{"id":225195,"date":"2016-04-12T06:00:33","date_gmt":"2016-04-11T20:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=225195"},"modified":"2016-04-12T06:00:33","modified_gmt":"2016-04-11T20:00:33","slug":"no-campaigning-libday-parade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/no-campaigning-libday-parade\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018No campaigning during LibDay parade\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
Saipan Mayor David M. Apatang, left, took part yesterday\u2019s meeting of the 2016 Liberation Day committee at the Saipan Mayor\u2019s conference room. (Jon Perez)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Joe Palacios reminded incumbent elected officials and those who are going to run in the mid-term elections this year not to use the 2016 Liberation Day parade to campaign. Palacios is the new float and parade sub committee chair.<\/p>\n

Palacios replaced Mariano Fajardo, who resigned last month citing personal and health reasons. He attended yesterday\u2019s Liberation Day committee meeting at the conference room of the Saipan Mayor\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

Palacios said that as much as possible the committee doesn\u2019t want politics to mix with the Commonwealth\u2019s 71st commemoration of the liberation of Saipan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t accept floats that has campaign materials or show support to a candidate. As much as possible no campaigning in the parade,\u201d said Palacios.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo displaying of political signs, vulgar signs, sponsors, or any advertising. Anybody or group caught will be disqualified and won\u2019t be allowed to join the parade,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Instead, he advised groups or individuals that would be joining the parade whether competing or not, to be creative in showing this year\u2019s theme\u2014\u201cOur Islands, Our Heritage\u201d\u2014with their float entries.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just need to be creative with the float designs that would show this year\u2019s theme. You can either use environmental-friendly materials or others with your float entry,\u201d added Palacios.<\/p>\n

He said that participants in the parade should also not be limited in using lowboys for their floats. \u201cThere are other vehicles that you could use if lowboys won\u2019t be available for the parade. Of course, the construction companies need lowboys to run their business.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will exert all efforts to ask the construction companies to lend us their lowboys and we can assist any organization that would need them for their float. But you can use a car or a pickup with trailer <\/p>\n

Palacios said that the committee is also encouraging the other islands\u2014Northern Islands, Rota, and Tinian\u2014to join the parade especially that all islands are represented by the 29 candidates who joined in this year\u2019s Liberation Day Royal Court.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are expecting to have more floats this year since there is a record number of Liberation Day Queen candidates. What the committee wanted is to have the people enjoy the parade and the celebration,\u201d added Palacios.<\/p>\n

Applications for the float parade\u2014competing or non competing\u2014opened yesterday with the deadline of submission of entries set on June 27. Entry fee for those competing is $100, non-refundable, while non-competing is free.<\/p>\n

Prizes for the float competition is $4,000, $3,000, $2,000, and $1,000 for the top four places.<\/p>\n

Palacios said a briefing and orientation of all participants in the float parade would be scheduled at a latter date. \u201cThe most important thing is safety of the participants and the crowd. We don\u2019t want anybody to get hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joe Palacios reminded incumbent elected officials and those who are going to run in the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":225200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[162,9505,133,1507],"class_list":["post-225195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-car","tag-liberation-day-queen","tag-run","tag-saipan-mayor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225195","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\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}