{"id":391494,"date":"2023-05-12T06:06:16","date_gmt":"2023-05-11T20:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=391494"},"modified":"2023-05-12T06:06:16","modified_gmt":"2023-05-11T20:06:16","slug":"cnmi-judiciary-disputes-1-6m-of-2-4m-unpaid-utility-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/cnmi-judiciary-disputes-1-6m-of-2-4m-unpaid-utility-services\/","title":{"rendered":"CNMI Judiciary disputes $1.6M  of $2.4M unpaid utility services"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_391528\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-391528\" style=\"width: 960px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Alexandro-C.-Castro-and-Roberto-C.-Naraja.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-391528\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Alexandro-C.-Castro-and-Roberto-C.-Naraja-1024x531.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"498\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-391528\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alexandro C. Castro and Roberto C. Naraja<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>CNMI Supreme Court Chief Justice Alexandro C. Castro and Superior Court Presiding Judge Roberto C. Naraja informed acting CUC executive director Betty G. Terlaje in a letter Wednesday that they are disputing the sum of $1,680,185 for the Guma\u2019 Hustisia building on Saipan.<\/p>\n<p>Specifically, Castro and Naraja said, the Judiciary has been incorrectly charged $774,636 for water and $905,548 for wastewater\/sewer services from July 2022 to the present.<\/p>\n<p>Terlaje sent disconnection notices last May 3 to several government agencies, including the Judiciary, over unpaid utility services as of March 31, 2022.<\/p>\n<p>Terlaje gave the Judiciary until May 18, 2023 to pay or settle the $2,486,634 to avoid power and water disconnection to Judiciary facilities on Saipan, Tinian, and Rota.<\/p>\n<p>In the Judiciary\u2019s response to Terlaje\u2019s notice, Castro and Naraja asked for a meeting to discuss the matter and reach an amicable solution.<\/p>\n<p>Castro and Naraja also pointed out that, beginning in July 2022, the Guma\u2019 Hustisia\u2019s water and sewer usage exponentially spiked\u00a0 and that this was \u201chighly unusual\u201d since their water consumption and sewer discharge had not changed in any significant way to warrant the inexplicable charge.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to July 2022, their monthly water and sewer charges averaged $628 and $500, respectively, they said. Beginning in July 2022 to the present, however, the monthly charges have averaged approximately $77,000 for water and $90,000 for sewer\u2014with their monthly water consumption reportedly going up from 8,877 gallons to 1,633,036 gallons.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis was drastic increase of approximately 18,000%,\u201d said Castro and Naraja, adding that they expect to resolve this discrepancy through CUC\u2019s dispute resolution process.<\/p>\n<p>The Judiciary receives its operations and utilities funds through annual legislative appropriations. Historically, though, the Judiciary has been receiving insufficient amounts to meet these obligations, Castro and Naraja said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe now face the difficult choice to completely shut down judicial operations for our people on Tinian and Rota, and cut family court, drug court, and mental health court services on Saipan,\u201d the two officials said.<\/p>\n<p>They said they dispute CUC\u2019s meter reading beginning in July 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CNMI Supreme Court Chief Justice Alexandro C. Castro and Superior Court Presiding Judge Roberto C&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":391528,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[244],"class_list":["post-391494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-utility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391494","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=391494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}