{"id":231352,"date":"2016-07-04T06:06:32","date_gmt":"2016-07-03T20:06:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=231352"},"modified":"2016-07-04T06:06:32","modified_gmt":"2016-07-03T20:06:32","slug":"san-nicolas-calls-epa-highly-opinionated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/san-nicolas-calls-epa-highly-opinionated\/","title":{"rendered":"San Nicolas calls EPA \u2018highly opinionated\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Eric<\/a>
Eric San Nicolas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A Commonwealth Utilities Corp. board director derided a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency letter on issues with the utilities company\u2019s vacant management positions as \u201chighly opinionated\u201d last week.<\/p>\n

During a board meeting last Thursday, board Eric San Nicolas called board chair Adelina Roberto\u2019s letter back to the EPA on the vacant positions a \u201cgreat response.\u201d<\/p>\n

He called EPA\u2019s comments \u201cpretty opinionated\u2026in my opinion\u201d and \u201cbiased\u201d and \u201cvery inaccurate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat letter from EPA, from (EPA Water Enforcement manager Ken) Mr. Greenberg almost paints a picture that we are uncooperative,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He alluded to a meeting with the Department of Justice and legal counsel where it was asked to clarify whether they had to \u201cgo beyond Region 9\u201d or the local area in their hiring search and whether \u201cthe court order expounded\u201d on this.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not intentionally countering\u201d orders \u201cEPA has issued to us. We need to clarify that CUC is doing it\u2019s doing its due diligence.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to a Senate report by a legislative fiscal analyst this week on CUC issues, CUC has responded to the earlier May 25 letter from EPA on vacant management positions.<\/p>\n

The letter largely alleged that CUC systemically failed to address vacant stipulated court order positions.<\/p>\n

\u201cCUC responded to this letter and sent three candidates that were all rejected for the executive director position,\u201d David Demapan, the fiscal analyst, disclosed.<\/p>\n

\u201cEPA was not happy as none of the candidates were even close to matching the requirements and one didn\u2019t even have a degree,\u201d Demapan added.<\/p>\n

The May EPA letter highlights long-standing personnel vacancies that EPA says are \u201cadversely impacting operations,\u201d such as lengthy vacancies in three of eight senior management Stipulated Order 1, or SO1, positions, for an executive director, deputy executive director, and division manager for drinking water and wastewater.<\/p>\n

\u201cEPA and the United States Department of Justice have repeatedly expressed concerns regarding CUC\u2019s inadequate hiring commitment,\u201d said EPA Water Enforcement manager Ken Greenberg said, noting that as a courtesy earlier this year, the EPA and DOJ met in person with members of CUC.<\/p>\n

As part of that discussion, Greenberg said, the CUC board members agreed to \u201cwidely re-advertise these key positions\u201d to notify both qualified \u201clocal and off-island persons of the positions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, the CUC board soon breached this promise and limited its advertising to CNMI outlets, including for the executive director and deputy executive director positions,\u201d Greenberg added.<\/p>\n

In addition to causing further delays and failing to meet its promise to the United States, Greenberg said, the CUC board\u2019s action conflicts with the June 2 letter and the court-approved Second Joint Stipulation.<\/p>\n

\u201cCUC\u2019s limited search was also unsuccessful,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Commonwealth Utilities Corp. board director derided a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency letter on issues…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":231353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3062,49,352,1421],"class_list":["post-231352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-adelina-roberto","tag-cuc","tag-epa","tag-eric-san-nicolas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231352","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=231352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}