{"id":244048,"date":"2017-01-09T06:06:36","date_gmt":"2017-01-08T20:06:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=244048"},"modified":"2017-01-09T06:06:36","modified_gmt":"2017-01-08T20:06:36","slug":"apatang-nominate-tudela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/apatang-nominate-tudela\/","title":{"rendered":"Apatang to nominate Tudela"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"David<\/a>
David M. Apatang<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nSaipan Mayor David M. Apatang plans to nominate Saipan and Northern Islands Municipal Council chair Antonia Tudela to serve a seventh straight term as councilor, alongside elected councilors Diego Kaipat and L.J. Castro.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be nominating Antonia Tudela to the vacant position at the Saipan and Northern Islands Municipal Council. She\u2019s been there at the municipal council for a long time already and she\u2019s got experience. As a matter of fact, she is the chairperson at this time. Also, while I was away on personal leave, she\u2019s been acting mayor,\u201d said Apatang in an interview with Saipan Tribune last Friday at the Saipan Mayor\u2019s Office in Oleai.<\/p>\n

The Saipan mayor said it\u2019s almost a no-brainer for him to nominate Tudela.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no problem with her. She\u2019s a good councilwoman. She\u2019s also very active. The Northern Islands mayor also nominated her,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Tudela said she\u2019s humbled with Apatang and Northern Islands Mayor Jerome Aldan\u2019s gestures to nominate her for the vacant post at the council.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy term is already ending. If the mayors appoint me, it\u2019s going to be my seventh. I already served 12 years. I\u2019ve been chairperson before, vice chair, as well as secretary. I\u2019m very happy mayor Apatang and mayor [Jerome] Aldan are thinking of appointing me. I\u2019m really overwhelmed with that,\u201d she told Saipan Tribune during an interview last Friday at the Kiosku Round House in Chalan Kanoa.<\/p>\n

The Northern Islands Legislative Delegation will have to approve Tudela\u2019s nomination.
\n

\"Antonia<\/a>
Antonia Tudela<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nThe 14th Saipan and Northern Islands Municipal Council will hold its first organizational session today, Jan. 9, at the Kiosku Round House in Chalan Kanoa.<\/p>\n

The event will have Kaipat and Castro taking their oaths of office. That will also serve as the end of Tudela\u2019s term as chairwoman and councilor of the 13th Saipan and Northern Islands Municipal Council. Apatang already confirmed that as soon as that happens he will immediately nominate Tudela to the vacant post.<\/p>\n

Only Castro and Kaipat ran for the three positions available for the council during the 2016 general elections. The former topped the vote with 8,308 votes; the latter got 7,004. <\/p>\n

Alice Igitol, who is the current vice chair, won a seat in the House of Representatives in the same polls, while Reina Camacho opted not to run for another term. Tudela failed to file her certificate of candidacy as she had a health scare in Guam.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went to Rota for a meeting and I got sick. I was on Rota because we had a meeting with all the mayors of the CNMI and Guam. On my way back I had to transit to Guam and I felt sick,\u201d Tudela told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went to a hospital and the doctor told me to take the medicine and said it looked like I was going to have pneumonia,\u201d she said, adding that she failed to come back to Saipan to file her candidacy because she decided to prioritize her health first. \u201cEspecially at my age.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tudela said she\u2019s now fit as a fiddle and is raring to make a comeback.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m OK now and I\u2019m coming back. We don\u2019t get paid and it\u2019s voluntary. It\u2019s in my blood to help the people and assist the community. As long as I have my health I will continue to work at the municipal council,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Tudela said her track record also speaks for itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe accomplished a lot, like helping continue the Neighborhood Watch, collaboration with the Northern Marianas Trades Institute, and government agencies like the Office of Indigenous Affairs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She no longer plans to seek the council\u2019s chairmanship.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think those two have decided. I will give them\u2014Castro and Kaipat\u2014the chance [to lead] because they\u2019re elected. I think there\u2019s an agreement between the two of them already who\u2019s going to be the chair. It\u2019s going to be through acclimation. I\u2019m very happy to support whoever becomes the chairman.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saipan Mayor David M. Apatang plans to nominate Saipan and Northern Islands Municipal Council chair…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":244065,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[2189,51,55,38],"class_list":["post-244048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-antonia-tudela","tag-guam","tag-health-2","tag-saipan-tribune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244048","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\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}