguchi-building","tag-ni","tag-northern-islands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210154","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\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}