Senate Vice President Arnold Palacios (R-Saipan) disclosed on Wednesday he is working on a framework, along with other members of the Senate, to create a \u201cplanning\u201d department, or office, within the government.<\/p>\n
Palacios disclosed this after hearings with department heads on how to address infrastructure impacts from ongoing development concluded Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been in the framework of putting together an office of planning or a department of planning, which we used to have in this government but it got somehow taken out,\u201d said Palacios in an interview in his office. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are glad that the [Coastal Resources Management] major siting process has a semblance of consolidating all the different agencies together,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is the only process that we have\u2026Otherwise, this one is doing this, and this one is doing that, and it\u2019s contradicting.\u201d<\/p>\n
During a hearing with local utility on Tuesday, senators learned off apparent miscommunication within the agency. \u201cSomebody signed off on a permit and the sewer guy is saying, \u2018We didn\u2019t know about this development,\u2019\u201d Palacios said. \u201cThat\u2019s telling in and of itself. We need to have a lot more coordination\u201d and \u201csome sort of planning function within our government.\u201d<\/p>\n
Palacios also said the Senate is looking at also calling in the Department of Lands and Natural Resources, the Historic Preservation Office, and other offices that are part of the regulatory agency scheme. He added he would be brainstorming with other senators on future hearings, and added he would task their counsel and legal aides for reports \u201cconsolidating all the [information] we got\u201d from the hearings and possibly \u201csend it to the Executive Branch.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Not development: regression\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Palacios, who authored a amendment to local law last year to allow Best Sunshine International, Ltd. to set up its temporary casino within 200 feet of playgrounds, parks, churches, and other establishments so that the casino project could move forward in the T Galleria, questions how development will impact the \u201cquality of life.\u201d <\/p>\n In an interview Monday, before the hearings started, Palacios said that the infrastructure being built \u201ccaters to a lot of the transient population.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd we don\u2019t have the infrastructure or the space to accompany everybody, inclusive of the community, that is here. And it starts deteriorating the quality of life.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s not development,\u201d he added. \u201cThat\u2019s regression.\u201d<\/p>\n Palacios said at some point in time the CNMI needs to \u201cstep back\u201d and look at development in cumulative benefits and impacts and ask if the CNMI improved its quality of life, \u201cor did it cost us?\u201d<\/p>\n Palacios used the Philippines as an example, saying that at one time the country had many, many visitors and traffic that created stress for the local population, which sacrificed the quality of life for commerce. <\/p>\n \u201cDevelopment is good. Make no mistake about it. But we want to make sure we do it right. We want to make sure we pay attention to all the other peripheral issues not just the glitter.\u201d<\/p>\n The extinct local garment industry, for one, started at five garment factories on island, blossoming into 10, then 20, then well over 30 factories. \u201cWhen we had it at five to 10, it was manageable,\u201d Palacios said. \u201cThen all of the system started breaking down. Water was an issue. We had 30,000 to 40,000 non-transient, but year-round population of workers staying on Saipan. That became an issue\u2026While we generate $60 million to $70 million in potential revenues from that industry, we ask ourselves, was the quality of life much better? No. When it was time for them to pull out, they just pulled out,\u201d Palacios added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Senate Vice President Arnold Palacios (R-Saipan) disclosed on Wednesday he is working on a framework,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[54,256,26,21],"class_list":["post-223432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-agency","tag-casino","tag-cnmi","tag-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223432","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\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}