The Issue: Groundbreaking for Tinian airport runway expansion at West Field last weekend.<\/p>\n
Our View: Completion of this project should encourage economic growth for this isle.<\/p>\n
Tinian has long needed to prepare its gateway to roll out the red carpet for economic development. That it is the smallest community in the Marianas Archipelago didn’t dampen the spirit of its people to proactively help itself.<\/p>\n
Its people approved, via a plebiscite, a gaming industry despite all the odds against it. It was a move some critics have characterized as the “bull before the cart”–construction and establishment of a gaming industry–over emplacement of the requisite basic infrastructure. But it was a way to force city hall to pitch-in one way or the other.<\/p>\n
Last weekend, it saw the groundbreaking for its runway expansion. Upon completion, it should open up windows of opportunities for our southern neighbor to move forward with planned economic growth. It’s stunning how its leadership has taken this issue seriously and so far it has succeeded in its quest for wealth and jobs creation. It’s leadership at its best, demonstrating truth to an old maxim: “There’s more than one way to skin a cat”.<\/p>\n
Next, it needs to repair the breakwater at its seaport which requires funding from the US Congress. Never mind the moronic statement from Rep. Diego Benavente (Juan N. Babauta’s runningmate) that he would oppose grant funds for Tinian and Rota. The current House Leadership has better and stronger ties with US Congressional Leadership. A visit to Capitol Hill would help local leadership secure this much needed funds for its dilapidated breakwater.<\/p>\n
It’s appalling how the second man in the Babauta-Benavente team have seen fit to block funds for such a worthy project having commuted to Tinian often as part of a gubernatorial tandem. It’s vindictive politics against the two small island communities. It goes to illustrate, in no uncertain terms, what happens under a suspect leadership whose apparent forte is the scarcity mentality.<\/p>\n
Tinian’s leadership must move on with its plans. You have shown these isles the essence of proactivity on jobs and wealth creation. At least we have a model to emulate in all that entails real leadership. Si Yuus Maase`!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Groundbreaking for Tinian airport runway expansion at West Field last weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53749","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\/53749","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=53749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53749\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}