Another member of the Marianas Public Lands Authority board of directors has rescinded his support for the memorandum ordering suspended MPLA commissioner Henry Hofschneider to return to work.<\/p>\n
Board member Nicolas M. Nekai\u2019s decision followed a similar action by his colleague Felix Sasamoto, who had withdrawn his support for the order last Tuesday.<\/p>\n
In a Sept. 22 memo, Nekai said his decision was prompted by \u201cthe complexity of the unnumbered memo,\u201d which he, Sasamoto, and MPLA vice chair Manny Villagomez signed on Sept. 17.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am temporarily rescinding my support and signature until such time that the full board meets to resolve this matter,\u201d Nekai said.<\/p>\n
Some sectors raised concern about the three board members\u2019 order, as it was not agreed upon in a properly noticed meeting. Further, the question over the legality of MPLA chair Ana Demapan-Castro\u2019s suspension of Hofschneider is now pending in the U.S. District Court.<\/p>\n
Demapan-Castro has suspended Hofschneider on July 9 for alleged insubordination. The chair accused the commissioner of wrongdoing when he allowed the Commonwealth Development Authority to alter a requisition document without the board\u2019s approval and consent.<\/p>\n
The suspension, which was supposed to end on July 29, was extended indefinitely.<\/p>\n
However, in the memo dated Sept. 4 and signed on Sept. 17, Nekai, Sasamoto, and Villagomez said their order did not aim to undercut Demapan-Castro\u2019s authority, but was made \u201cin an attempt to stop efforts being wasted about what appears to us as merely a case of miscommunication.\u201d<\/p>\n
The board members maintained that Hofschneider did nothing wrong. They cited findings of \u201cnumerous lawyers and disinterested persons,\u201d including the Office of the Attorney General, the bond counsel, and CDA.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou were right to agree to the CDA\u2019s recommended reduction of the amount to be transferred. The alternative would have been for MPLA to receive no transfer at all. If this had happened, numerous land claim settlements would not have been concluded,\u201d the board members said.<\/p>\n
They also noted that Demapan-Castro acted unilaterally and without lawful authority from the board when she suspended Hofschneider from work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe chairwoman\u2019s suspensions of you were without authority and are hereby rescinded in their entirety. Everything related to your purported suspensions will be removed from your personal folder,\u201d a portion of the memo read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Another member of the Marianas Public Lands Authority board of directors has rescinded his support for the memorandum ordering suspended MPLA commissioner Henry Hofschneider to return to work.<\/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-84333","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\/84333","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=84333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84333\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}