{"id":395245,"date":"2023-07-04T06:04:19","date_gmt":"2023-07-03T20:04:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=395245"},"modified":"2023-07-04T06:04:19","modified_gmt":"2023-07-03T20:04:19","slug":"cuc-board-affirms-peavey-termination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/cuc-board-affirms-peavey-termination\/","title":{"rendered":"CUC board affirms Peavey termination"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Commonwealth Utilities Corp. board chair Janice A. Tenorio presides over a CUC board meeting yesterday morning, during which the board unanimously ratified Tenorio\u2019s decision last April 24 to terminate Dr. Dallas M. Peavey Jr. as acting CUC executive director and as deputy director for electric power systems. (FERDIE DE LA TORRE)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. board of directors unanimously ratified yesterday the termination of Dr. Dallas M. Peavey Jr. as deputy director for CUC\u2019s electric power systems and as acting executive director.<\/p>\n

All five board members present at yesterday\u2019s meeting\u2014chair Janice A. Tenorio, vice chair Donald R. Browne, secretary and treasurer Allen Michael Perez, director Rufo Mafnas, and Commonwealth Economic Development Authority chair Frank Borja\u2014 voted \u201cyes\u201d to a motion to ratify Peavey\u2019s termination effective last April 24. Board member Simon Sanchez was absent.<\/p>\n

Before the voting, CUC legal counsel Hunter Hunt said they discussed during the board\u2019s executive session that day the recent CUC administrative hearing on Peavey\u2019s appeal. Hunt said the motion to ratify just probably provides a better summary of what was discussed at the executive session.<\/p>\n

He said he basically apprised the board of the course of Peavey\u2019s termination and that the board will now take action.<\/p>\n

Perez offered the motion to ratify to the extent that Peavey\u2019s termination of requires a vote of the full CUC board directors.<\/p>\n

With all five board members voting \u201cyes,\u201d the board unanimously approved Peavey\u2019s termination as acting executive director and deputy director for electric power systems effective April 24.<\/p>\n

It was Tenorio, who was then the CUC board chair pro tem last April 24, who fired Peavey. She informed Gov. Arnold I. Palacios and Lt. Gov. David M. Apatang in a letter that same day that she and CUC\u2019s Human Resources staff became aware that Peavey had \u201cexhibited dishonesty and a lack of candor\u201d in his application to serve as deputy director for electric power systems.<\/p>\n

In response to Saipan Tribune\u2019s questions after the board meeting yesterday, Hunt said an attorney representing Peavey filed the appeal. Hunt said Peavey, however, did not appear at the administrative hearing and the attorney then withdrew from the appeal. Hunter said the attorney only appeared at the first status conference. He did not identify the lawyer.<\/p>\n

Even without Peavey and his lawyer appearing at the administrative hearing, the proceeding continued before hearing officer Jacqueline A. Nicolas.<\/p>\n

Hunt said Nicolas, who is a Labor chief administrative hearing officer, served as the administrative hearing officer in Peavey\u2019s case pursuant to a memorandum of understanding between CUC and Labor.<\/p>\n

Hunt said the Administrative Procedure Act allows a hearing officer to require the proponent of an agency action to present the case even if it\u2019s uncontested.<\/p>\n

Hunt said Nicolas adjudicated the appeal for three days, including the scheduling conference. He said Nicolas has yet to come out with a ruling.<\/p>\n

As to the question why the board has to ratify the termination when Nicolas has yet to issue a ruling, Hunt said there was a question as to which rule applies because Peavey\u2019s situation \u201cis a little bit anomalous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was an acting executive director and so the rules are somewhat silent on the removal of an acting executive director. So to the extent that a full board action is required, the board voted today to ratify the decision of the chair,\u201d Hunter said.<\/p>\n

As to the question whether Tenorio can terminate Peavey as deputy director for electric power systems by herself, Hunt said he can\u2019t discuss that as it\u2019s a contractual issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. board of directors unanimously ratified yesterday the termination of Dr. Dallas…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":395246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[49],"class_list":["post-395245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-cuc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395245","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=395245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}