A new commissioner has assumed office at the Marianas Public Lands Authority since last Friday.<\/p>\n
The appointment of former Public Works secretary Edward Guerrero took effect on Oct. 8. He replaced Henry Hofschneider, who was suspended last July 9 for alleged subordination and who has a pending lawsuit against MPLA in the U.S. District Court over his suspension.<\/p>\n
MPLA deputy commissioner Frank Eliptico had acted as the top administration official at Public Lands following Hofschneider\u2019s suspension.<\/p>\n
MPLA chair Ana Demapan-Castro and attorney Mark Smith, who is handling MPLA\u2019s case against Hofschneider, refused to comment on the current status of Hofschneider\u2019s employment with the agency.<\/p>\n
The Saipan Tribune made several calls to the agency yesterday, during which MPLA staff confirmed Guerrero\u2019s appointment. Saipan Tribune also tried\u2014but failed\u2014to reach Hofsch-neider and his legal counsel, Sean Frink, for their comment.<\/p>\n
Last July 9, Demapan-Castro issued a suspension order against Hofschneider for alleged insubordination, citing the commissioner\u2019s decision to allow the Commonwealth Development Authority to alter a requisition document without the board\u2019s approval and consent.<\/p>\n
The document is related to the transfer of MPLA funds at the Bank of Guam to pay for land compensation claims. Hofschneider allegedly allowed the CDA to alter the amount of funds being transferred from $216,322 to $134,695.91 without specific information as to whom the revised drawdown amount is intended to compensate.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny alteration without the board\u2019s approval is grounds for disciplinary action,\u201d Demapan-Castro said in the suspension order.<\/p>\n
Demapan-Castro also cited as an act of insubordination Hofschneider\u2019s \u201cabrupt departure\u201d from an MPLA meeting last July 2 and his failure to return.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile issues were being discussed, you got up from your chair, slammed the door, and left the room. I tried to speak to you, but you refused to listen,\u201d she said in the memorandum.<\/p>\n
For his part, Hofschneider said he committed no violation by allowing Ada to deduct $81,626.09 from the requisition document.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor your information, requisitions for fund drawdown are prepared at my call and are not subject to\u2026[the] MPLA [board\u2019s] approval. For example, Requisition Nos. FY04-01, FY04-02, and FY04-03 were all prepared at my instructions and sent to the Secretary of Finance for his concurrence and then to CDA, without the board of MPLA ever approving any one of them,\u201d Hofschneider said in a letter to the Attorney General\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
Hofschneider has also disputed his suspension by filing a case against MPLA at the U.S. District Court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A new commissioner has assumed office at the Marianas Public Lands Authority since last Friday.<\/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-84783","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\/84783","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=84783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}