{"id":328814,"date":"2020-08-28T06:00:50","date_gmt":"2020-08-27T20:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=328814"},"modified":"2020-08-28T06:00:50","modified_gmt":"2020-08-27T20:00:50","slug":"funding-available-to-improve-beach-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/funding-available-to-improve-beach-road\/","title":{"rendered":"Funding available to improve Beach Road"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Motorists seemingly running a slalom along Beach Road could finally be a thing of the past as the long stretch of the main thoroughfare from American Memorial Park to Pacific Islands Club Saipan in San Antonio will finally be improved and smoothened.  <\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_328815\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-328815\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Blanco-pix-Blanco-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-328815\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-328815\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Blanco<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>House Ways and Means Committee chair Rep. Ivan A. Blanco (R-Saipan) disclosed Wednesday that funding for the Beach Road improvement project would come from the Northern Marianas Housing Corp.\u2019s Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Program<\/p>\n<p>He also said some $700,000 from same funding source will be used for a mitigation project to address flooding along Oleai Street next to San Jose Street.<\/p>\n<p>Blanco said they\u2019re discussing with the Department of Public Works and NMHC about the potential millions of dollars in funding from the CDBG-DRR for the two projects.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo that\u2019s good news,\u201d said the lawmaker, adding that there are just details that need to be worked out between the Economic Development Administration and NMHC.<\/p>\n<p>He said he believes EDA will approve the funding for the two projects.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo  now, NMHC and DPW need to work with the environmental assessment,\u201d Blanco said.<\/p>\n<p>The lawmaker said if there won\u2019t be any environmental impacts that would affect the neighboring areas or any wildlife, then they can go ahead and move along with that funding.<\/p>\n<p>NMHC is currently working with DPW to begin the environmental  assessment phase  of  these projects, among others.<\/p>\n<p>He said for Beach Road, it is resurfacing and compacting to make it smoother and would include resurfacing and road markings. <\/p>\n<p>On flood mitigation of Chili Street in Oleai, the work includes elevation to correct street grade paving and improve drainage in and around the San Jose Church. <\/p>\n<p>Speaker Blas Jonathan \u201cBJ\u201d Tenorio Attao and fellow Precinct 3 representatives also expressed their full support for the NMHC and DPW for identifying priority projects in the precinct area. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am pleased that federal monies have been made available through NMHC\u2019s Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Program to fund the following priority projects,\u201d Attao said.<\/p>\n<p>The speaker said he and Reps. Jose Itibus (R-Saipan), Edmund Villagomez (Ind-Saipan), Ralph Yumul (R-Saipan), Marco Peter (R-Saipan), and Blanco  have been \u201cworking tirelessly to secure funding for  these priority projects.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Attao said he appreciates everyone\u2019s patience as securing  full funding remains a challenge.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith this federal funding opportunity from EDA, I am pleased we can move forward with our partnership with the NMHC and DPW teams,\u201d said Attao. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Motorists seemingly running a slalom along Beach Road could finally be a thing of the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":328739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[160],"class_list":["post-328814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-beach-road"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328814","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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}