The time has come to \u201cclean house,\u201d Gov. Ralph DLG Torres said on his first day back in office yesterday after trips to Hawaii and American Samoa.<\/p>\n
During his absence, Homeland Security and Emergency Management special assistant and former Department of Public Safety commissioner James Deleon Guerrero was arrested and charged for alleged sexual abuse of a minor. Acting governor Victor Hocog immediately placed Deleon Guerrero on preventive suspension without pay.<\/p>\n
Torres told reporters repeatedly yesterday that his administration would \u201cmove forward,\u201d when asked about the allegations against the former police chief, who has allegedly confessed, along with another DPS officer, to the FBI of having sex with a 15-year-old girl on the bed of a police pickup truck.<\/p>\n
Torres said Deleon Guerrero has sent in his resignation letter.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, I am going to accept it,\u201d Torres said, when asked. \u201cThis administration will not tolerate any such actions. Again, they are innocent until proven guilty but we need to move forward knowing that we want to clean this administration.<\/p>\n
Torres said Cabinet members, lawmakers, and others in the Executive Branch hold ethical obligations to the community. He said his administration would be moving forward in \u201cdoing the right things\u201d and working for the betterment of the community, when asked if he had a message to government officials in the wake of the scandal as rumors swirl that the full extent of the scandal would reveal the members from each branch of government complicit in it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe vow to move forward in that spirit\u201d of bettering the community, Torres said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThose that are involved\u2014we know are innocent until proven guilty\u2014but we want to move forward. This administration needs to move forward with the right cabinet\u2026and be strict to that.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the same time yesterday, Torres revealed that he has pinned this Wednesday as his target date to submit a budget to the Legislature for fiscal year 2017.<\/p>\n
Torres says the budget will be at $127 million\u2014minus earmarks\u2014or $15 million more, or a 10-percent increase from last year, for lawmakers to deliberate on.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday is a very busy day for me and tomorrow. We are going to finalize and hopefully we are going to turn in the budget by Wednesday. That\u2019s my goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Torres disclosed he still has changes to make that he would discuss with the Office of Management and Budget that center on his priorities of funding law enforcement agencies in wake of the federal court ruling that struck down the ban on hand guns.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to restructure some of the current budget to address DPS safety and all the other law enforcement agencies,\u201d Torres said.<\/p>\n
Torres, when asked to share his thoughts on the projected budget growth, said he has seen the lowest budget the Legislature has had to work with in years past and said that anytime there was a cut to be made, it was \u201cnever good for anybody, not for any family, not for any business, definitely, not for anyone in the government.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are very fortunate in the last year and half to see an increase in the [revenue generating] activities. This year, we have a projected 10-percent increase. We are closely monitoring the revenue coming in, but if we continue the way we are collecting we might have a supplemental [budget] again in July, which shows a very positive revenue.:<\/p>\n
Torres said the budget addresses these priorities: government judgments, substance abuse prevention, as well as salary increases across the board for employees who haven\u2019t seen raises in over a decade.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about time they get their salary increase,\u201d Torres said. \u201cSome of our folks haven\u2019t gotten an increase for 10 or 15 years across the board. Our goal is to have everybody across the board with some increase as we move forward.<\/p>\n
Torres added they have addressed the Judiciary Branch\u2019s concerns with funding for a new drug court to combat drug use and says he wants the drug court to \u201cflourish.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a lot of trial and error\u2026but we are going to give that commitment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Asked for the status of funding for the utilities, the hospital, and the public school system, Torres said they continue to work on this in the budget.<\/p>\n
\u201cSupposedly there is a letter from the Public School System that I haven\u2019t seen. But those are the numbers that we are going to address that by Wednesday,\u201d Torres said.<\/p>\n
Torres yesterday also finally shed light on the issue with a reported blackout of communications with Pagan.<\/p>\n
Officials had been silent up to yesterday about what caused the communications blackout last week but Torres disclosed that an \u201cissue had transpired\u201d between the four individuals on the island.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne has threatened the lives of the other three,\u201d Torres said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we had to [deploy] our enforcement agency to stabilize the situation. And I believe they brought back two or three to make sure that it is safe.<\/p>\n
Torres also confirmed a report that this situation had to do with impacting the island\u2019s communication system.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what I heard too,\u201d Torres said. \u201c\u2026We are going to do another assessment today. We will be getting an update of what we have and will be making further decisions on how to approach the Pagan issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The time has come to \u201cclean house,\u201d Gov. Ralph DLG Torres said on his first…<\/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":[20,35,1446,11171],"class_list":["post-226342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-budget","tag-dps","tag-james-deleon-guerrero","tag-judiciary-branch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226342","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=226342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}