Concerned citizen Cripsin Ogo is organizing farmers and other stakeholders who have worked with NMC\u2019s Cooperative Research Extension and Education Services to speak their concerns over the recent departure of its dean and director, Ross Manglona, at an upcoming Board of Regents meeting.<\/p>\n
Ogo said he has spoken to concerned individuals on island as well as Rota and Tinian and that four people have confirmed their desire to speak to the board this Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re on a roll,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said he would personally like to know why Manglona, who according to him \u201cpractically lived with NMC,\u201d was let go despite his successes in the community and providing funding for his division. <\/p>\n
In contention is the status of Manglona\u2019s relationship with the college. Last week, according to Manglona, he was escorted from the college by security. As per policy, the college declined to speak on personnel matters but assured in a statement that an interim director would be appointed vice Manglona. <\/p>\n
In an interview last week, Manglona claimed that the college\u2019s intention was to essentially terminate him without technically doing so. He claimed he was placed on paid administrative leave as a form of compensation for the college\u2019s plan to let him go. He said he was let go prior to the 30-day notice period given to employees whose contracts would not be renewed.<\/p>\n
A college employee who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity said the CREES program \u201cflourished\u201d under Manglona\u2019s leadership, citing developments in agriculture, aquaculture, and food processing, among others.<\/p>\n
In a phone interview, a farmer who asked not to be identified expressed doubt in the ability of Manglona\u2019s replacement to work with locals.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we bring the guy from outside, is that guy gonna help us? I don\u2019t think so. I can\u2019t just pick up a phone and say, \u2018Mr. So-and-so, can you come and check because my tilapia cannot breed.\u201d<\/p>\n
She hopes that any issues between Manglona and the college can be worked out. \u201cI hope they bring back again si Ross,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Another farmer, who also declined to be named because of a contractual relationship with the college, said he worked with Ogo in contacting as many as 16 individuals to share their concerns this Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to know the reason why. Nobody knows. Even Ross Manglona doesn\u2019t know the reason why his contract was not renewed.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the end, he hopes that Manglona returns to the college as he is \u201cdoing a pretty good job as director.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Ogo, the college requested a meeting to discuss the issue with him earlier this week. However, he declined because \u201cthe word was already out\u201d to farmers and concerned citizens that they would be speaking together at the board meeting on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Concerned citizen Cripsin Ogo is organizing farmers and other stakeholders who have worked with NMC\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[42,69,67],"class_list":["post-43056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-food","tag-nmc","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43056","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\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43056\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}