{"id":409735,"date":"2024-06-04T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-04T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=409735"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"SNILD-confirms-Alinas-appointment-to-Zoning-Board","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/SNILD-confirms-Alinas-appointment-to-Zoning-Board\/","title":{"rendered":"SNILD confirms Alinas\u2019 appointment to Zoning Board"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Saipan and Northern Islands Legislative Delegation unanimously confirmed Eleanor Alinas\u2019 appointment to the Commonwealth Zoning board.<\/p>\n<p>Last Friday, during a SNILD special session, members of the delegation voted in favor of confirming Alinas\u2019 nomination to serve as the Zoning board\u2019s newest board member.<\/p>\n<p>Alinas, who was present with her friends and family, was ecstatic about her confirmation.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with Alinas, she said she is honored and excited to take on her new role and to represent small business owners like herself.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m truly honored and humbled by all the support I\u2019ve gotten. I am excited to make my contribution to bettering the Zoning process for small businesses. My concern is, as a representative of the business community, I am hoping to somehow be a voice for our business sector and possibly make the process smoother for our business community members,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>When asked what her first order of business would be as a new Zoning board member, Alinas said she intends to advocate for a thorough review of the current Zoning laws.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the first things I want to do as a Zoning board member is to see if we can go back and review the Zoning law. The Zoning law in and of itself has certain provisions that don\u2019t apply to us,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn addition, there are provisions that don\u2019t coincide with other agencies. For example, the Cannabis Law. Under the law, you can\u2019t have a cannabis establishment within 150 feet from churches and schools, however, the Zoning law says 300 feet. There\u2019s a blur as far as which law to follow. So, for small businesses, there\u2019s that question of \u2018which law do I abide by.\u2019 So, I think that\u2019s what I\u2019m going to be advocating for, a thorough review of the Zoning laws (to begin with),\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<p>Alinas, who was nominated by Gov. Arnold I. Palacios and Lt. Gov. David M. Apatang, is the president of local catering company Kalayaan Inc.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 480px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/imgupload\/48281c9fb339c06971925ad25e76dda2.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/p>\n<p>The Saipan and Northern Islands Legislative Delegation unanimously confirmed Eleanor Alinas\u2019 appointment to the Commonwealth Zoning board last Friday during a special session.<\/p>\n<p>-KIMBERLY B. ESMORES<br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Saipan and Northern Islands Legislative Delegation unanimously confirmed Eleanor Alinas\u2019 appointment to the Commonwealth&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-409735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409735","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}