Tinian Mayor Joey P. San Nicolas called upon the Tinian leadership and Tinian Commonwealth Ports Authority board member Kimberlyn King-Hinds on Monday to meet with representatives of Bridge Investment Group to discuss ongoing concerns about BIG\u2019s siting permit application. <\/p>\n
The Tinian leadership had been informed that BIG cannot be granted a major siting permit to proceed with their project because the project is not considered a \u201cport related activity.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the meeting, San Nicolas expressed that it was the leadership\u2019s intent to assist and support BIG as they undergo the major siting permit process. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been informed that the BIG project may have some issues with the [Coastal Resources Management] permitting process and that DPL (Department of Public Lands)may also have concerns with BIG\u2019s lease with CPA. We want to be fully briefed of all the issues so that we can figure out how to best address the concerns,\u201d said San Nicolas.<\/p>\n
King-Hinds explained to the leadership that, as a condition of BIG\u2019s lease with CPA, BIG is required to comply with all federal and local laws, rules and regulations, one of which is the CRM\/BECQ permitting requirements. CRM has made it clear that under the permitting requirements, a casino development, even one who provides ferry services, is not considered a port related activity. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs such, CRM may not be granting BIG its permit to develop at the port. The Department of Public Lands has also raised its concerns to CPA that the BIG lease may be in violation DPL\u2019s grant of public domain to CPA because CPA has leased out the property to a developer whose activities are not considered port related.\u201d<\/p>\n
King-Hinds further explained that BIG, CPA, DPL, CRM, and Gov. Ralph DLG Torres have met to discuss the matter. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe governor has stated his unequivocal support of this project and is aware of the major hurdles faced by BIG. It has been suggested that to circumvent CRM permitting requirements, CPA give up the property to DPL and BIG enters into a new lease with DPL, in essence giving up half of the Tinian port.\u201d<\/p>\n
San Nicolas asked King-Hinds if CPA would support of this decision. According to King Hinds: \u201cI can\u2019t answer that question. There may be federal laws or regulations related to border security which precludes CPA from doing that, given the size of the port. Clearly, when this lease was first considered these are questions and issues that should have been addressed in some sort of a due diligence report. To answer that question, CPA has to do its due diligence considering future expansion, actual current port related activities, applicable federal and local laws governing port operations in vetting whether it is even feasible to altogether give up that piece of property.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sen. Jude U. Hofschneider, on behalf of the delegation, expressed their support of the project and asked BIG representative Trenton Conner how the Tinian Legislative Delegation could assist BIG. Conner requested that the Tinian Delegation request for CPA to draft legislation that gives the port the authority to define \u201cport related\u201d activities. King-Hinds responded, that \u201ceven if a law were to pass tomorrow that CPA gets to define \u2018port related\u2019 activities, we can\u2019t tell CRM or DPL how to define port related activities.\u201d<\/p>\n
In concluding the meeting, San Nicolas reiterated the leadership\u2019s support and vowed towork with BIG and other government agencies to find a way to move the project forward. (PR)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tinian Mayor Joey P. San Nicolas called upon the Tinian leadership and Tinian Commonwealth Ports…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4585,124,175,1339],"class_list":["post-242079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-big","tag-cpa","tag-dpl","tag-san-nicolas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242079","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\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242079\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}