The Saipan Mayor\u2019s Office is looking to build the new animal shelter at the site of the quarantine facility of the Department of Lands and Natural Resources in As Perdido, according to the office\u2019s special assistant Henry Hofschneider.<\/p>\n
Hofschneider said the then Marianas Public Lands Trust gave the DLNR the full rights and property title of the land where the quarantine facility was built. DLNR then allowed the mayor\u2019s office\u2019s Animal Control Office to transfer to As Perdido after the shelter at Lower Base closed down.<\/p>\n
The animal shelter in Lower Base closed last March 31 based on the Department of Public Works\u2019 Building Safety Code Division\u2019s recommendation following their inspection. The building suffered extensive damage when Typhoon Soudelor hit Saipan last year.<\/p>\n
The building sustained structural damage and repair and other forms of restoration will no longer be needed. The walls and tin roof of the animal shelter were torn apart by Soudelor\u2019s strong winds that reached a maximum of 180 miles per hour.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t make sense to repair the animal shelter and spend money on an already condemned facility. Also, we still need to entirely demolish the animal shelter in Lower Base before we can build a new one,\u201d said Hofschneider.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The Federal Emergency Management Agency] also advised us to raise the floors by at least 6 feet since the shelter is on a flood zone area,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Hofschneider said that DLNR, under Secretary Richard B. Seman, allowed them to build the permanent facility\u2014the new shelter\u2014on the land since their department also deals with animals, including their health and welfare.<\/p>\n
Saipan Mayor David M. Apatang said, in a separate interview last month, that they already received the money from FEMA.<\/p>\n
Hofschneider said that the only thing left to do is to ask FEMA\u2019s permission to use the money they gave to mayor\u2019s office to build the new shelter. FEMA gave the mayor\u2019s office $324,000 as federal aid to help repair the damaged shelter in Lower Base.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are trying to get FEMA\u2019s permission since we need to use the money for repairs only and not to construct a new facility,\u201d said Hofschneider. \u201cBut I believe they would give us permission.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hofschneider added that they had already informed DPW to have one of their architects start with the plans and to begin inspecting the topography of the site. \u201cThey said that they should start preparing in a few weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Saipan Mayor\u2019s Office is looking to build the new animal shelter at the site…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[9322,346,493,187],"class_list":["post-225342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-animal-control-office","tag-dlnr","tag-fema","tag-lower-base"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225342","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=225342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}