![\"Retirees](\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/signing-11.jpg\")
<\/a>Inos is optimistic that an exclusive casino license would be granted soon, giving the CNMI economy a \u201cshot in the arm.\u201d<\/p>\n
The governor signed House Bill 18-195, House Draft 1 into Public Law 18-56 in the presence of mostly retirees who once again trooped to Capital Hill to ensure the bill is enacted to pave the way for a grant of a license, which would trigger the release of $30 million to pay for the retirees\u2019 deferred 25 percent pension and interests on withdrawn defined benefit plan contributions, among other things.<\/p>\n
Inos said retirees and former defined benefit plan members\u2019 efforts to band together \u201cmade a lot of impact\u201d to ensure that the repeal and reenact bill would pass the House of Representatives and the Senate last week.<\/p>\n
Concerned citizen Leila Staffler, meanwhile, said yesterday the legal opinions that they have sought mentioned the \u201chigh possibility\u201d that the newly-signed law will kill the casino and electronic gaming referendum petitions signed by more than 4,200 individuals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis tactic also bears to question that if lawmakers can repeal laws that are being litigated in court, then there really is no justice. A lawmaker can always go in and change a law that they have a liability for while in court,\u201d Staffler told Saipan Tribune when sought for comment.<\/p>\n
Rating<\/strong><\/p>\n Lottery Commission chair Sixto Igisomar said casino investigator B2G Global Strategies and gaming consultant The Innovation Group will be presenting this afternoon a report on their review and investigation of the two casino applications, including the scores they obtained in each of the criteria, including financial capability and business experience in gaming.<\/p>\n The presentation will be held during the Lottery Commission\u2019s meeting at 2pm today at the Pedro P. Tenorio Multi-Purpose Center in Susupe.<\/p>\n The Lottery Commission will meet again tomorrow at 2pm at the same location to, among other things, decide on a \u201ccasino license\u201d as stated in their public notice on Friday.<\/p>\n Law signing<\/strong><\/p>\n On Friday, retirees crowded the governor\u2019s main conference room and the lobby of the governor\u2019s office building on Capital Hill to witness the governor\u2019s scheduled 1pm signing of the repeal and reenact bill. The bill was signed at 1:20pm.<\/p>\n The governor also recognized three individuals for organizing the retirees: Greg \u201cKazuma\u201d Camacho, Clyde Norita, and Joe Aldan. Joe Pangelinan also represented former and active DB plan members.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have proven that we are an important part of the community. We have a powerful voice,\u201d Aldan said, hoping that the same kind of interest and enthusiasm would be seen on other issues affecting retirees.<\/p>\n Norita, for his part, said he\u2019s \u201ctouched\u201d by retirees\u2019 show of force. <\/p>\n \u201cWe won because of our collective efforts,\u201d he said, likening the events of the past months to a sleeping bear that\u2019s been poked several times and will surely \u201croar\u201d and fight back. He said his other disappointment is the lack of action by an existing group that\u2019s supposed to represent the interests of retirees, the Commonwealth Retirees Association.<\/p>\n Lawmakers who pushed for and supported HB 18-195 also spoke, including House Speaker Joseph Deleon Guerrero (Ind-Saipan), Senate vice president Victor Hocog (R-Rota), Sen. Pete Reyes (Ind-Saipan), and bill author House floor leader Ralph Demapan (Cov-Saipan).<\/p>\n Retirees also shared their views, including former representative Joe Palacios and Roman Tudela.<\/p>\n Before the start of the ceremony, retiree Pedro DLG. Pangelinan, 69, told his fellow retirees that in an island community, many of them could be related to lawmakers who did not support the passage of HB 18-195.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t care if they are your relatives\u2014they didn\u2019t want us to get our 25 percent. Why would we give our votes to them? They didn\u2019t support us, why should we support them?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Tony C. Cruz, 66, said he\u2019s happy and relieved that HB 18-195 is now law, so that a casino license could be granted and therefore release $30 million in bank deposit that will be used to pay retirees, among other things.<\/p>\n \u201cUtility bills are too high. I get $643 cut every month, that\u2019s a big amount that could have gone to paying my utilities and food,\u201d he said in an interview.<\/p>\n Cruz also said if the former NMI Retirement Fund was not made into a \u201cloan agency,\u201d there would still be more funds left for retirees. He mentioned that government agencies that owe the Fund money are not being \u201cmade\u201d to pay back.<\/p>\n \u201cWho is monitoring their payment? I heard they owe some $7 million. That would have gone to retirees,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Retirees plan to meet again on other issues, including a possible revival of a cost-of-living adjustment. The governor acknowledged this.<\/p>\n Inos said he will also submit and resubmit to lawmakers as early as this week nominees to the regulatory Casino Commission. He withdrew his three nominations because the 90-day was approaching without a public hearing set for the nominees, plus two of the three nominees declined their nomination.<\/p>\n Referendum petitions<\/strong><\/p>\n Individuals leading the referendum petitions to reject the Saipan casino and electronic gaming laws and instead put them on the ballot have reiterated their concerns about the repeal and reenact bill, especially now that it\u2019s law.<\/p>\n \u201cAlthough the AG has not made a decision as of yet, the legal opinions that we have consulted did make mention of the possibilities, the high possibility, that to repeal and reenact a law makes the law in question moot,\u201d Staffler said.<\/p>\n Their petitions were directly tied to Public Laws 18-43, 18-43, and 18-30. The first two were repealed and reenacted in their entirety as a result of the governor\u2019s signing of HB 18-195 on Friday and Staffler said PLs 18-38 and 18-43 \u201cdo not exist anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe law that is in existence is HB 18-195 [now PL 18-56]. There is no petition for 19- 195. Nor can we get a petition for 18-195 because the due date for petitions to get on this November ballot was Monday last week,\u201d Staffler added.<\/p>\n Options<\/strong><\/p>\n Staffler said there are still options to rally voters again, this time to put something on either during a special election or in the 2016 ballot \u201cwhere we can have an option to allow voters to vote on the issue through a public initiative.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis will require signature gathering from the beginning again and will probably need more than the 4,000 originally gathered. It is a very arduous journey ahead but it is a worthwhile journey because the people deserve to be heard,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Another option, she said, would be for new elected leaders to make amendments to the current law \u201cthat would put it on hold so that people could have a vote in a special election or through a legislative initiative\u2014all of this with the intent to get the consensus of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis will also let us have time to look deeply into what happens when casinos come into a community; to look at the big picture and plan ahead so that our infrastructure, our power grid, and our social outreach is adequate to accommodate an industry such as this. We must plan ahead or we risk making mistakes of our past. And I know we can agree that it is the mistakes of our past that make us so desperate to rush this through in the first place. Again, until the AG disqualifies the petitions, I will pray that we will all get a chance to vote on this issue in November, but I\u2019m not going to hold my breath,\u201d Staffler added. <\/p>\n Authorizing casino operation on Saipan continues to be a divisive issue in the CNMI. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Members of the public can now draw their own conclusions whether Marianas Stars Entertainment Inc….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":41373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94,4],"tags":[182,927,1041,67],"class_list":["post-41364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-local-news","tag-capital-hill","tag-casino-commission","tag-house-bill-18-195","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41364","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\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}