The Department of Public Lands has called the Legislature out, saying the latter negotiated with a private telecommunications company on the extensions of their lots in As Gonno, Garapan, and Chacha without the department\u2019s involvement.<\/p>\n
In a letter to House Committee on Natural Resources chair Rep. Alice Igitol (R-Saipan) dated May 18, 2018, DPL Secretary Marianne Teregeyo said that in PTI\u2019s request for extension, the Legislature negotiated for new terms \u201cdirectly with the current lessee.\u201d PTI is the old name of IT&E.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt appears that PTI agreed to pay increased rent during the renewal period, consistent with new appraisals of the properties,\u201d Teregeyo wrote. She added that the \u201cprocess established under Commonwealth law\u201d typically set renewals or extensions as an increase in the length of the leases but not as a means to \u201calter the terms\u201d of the lease.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the Legislature disagrees with granting such extension or renewal, the Legislature may reject the extension or renewal and DPL will begin the process of entering into a new lease for the subject property,\u201d Teregeyo wrote. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn this situation, the Legislature decided to negotiate for new terms directly with the current lessee, and without the involvement of DPL,\u201d said Teregeyo.<\/p>\n
According to documents obtained by Saipan Tribune, Igitol, in a letter dated May 29, 2018, denied the claims of negotiating without the involvement of DPL. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe wish to set the record straight. The Legislature did not negotiate new lease terms with PTI. The Legislature simply requested PTI to provide a new appraisal report. The incorporated higher rental rates are PTI\u2019s decision [and was made] without the Legislature\u2019s involvement,\u201d Igitol wrote to Teregeyo.<\/p>\n
Igitol\u2019s committee on May 8, 2018, rejected the proposed lease renewals as proposed by DPL, which included an appraisal report done back in 2015. <\/p>\n
The committee\u2019s concern was that the value of the properties under PTI has risen substantially since 2015, urging the committee to request for a new appraisal report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Department of Public Lands has called the Legislature out, saying the latter negotiated with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[175,14696,9467,6052],"class_list":["post-277411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-dpl","tag-house-committee","tag-natural-resources","tag-pti"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277411","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\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}