{"id":305849,"date":"2019-08-13T06:00:40","date_gmt":"2019-08-12T20:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=305849"},"modified":"2019-08-13T06:00:40","modified_gmt":"2019-08-12T20:00:40","slug":"new-corrections-commissioner-confirmed-sworn-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/new-corrections-commissioner-confirmed-sworn-in\/","title":{"rendered":"New Corrections commissioner confirmed, sworn in"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Senate has confirmed the appointment of Wally Villagomez as the new commissioner of the Department of Corrections.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_305851\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-305851\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Wally-Villagomez-mug-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-305851\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-305851\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Villagomez<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Voting 7-0, the Senate confirmed Villagomez\u2019s nomination last Friday morning during a session on Capital Hill.<\/p>\n<p>The nomination, according to Senate Executive Appointments and Government Investigation Committee chair Sen. Francisco Cruz (R-Tinian), drew no comments opposing the nomination.<\/p>\n<p>Although Villagomez had been with the Corrections Department for only two and a half months, he has over 19 years of experience in the Department of Public Safety Tinian.<\/p>\n<p>When asked later about his priorities at the department, Villagomez said: \u201c[I want to prioritize] trainings for the staff and getting the CNMI Department of Corrections to the level of correctional institutions in the U.S. mainland.\u201d <\/p>\n<p> \u201cI would also be going out and checking for federal grants to improve the department,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Saipan Tribune previously reported on some of the issues relating to the living environment of inmates at the prison in Susupe. When asked, Villagomez noted that these are also on his to-do list.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am looking actually into all of the issues of the department right now, and I have been working on them day by day,\u201d he told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n<p>According to Villagomez, he used to lead the Correction Department in an acting capacity.<\/p>\n<p>Later in the afternoon, Saipan Tribune learned that the Office of the Governor swore Villagomez into office.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just want to thank the governor and the lieutenant governor, my family, and staff and management of the Department of Corrections for their support, along with the Tinian senators, Tinian Mayor Edwin Aldan, and the Tinian Legislative Delegation,\u201d he said when asked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Senate has confirmed the appointment of Wally Villagomez as the new commissioner of the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":305851,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-305849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305849","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=305849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}