{"id":222276,"date":"2016-03-04T06:00:48","date_gmt":"2016-03-03T20:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=222276"},"modified":"2016-03-04T06:00:48","modified_gmt":"2016-03-03T20:00:48","slug":"rota-leadership-discuss-vital-issues-public-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/rota-leadership-discuss-vital-issues-public-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"Rota leadership to discuss vital issues in public meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

ROTA<\/strong>\u2014Pending land exchange and opportunities to help community members explore opening small family businesses are issues that would be under discussion on Rota on two separate dates in March, according to Sen. Teresita Santos (R-Rota).<\/p>\n

The Rota Legislative Delegation would hold a public meeting with affected landowners on March 8 at the Rota Courthouse. It would involve the Departments of Public Land and Public Works.<\/p>\n

\u201cLandowners whose properties were taken for public purposes should be able to hear from the two agencies when would the long awaited land exchange would occur,\u201d Santos said. \u201cIt\u2019s important that this issue is resolved as public land becomes scarce in view of a good portion being turned over for wildlife conservation\u201d.<\/p>\n

The other meeting involves the Commonwealth Development Authority on the March 16. \u201cHow great a coincidence that as I sought for their help on loans to our island community, it is actually set to upgrade its Rota office that would include a loan officer\u201d, Santos said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thank CDA executive director Manny Sablan for his foresight in our desire to help our people move the needle of growth and opportunities forward for our island community,\u201d Santos said. \u201cIt\u2019s work in progress that should slowly but surely open up opportunities for small businesses and expansion that ought to stir the wellbeing of the community.\u201d She\u2019s also grateful for CDA\u2019s board of directors for their enthusiastic response.<\/p>\n

The meeting should include examples how members of the community could use small loans to break out on their own in terms of small family businesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe planned small business venture includes tourism, small tour boat operations, food catering, fishing, farming, and other ventures,\u201d she said, adding, \u201cIt is basically a venture in small business incubation for our small island community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Santos further said, \u201cWe wish to take it a step further by asking the central government to postpone any and forms of taxes to grant new small business start-up to thrive during its formative period. We could address taxes some five years down the road once the small businesses are sure footed and could withstand fees and tax impositions\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s vital that the issue on tax postponement is understood given that our island community isn\u2019t necessarily situated in the business center where it could reap greater latitude for survival,\u201d said Santos. \u201cInitial taxation would simply annihilate their existence from the get-go.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNearby Japan is the hub of small businesses that is basically its backbone,\u201d she noted. \u201cI\u2019ve been to cities where small family businesses excel on a daily basis and we should give it a shot in our small island community,\u201d she said. (PR)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ROTA\u2014Pending land exchange and opportunities to help community members explore opening small family businesses are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[56,366,3926,7595],"class_list":["post-222276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-business-3","tag-cda","tag-manny-sablan","tag-rota-courthouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222276","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\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}