Food For Thought 10-2-08
Hi friends, this is Harry Blalock; General Manager for radio stations KZMI & KCNM. It’s that time once again to take a look at the issues of the week, and to offer some Food For Thought.
I’ve had some people criticize me recently for never looking at the positive side of things, and just pointing out the negative. Well, I’ve decided to remedy that today and share some good news with you. I’m sure you will be thrilled to know that our legislature has come up with a plan for Commonwealth Utilities Corporation. And I think I can say with a certain amount of certainty that they must have done their homework ahead of time and spent a lot of time putting together a fool proof plan. Now you may be thinking that I’ve finally lost it, or that I went too deep while diving a few too many times, or maybe that I was in a car accident and got thrown through the windshield head first into a taotaomona tree. But before you draw any hasty conclusions, hear me out here and see if you don’t have to agree with my logic.
Our legislature came up with a bill to privatize CUC, and they managed to do it without any outside help, advice, expertise or public hearings. Now it’s not that they didn’t have people coming to them offering to help. It is my understanding that Simon Sanchez from Guam and some of his colleagues from Guam Power Authority came over to talk to them, and share what they did on Guam, and even offered to help them with putting together a plan and helping out in the bidding process. They even offered some input on the privatization bill that the legislature was considering, telling them how to avoid certain pitfalls that were obvious in the legislation, like the $250 million price tag. Our legislative geniuses said “thanks, but no thanks”. Well, I’m assuming they said thanks first, but maybe not, maybe they just said no thanks.
One of the things I found most interesting in Simon Sanchez’s talk to the Chamber of Commerce last Wednesday was the comment that if we switched over to generators that burned heavy oil, or RFO, residual fuel oil, we would save enough money in one year to not only pay for all the new generators, but that we’d even have a savings of $30 million in the first year alone. Could I possibly have heard that right? We would save enough money to buy brand new generators, and pay for them in the first year through fuel savings over what we are spending now, and still have an additional savings of $30 million? Did you know that even with the escalating price of fuel, Guam is still only paying .25 cents a kilowatt hour? I don’t know about you, but this information makes me really excited to see just how amazing our legislatures plan must be! I mean it’s got to be much better than what Guam is doing right? Otherwise it would be a no brainer to not go with their recommendation and save $30 million the first year and have brand spanking new generators. And evidently, our legislature has a better plan than burning heavy oil, as there was no stipulation that whatever company won the bid would convert to burning heavy oil to save us money. I sure hope that part of their plan wasn’t based on geckos farting out money – that was just a fairy tale, did they not get that?
The Governor didn’t like this privatization bill, and vetoed it claiming that the $250 million purchase price would simply be passed along to consumers, and would result in even higher power rates than we’re currently experiencing. He also didn’t like the fact that it reinstated another autonomous board to oversee the utility company. But the legislature, this bunch of financial and power generation experts decided they knew better than the Governor, and overrode his veto. They didn’t care that the $250 million dollar purchase price would raise your rates; all they cared about was getting some money to be able to appropriate to such things as fishing derbies, additional baseball fields they could name after relatives, and countless other projects that would ensure their re-election once again. So obviously there must be something that we’re all missing here and that only the legislature is privy to, that’s the only thing that makes any sense. Surely they wouldn’t sell us all out and make us all pay higher rates just so they’d have more money to play with, would they? No, I have to believe that’s simply not possible, they were elected to represent us, and I’m sure that is primarily what motivates them and dictates their decisions.
And another thing that convinces me that the legislature must have a very good plan and not need anybody else’s help is the fact that when Nick Pula, from the Office of Insular Affairs was here last week, he told the legislature that they should probably rethink their override of the Governor’s veto if they really wanted financial assistance from the Interior Department to pay for the overhauls of engines 7 & 5. Now it is my understanding that he didn’t come right out and say, if you override the Governor’s veto of that bill, you can kiss any money from us to overhaul those engines goodbye. He was trying to be diplomatically correct and drop hints, letting them know that they needed to read between the lines, and that time was running out, and they’d better have a very good, plausible plan if they wanted any financial help. So I guess we have to either assume that these guys are not so good at reading between the lines, if they can indeed read at all, or that they got the message, but were sending a message of their own back to Washington. That message would be, “keep your money, we don’t need it anyway, we’ve got a better plan!” So again, while some might be worried about sending that kind of a message to Washington, I’m not worried at all, I know it means that our legislators must have a much better plan, and we truly don’t need any financial help from Washington. I sure hope that they’ve told Tony Muna their plan though, because last I knew, he was still counting on that money from the Department of the Interior to overhaul engines 7&5. I hope their plan isn’t really counting on mouse powered power generation plants, that was just a fairy tale. It wasn’t meant to be used as the new blueprint for privatization of CUC; surely they knew that, right? So thanks for the trip out here Mr. Pula, and thanks for patting us all on the back and congratulating us, but we don’t need your money, really. Well, at least we don’t think we need your money. Wait, should someone go and check with Tony Muna first? Nah, what am I thinking, our financial wizards and power plant experts in the legislature have things completely under control, they know exactly what they’re doing.
Well, this privatization plan must be an impressive one if it means we can finally stand on our own two feet and thumb our noses at the federal government. And one of the most impressive aspects of it is that we can count on it being not only bid out and awarded with no objections filed, but that we can count on the new company coming in and having new generators to replace the Aggreko generators in less than one year, when the Aggreko contract expires. That’s definitely an ambitious and impressive time line, but surely these guys wouldn’t play games when we are under a time deadline like that, would they? You don’t think they took that part of the fairy tale seriously about gecko powered generators do you? Wait, that couldn’t be why that old white haired guy was running around chasing geckos with a butterfly net the other day, could it? No, now that I think about it, I think they were chasing him with a butterfly net and a white jacket, never mind.
I think it’s become quite clear that there are many of us who have been too hard on this legislature, and harshly judged them for not listening to outside experts, for not holding public hearings regarding the privatization of CUC, for telling the Department of the Interior that we don’t need their money, and for not knowing what they were doing. So let me be the first to say, I’m sorry if I jumped to any wrong conclusions, I’m sorry if I’m not smart enough to follow the logic in your flawless plan, and I’m sorry that I didn’t have the faith to believe that you guys finally got your act together and are truly acting in the best interest of the people of the CNMI. I am very excited to watch this plan come together and to put a stop to all the nay-Sayers, myself included. I am so glad that you have a plan that will save us more than $30 million in the next year in fuel costs and still have paid for all new generators. I am thrilled that we can tell the feds we don’t need or want your money; we have a plan of our own, so thanks but no thanks. And most of all, I’m thankful that you have once again given us a reason to respect you and to accord you all the honor that is due you. But of course this would not apply to the 3 legislators that did not vote for the override, Representatives Tina Sablan, Ed Salas and Francisco Dela Cruz.
Now there may be some that hear or read this and might accuse me of sarcasm. But the only ones who could possibly think such a thing would be those who don’t believe all the things I’ve just praised the majority of our legislature for. And surely none of the legislators would, with a few possible exceptions. So bring on the plan I say, show all of us that you truly do know better than everyone else. I can’t think of a better time to prove me wrong and put me in my place once and for all. So thank you legislature for ignoring everyone else and for sticking to your guns, I know it couldn’t have been easy to ignore that many people. Thank you for taking the time to come up with a superior plan that blows all the others out of the water. And thank you for restoring honor and respect to your body. I know that I for one plan on giving you all the honor and respect you have earned from this point forward. I’ve learned my lesson!
Food For Thought is now available online at www.fftsaipan.blogspot.com and if you want it by e-mail distribution please send me an e-mail at harryblalock@gmail.com
I’m Harry Blalock, thanking you once again for giving me a generous slice of your valuable time, and allowing me to share my Food For Thought.
Showing posts with label CUC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CUC. Show all posts
Friday, October 3, 2008
Friday, September 5, 2008
Fitial's Fabulous Plan
Food For Thought 9-5-08
Hi friends, this is Harry Blalock; General Manager for radio stations KZMI & KCNM. It’s that time once again to take a look at the issues of the week, and to offer some Food For Thought.
You can see the relief on people’s faces the last few days, most of them were able to get a good uninterrupted night’s sleep because there weren’t any power outages in the middle of the night. Commonwealth Utilities Corporation managed to get another of their generators up and running, so they were now able to produce enough electricity to move away from the three hour, three times a day schedule they had supposedly been following for the previous week and a half or so. But before you get too excited and put too much hope in the Aggreko generators that are supposed to be up and running by September 13th, I think it’s important that you understand a few things.
Tony Muna, the Executive Director for CUC spoke to the Saipan Rotary Club this past Tuesday and gave us an update on the situation and answered questions. He explained that Power Plant 1 was down to only one functioning generator at the time. It is a generator that should be producing 16 megawatts, but was currently only producing slightly over 4 megawatts. He said they just brought another engine online that morning that should hopefully allow them to cut down on the outage schedule. So these two generators that were being operated by CUC should have been producing 32 megawatts, but were only producing 8 megawatts between them. That’s good old fashioned CUC efficiency for you. At that point PMIC, which operates power plant #4 was producing 15 megawatts of power, even though they are only contracted to provide 10. That meant we had 23 available megawatts to meet a demand of 41 megawatts.
Nothing was mentioned about power plant #2, which was in the news recently because of the contract with CISCO, even though not a single generator is operating there currently. At this point I think it is probably worth pointing out what that contract was all about, and why even after spending all that money on a contract, we still have no operating generators at that power plant. CISCO was only supposed to supply parts for the generators and offer expertise in repairing the generators, but CUC employees were actually supposed to do the work, install the parts and get the generators up and running. So after spending all that money, and getting the parts delivered, once again the brilliant minds in charge of CUC decided that instead of having their employees actually install the parts and repair the generators, they would keep them working on the generators at power plant #1. Now you may ask yourself why CUC entered into that contract in the first place, if they didn’t have available manpower to install the parts and get the generators up and running, or why they didn’t just contract to have CISCO install the parts themselves and be responsible for getting the generators operational again? I guess you could ask the board that oversees CUC why they allowed such a foolish decision to be made. Oh wait, Governor Fitial did away with that board didn’t he? So does that mean he is ultimately responsible for that huge screw up involving the CISCO contract and the fact that we still have no operating generators there? Even though he may not have personally made the decision himself, he is ultimately responsible for all decisions made by CUC since it falls directly under his office now, isn’t he? Thanks a lot Governor; we could have really used the power provided by those generators at power plant #2 recently. Maybe he didn’t really care that much since we found out recently that we’ve been paying his utility bills for him and for the Lt. Governor as well, and since the blackouts don’t seem to affect his area very much.
So why don’t the Governor and Lt. Governor have to pay for their utility bills at their houses like you and I do? Do they think that just because the utility bills would be paid for if they lived in the official residences that they should be paid for even though they’ve elected to stay in their own mansions instead? We aren’t forcing them to stay in their private residences; they are more than welcome to stay in the government provided residences with the utilities included there. But when you elect to stay in your own private residence because it is so much plusher and fancy than the official governor’s residence, you should pay your own utility bill like any other citizen. After all, it takes quite a bit more electricity to keep your private swimming pool nice and clean. And why did the Lt. Governor’s utility bill jump from 1700 kilowatts a month before the government started paying his bill for him to over 5,000 kilowatts a month when the he got his electricity for free? Did he start just turning on every single electric appliance and air conditioner in his house and let them just run all the time for the heck of it? What happened to the conservation they were telling the rest of us we had to practice? Or is it possible that some of his relatives that live in the same compound could have had their electricity run through his meter, so they could get free electricity too? I have no idea, but I do think it’s something worth looking into, for those with inquiring minds.
I’ve gotten sidetracked though; let’s get back to the state of CUC. So the Aggreko generators are scheduled to be online and producing 15 megawatts of power by September 12th. Again, this is a 6 month rental contract that will cost CUC $500,000 a month. They will be paying for that with the interest income from MPLT investments in 2009 - 2010. I think they are living in Never Never Land, and just don’t have a clue. One thing you need to understand right now is that when CUC says they repaired a generator and have it up and running again, it doesn’t mean they have overhauled it and that it’s now as good as new, it means they’ve replaced the broken part to get it running again, but they still haven’t fixed the problems that caused the failure in the first place, so it will just be a matter of time before it happens again. In fact this administration has done exactly the same thing the last administration did; it has totally neglected the maintenance schedules for the engines and generators. They still haven’t done a single overhaul, they are simply providing band aid fixes and repairs, so these engines will continue to constantly break down and fail because the core problems aren’t being addressed or fixed. That’s also why these generators are only producing a fraction of the power they are capable of producing and why they are so inefficient.
The Governor chastised Pete A. Tenorio for wanting to tell the federal authorities that we are in the middle of a humanitarian crisis as a result of our power situation. He said the situation is much worse after a typhoon and we’ve come through those in the past, and besides, he has a plan. First of all, the problems after a typhoon are distinctly different from the problems being currently experienced by CUC. After a typhoon, you have to deal with trees that have fallen on power lines, downed power lines and distribution problems. It’s just a matter of chasing down all the various distribution lines, and clearing them or replacing them, but once you’ve done that, you’re good to go. Our problems right now have nothing to do with distribution; they are the result of total failure of our power generation system. If that’s not a crisis, I don’t know what is. You didn’t exactly reinforce your credibility by making that statement Governor; you just proved how out of touch with the situation you really are.
Their plan is to put out Requests For Proposal for private companies to overhaul and rehabilitate the engines and generators. Have they forgotten that they can’t seem to actually produce an RFP that isn’t plagued by challenges and delays? Didn’t they just have to cancel the RFP for renewable energy? They plan on having all of this completed during the 6 months that Aggreko is providing the supplemental power. Have they forgotten how much lead time they need to order parts and have them manufactured? Where do they think they are going to come up with the money to have the engines overhauled? Do they have extra money now that they’ve stopped buying so much Rydlyme? Do they think the feds are just going to give it to them and trust them to do the right thing with it, without having a competent and experienced project manager overseeing everything? Tony Muna is an accountant, remember? Is he really qualified to oversee the overhauling of engines and generators? Does he really know what needs to be considered in the contracts? Can he do a better job of the contract that his predecessor did with the CISCO contract?
And in order for this plan to work, with reliable 24 hour power in the meantime, it means that the engines and generators CUC has working right now with their band aid repairs have to continue operating with no breakdowns. What do you think the odds of that happening are? If I was a gambler, I’d set some pretty long odds on that one. So now that you know the real situation and this administration’s plan, do you feel better about things? Are you confident in their abilities to actually pull this off? How do you feel about the Governor and Lt. Governor getting free power and not having to conserve anything, while you and I continue to have to turn off air conditioners even when we do have power just because we simply can’t afford to run them anymore? They’ve had nearly 3 years now, are you enjoying the Better Times? Do you feel they’ve made good decisions regarding the utility company, since it is directly under their control now? Have you appreciated the lower rates they promised before they took office and the consistent, reliable power? Looking back I realize we couldn’t really believe any of their promises or what they told us, and I’m not thinking we should put much stock in this new plan or the current batch of promises either, but then again, that’s just me!
Food For Thought is now available online at www.fftsaipan.blogspot.com and if you want it by e-mail distribution please send me an e-mail at harryblalock@gmail.com
I’m Harry Blalock, thanking you once again for giving me a generous slice of your valuable time, and allowing me to share my Food For Thought.
Hi friends, this is Harry Blalock; General Manager for radio stations KZMI & KCNM. It’s that time once again to take a look at the issues of the week, and to offer some Food For Thought.
You can see the relief on people’s faces the last few days, most of them were able to get a good uninterrupted night’s sleep because there weren’t any power outages in the middle of the night. Commonwealth Utilities Corporation managed to get another of their generators up and running, so they were now able to produce enough electricity to move away from the three hour, three times a day schedule they had supposedly been following for the previous week and a half or so. But before you get too excited and put too much hope in the Aggreko generators that are supposed to be up and running by September 13th, I think it’s important that you understand a few things.
Tony Muna, the Executive Director for CUC spoke to the Saipan Rotary Club this past Tuesday and gave us an update on the situation and answered questions. He explained that Power Plant 1 was down to only one functioning generator at the time. It is a generator that should be producing 16 megawatts, but was currently only producing slightly over 4 megawatts. He said they just brought another engine online that morning that should hopefully allow them to cut down on the outage schedule. So these two generators that were being operated by CUC should have been producing 32 megawatts, but were only producing 8 megawatts between them. That’s good old fashioned CUC efficiency for you. At that point PMIC, which operates power plant #4 was producing 15 megawatts of power, even though they are only contracted to provide 10. That meant we had 23 available megawatts to meet a demand of 41 megawatts.
Nothing was mentioned about power plant #2, which was in the news recently because of the contract with CISCO, even though not a single generator is operating there currently. At this point I think it is probably worth pointing out what that contract was all about, and why even after spending all that money on a contract, we still have no operating generators at that power plant. CISCO was only supposed to supply parts for the generators and offer expertise in repairing the generators, but CUC employees were actually supposed to do the work, install the parts and get the generators up and running. So after spending all that money, and getting the parts delivered, once again the brilliant minds in charge of CUC decided that instead of having their employees actually install the parts and repair the generators, they would keep them working on the generators at power plant #1. Now you may ask yourself why CUC entered into that contract in the first place, if they didn’t have available manpower to install the parts and get the generators up and running, or why they didn’t just contract to have CISCO install the parts themselves and be responsible for getting the generators operational again? I guess you could ask the board that oversees CUC why they allowed such a foolish decision to be made. Oh wait, Governor Fitial did away with that board didn’t he? So does that mean he is ultimately responsible for that huge screw up involving the CISCO contract and the fact that we still have no operating generators there? Even though he may not have personally made the decision himself, he is ultimately responsible for all decisions made by CUC since it falls directly under his office now, isn’t he? Thanks a lot Governor; we could have really used the power provided by those generators at power plant #2 recently. Maybe he didn’t really care that much since we found out recently that we’ve been paying his utility bills for him and for the Lt. Governor as well, and since the blackouts don’t seem to affect his area very much.
So why don’t the Governor and Lt. Governor have to pay for their utility bills at their houses like you and I do? Do they think that just because the utility bills would be paid for if they lived in the official residences that they should be paid for even though they’ve elected to stay in their own mansions instead? We aren’t forcing them to stay in their private residences; they are more than welcome to stay in the government provided residences with the utilities included there. But when you elect to stay in your own private residence because it is so much plusher and fancy than the official governor’s residence, you should pay your own utility bill like any other citizen. After all, it takes quite a bit more electricity to keep your private swimming pool nice and clean. And why did the Lt. Governor’s utility bill jump from 1700 kilowatts a month before the government started paying his bill for him to over 5,000 kilowatts a month when the he got his electricity for free? Did he start just turning on every single electric appliance and air conditioner in his house and let them just run all the time for the heck of it? What happened to the conservation they were telling the rest of us we had to practice? Or is it possible that some of his relatives that live in the same compound could have had their electricity run through his meter, so they could get free electricity too? I have no idea, but I do think it’s something worth looking into, for those with inquiring minds.
I’ve gotten sidetracked though; let’s get back to the state of CUC. So the Aggreko generators are scheduled to be online and producing 15 megawatts of power by September 12th. Again, this is a 6 month rental contract that will cost CUC $500,000 a month. They will be paying for that with the interest income from MPLT investments in 2009 - 2010. I think they are living in Never Never Land, and just don’t have a clue. One thing you need to understand right now is that when CUC says they repaired a generator and have it up and running again, it doesn’t mean they have overhauled it and that it’s now as good as new, it means they’ve replaced the broken part to get it running again, but they still haven’t fixed the problems that caused the failure in the first place, so it will just be a matter of time before it happens again. In fact this administration has done exactly the same thing the last administration did; it has totally neglected the maintenance schedules for the engines and generators. They still haven’t done a single overhaul, they are simply providing band aid fixes and repairs, so these engines will continue to constantly break down and fail because the core problems aren’t being addressed or fixed. That’s also why these generators are only producing a fraction of the power they are capable of producing and why they are so inefficient.
The Governor chastised Pete A. Tenorio for wanting to tell the federal authorities that we are in the middle of a humanitarian crisis as a result of our power situation. He said the situation is much worse after a typhoon and we’ve come through those in the past, and besides, he has a plan. First of all, the problems after a typhoon are distinctly different from the problems being currently experienced by CUC. After a typhoon, you have to deal with trees that have fallen on power lines, downed power lines and distribution problems. It’s just a matter of chasing down all the various distribution lines, and clearing them or replacing them, but once you’ve done that, you’re good to go. Our problems right now have nothing to do with distribution; they are the result of total failure of our power generation system. If that’s not a crisis, I don’t know what is. You didn’t exactly reinforce your credibility by making that statement Governor; you just proved how out of touch with the situation you really are.
Their plan is to put out Requests For Proposal for private companies to overhaul and rehabilitate the engines and generators. Have they forgotten that they can’t seem to actually produce an RFP that isn’t plagued by challenges and delays? Didn’t they just have to cancel the RFP for renewable energy? They plan on having all of this completed during the 6 months that Aggreko is providing the supplemental power. Have they forgotten how much lead time they need to order parts and have them manufactured? Where do they think they are going to come up with the money to have the engines overhauled? Do they have extra money now that they’ve stopped buying so much Rydlyme? Do they think the feds are just going to give it to them and trust them to do the right thing with it, without having a competent and experienced project manager overseeing everything? Tony Muna is an accountant, remember? Is he really qualified to oversee the overhauling of engines and generators? Does he really know what needs to be considered in the contracts? Can he do a better job of the contract that his predecessor did with the CISCO contract?
And in order for this plan to work, with reliable 24 hour power in the meantime, it means that the engines and generators CUC has working right now with their band aid repairs have to continue operating with no breakdowns. What do you think the odds of that happening are? If I was a gambler, I’d set some pretty long odds on that one. So now that you know the real situation and this administration’s plan, do you feel better about things? Are you confident in their abilities to actually pull this off? How do you feel about the Governor and Lt. Governor getting free power and not having to conserve anything, while you and I continue to have to turn off air conditioners even when we do have power just because we simply can’t afford to run them anymore? They’ve had nearly 3 years now, are you enjoying the Better Times? Do you feel they’ve made good decisions regarding the utility company, since it is directly under their control now? Have you appreciated the lower rates they promised before they took office and the consistent, reliable power? Looking back I realize we couldn’t really believe any of their promises or what they told us, and I’m not thinking we should put much stock in this new plan or the current batch of promises either, but then again, that’s just me!
Food For Thought is now available online at www.fftsaipan.blogspot.com and if you want it by e-mail distribution please send me an e-mail at harryblalock@gmail.com
I’m Harry Blalock, thanking you once again for giving me a generous slice of your valuable time, and allowing me to share my Food For Thought.
Friday, June 6, 2008
My State of the Commonwealth Assessment
Food For Thought 6-6-08
Hi friends, this is Harry Blalock; General Manager for radio stations KZMI & KCNM. It’s that time once again to take a look at the issues of the week, and to offer some Food For Thought.
For quite a while I took flack for my criticism of the government, their lack of efficiency, their utter lack of professionalism, the blatant nepotism, cronyism, mismanagement, illegal deeds, and the list just goes on and on and on. I have been warning about this “perfect storm” meltdown for the past 8 years. It really wasn’t hard to see it coming, it didn’t take a Wharton School of Business economist to predict it, and in fact it was pretty hard to imagine anything else happening actually. But I was called an alarmist, a meddling haole, an outspoken outsider, and a whole host of other names. I was accused of bashing the last Governor as a political favor to his opponents; I have been accused of going easy on this Governor, for whatever reason. But now I’m far from the only one who is outraged at what is going on and who is speaking out on it.
Just so everyone understands and we’re all on the same page here, yes, I believe this administration inherited a horrible mess, in almost every single aspect. And yes, I’m still shocked that no one from the previous administration is in jail right now for their misdeeds while in office. But this administration has had 2 ½ years to give us the “Better Times” they promised. They claimed they had a plan, they claimed they were going to end the fuel surcharge that the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation was charging us. At this point it is painfully obvious, they had no real plan, and they just flat out lied to us about what they were going to do with the CUC rates.
I realize that the engines and generators had not been properly maintained at all during the previous administration, but it’s been 2 ½ years. They knew the engines would be breaking down, and yet they didn’t come up with a contingency plan while they would be rehabbing the engines. A private company offered to bring one of their excess generators over to provide extra power so we wouldn’t have to go through rolling blackouts, but the government never entertained their offer. I guess they thought we would be happier having numerous rolling blackouts every day. They must have thought we had an endless supply of money to continue repairing and replacing our burned up air conditioners, computers, appliances and other electronic equipment, because they didn’t have the utility company own up to its responsibility for all the destruction and reimburse people for their damages. The government must have thought business would want to be forced to close because they didn’t have enough power to stay open. They must have thought that you didn’t care if you had to put up with numerous outages every day at home, which caused food to spoil in your refrigerator and freezer. They must have thought we wouldn’t care that a supplemental engine would be running at over 90% efficiency and not wasting over 60% of our fuel and lube oil as our current engines do. Yes, we might have had to pay a bit extra to have those engines brought in temporarily, but couldn’t they figure out that we would have easily saved that money several times over by running more efficient engines? It’s really not rocket science!
And then we’ve been lied to more times than I can count about the duration of the power outages and rolling blackouts. We’ve been given more false deadlines as to when the rolling blackouts would stop than we can count. Instead of publishing a power outage schedule that we can all depend on and follow, they have now started publishing what they call a contingency outage schedule. That means that is the schedule they will follow if they need to shut down certain feeders for whatever reason. So you really never know if they will be shutting off power or not. So if you run around your home or office shutting off all the electronics, you’re never really sure if they’re actually going to turn off the power or not. And then they seem to have trouble telling the time. If the schedule says 10 am, it means 9:30 or maybe 10:15, you really never know.
I haven’t talked to a single person that actually believes the government knows what it’s doing with CUC, or who thinks they are actually improving the situation. There is zero confidence in this administration’s ability to fix the problems at CUC or to actually move us toward renewable energy sources. People are disgusted, fed up and ready to revolt over the power situation. I don’t know what will be happening in the coming days, but I’m fairly certain that you will see more and more people completely losing any and all trust that this administration can or will make any positive difference whatsoever.
And then there is the mess involving the Federal economic stimulus checks. Some people got their full checks, others got nothing, and some seemed to get partial checks. The Department of Finance tells us that if there were deficiencies in your 2007 tax return that it will delay you receiving your economic stimulus checks. What they didn’t tell us is that even if the deficiency was their fault, it would still delay them giving you your economic stimulus check. I read an example this week about someone who received a letter from Revenue & Tax about a $10.50 discrepancy in their tax return, therefore they would not be receiving their check until the discrepancy was cleared up. They had their accountant go over their taxes again, and were told that the discrepancy was due to an error in calculation by the Division of Revenue & Tax. But of course they didn’t bother notifying them right away after they filed their taxes; they waited until now, when they could use it as an excuse to not give them their economic stimulus checks right away. So because of a $10.50 mistake, which was the fault of Revenue & Tax, they were withholding over $2,000 of economic stimulus money from this family. And that’s just one example; there are numerous people out there with similar stories.
Why would the government be doing this? Are they using some of the money from the federal government for the economic stimulus checks to help float them financially while they sort out their “messes”? Are they trying to hang onto some of it for as long as they can to earn interest on it? Or are they really just that inefficient and unorganized? I sent an e-mail to the Governor’s Press Secretary early this week telling him that it would be nice if they could have Eloy Inos or someone else from the Department of Finance come in and answer all the questions created by this mess. I told them I’d welcome them any day they could make it. I was told that was a great idea and they would welcome the opportunity to come in and clarify the situation, but yet they still have not contacted me with a day they would be willing to come in and answer questions. Why is that? Do they not have answers for the questions they know I will be asking? What happened to the promise of this administration to be open and accountable to the people, what happened to the transparency?
I said before the last gubernatorial election that whoever won was going to be inheriting the biggest mess the CNMI has ever seen, and it would be a thankless task. I said that there was going to have to be a lot of pain as corrective measures were taken and things rectified from the debacle left by the last administration. That was true then, and it’s still true today. And it’s one thing if you’re experiencing the pain as you see the light at the end of the tunnel and realize it’s being done for your own good. I don’t believe that’s the case right now. There is no light at the end of the tunnel, and we have learned we can’t believe anything we’re told. Things have continued on a very steep downward spiral and there are no signs that we will pull out of it anytime soon. Family after family is packing their bags and heading out in search of a new start and a new life somewhere else, anywhere else. They have come to the conclusion that things couldn’t possibly be any worse anywhere else.
2 ½ years into their term, this administration is looking like it will go down in history as the worst administration in the history of the CNMI. Yes, they inherited a huge mess, but instead of tackling the problems with a plan and minimizing the pain and problems, they disregarded the cost of their actions and just blindly plowed ahead, driving families and business out of the islands as a result. And then when presented with an opportunity to make a positive impact, distributing the federal economic stimulus checks, they couldn’t even get that one right, and made a lot of people very mad in the process. This was a chance to pump some much needed dollars into a starving local economy, but they only managed to get part of the money where it belonged, the rest of it is still sitting in their bank account, accruing interest for them, while they try to fix their own mistakes so they can finally give people what the federal government wanted them to have much earlier. And instead of coming in on the air and explaining what is going on and offering some answers to the questions, they are still tucked away in their offices, trying to avoid the angry masses out in the hallways.
If I had to give the present administration a midterm grade on their performance so far, I’m afraid it would have to be a D-. The only thing that keeps them from getting a failing grade is that they have slowed down the spending and slashed the budgets, which is something their predecessor was unwilling to do or admit there was a need for. However, the nepotism and cronyism has been as entrenched in this administration as any other, I detected no difference at all. They have utterly and miserably failed in their handling of the entire CUC situation. They have failed to attract the new investors they promised when running for office. They have failed in their relations with the U.S. government. And they have failed to give people hope or a reason to stay here, the most stinging indictment of all.
Food For Thought is now available online at www.fftsaipan.blogspot.com and if you want it by e-mail distribution please send me an e-mail at harryblalock@gmail.com
I’m Harry Blalock, thanking you once again for giving me a generous slice of your valuable time, and allowing me to share my Food For Thought.
Hi friends, this is Harry Blalock; General Manager for radio stations KZMI & KCNM. It’s that time once again to take a look at the issues of the week, and to offer some Food For Thought.
For quite a while I took flack for my criticism of the government, their lack of efficiency, their utter lack of professionalism, the blatant nepotism, cronyism, mismanagement, illegal deeds, and the list just goes on and on and on. I have been warning about this “perfect storm” meltdown for the past 8 years. It really wasn’t hard to see it coming, it didn’t take a Wharton School of Business economist to predict it, and in fact it was pretty hard to imagine anything else happening actually. But I was called an alarmist, a meddling haole, an outspoken outsider, and a whole host of other names. I was accused of bashing the last Governor as a political favor to his opponents; I have been accused of going easy on this Governor, for whatever reason. But now I’m far from the only one who is outraged at what is going on and who is speaking out on it.
Just so everyone understands and we’re all on the same page here, yes, I believe this administration inherited a horrible mess, in almost every single aspect. And yes, I’m still shocked that no one from the previous administration is in jail right now for their misdeeds while in office. But this administration has had 2 ½ years to give us the “Better Times” they promised. They claimed they had a plan, they claimed they were going to end the fuel surcharge that the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation was charging us. At this point it is painfully obvious, they had no real plan, and they just flat out lied to us about what they were going to do with the CUC rates.
I realize that the engines and generators had not been properly maintained at all during the previous administration, but it’s been 2 ½ years. They knew the engines would be breaking down, and yet they didn’t come up with a contingency plan while they would be rehabbing the engines. A private company offered to bring one of their excess generators over to provide extra power so we wouldn’t have to go through rolling blackouts, but the government never entertained their offer. I guess they thought we would be happier having numerous rolling blackouts every day. They must have thought we had an endless supply of money to continue repairing and replacing our burned up air conditioners, computers, appliances and other electronic equipment, because they didn’t have the utility company own up to its responsibility for all the destruction and reimburse people for their damages. The government must have thought business would want to be forced to close because they didn’t have enough power to stay open. They must have thought that you didn’t care if you had to put up with numerous outages every day at home, which caused food to spoil in your refrigerator and freezer. They must have thought we wouldn’t care that a supplemental engine would be running at over 90% efficiency and not wasting over 60% of our fuel and lube oil as our current engines do. Yes, we might have had to pay a bit extra to have those engines brought in temporarily, but couldn’t they figure out that we would have easily saved that money several times over by running more efficient engines? It’s really not rocket science!
And then we’ve been lied to more times than I can count about the duration of the power outages and rolling blackouts. We’ve been given more false deadlines as to when the rolling blackouts would stop than we can count. Instead of publishing a power outage schedule that we can all depend on and follow, they have now started publishing what they call a contingency outage schedule. That means that is the schedule they will follow if they need to shut down certain feeders for whatever reason. So you really never know if they will be shutting off power or not. So if you run around your home or office shutting off all the electronics, you’re never really sure if they’re actually going to turn off the power or not. And then they seem to have trouble telling the time. If the schedule says 10 am, it means 9:30 or maybe 10:15, you really never know.
I haven’t talked to a single person that actually believes the government knows what it’s doing with CUC, or who thinks they are actually improving the situation. There is zero confidence in this administration’s ability to fix the problems at CUC or to actually move us toward renewable energy sources. People are disgusted, fed up and ready to revolt over the power situation. I don’t know what will be happening in the coming days, but I’m fairly certain that you will see more and more people completely losing any and all trust that this administration can or will make any positive difference whatsoever.
And then there is the mess involving the Federal economic stimulus checks. Some people got their full checks, others got nothing, and some seemed to get partial checks. The Department of Finance tells us that if there were deficiencies in your 2007 tax return that it will delay you receiving your economic stimulus checks. What they didn’t tell us is that even if the deficiency was their fault, it would still delay them giving you your economic stimulus check. I read an example this week about someone who received a letter from Revenue & Tax about a $10.50 discrepancy in their tax return, therefore they would not be receiving their check until the discrepancy was cleared up. They had their accountant go over their taxes again, and were told that the discrepancy was due to an error in calculation by the Division of Revenue & Tax. But of course they didn’t bother notifying them right away after they filed their taxes; they waited until now, when they could use it as an excuse to not give them their economic stimulus checks right away. So because of a $10.50 mistake, which was the fault of Revenue & Tax, they were withholding over $2,000 of economic stimulus money from this family. And that’s just one example; there are numerous people out there with similar stories.
Why would the government be doing this? Are they using some of the money from the federal government for the economic stimulus checks to help float them financially while they sort out their “messes”? Are they trying to hang onto some of it for as long as they can to earn interest on it? Or are they really just that inefficient and unorganized? I sent an e-mail to the Governor’s Press Secretary early this week telling him that it would be nice if they could have Eloy Inos or someone else from the Department of Finance come in and answer all the questions created by this mess. I told them I’d welcome them any day they could make it. I was told that was a great idea and they would welcome the opportunity to come in and clarify the situation, but yet they still have not contacted me with a day they would be willing to come in and answer questions. Why is that? Do they not have answers for the questions they know I will be asking? What happened to the promise of this administration to be open and accountable to the people, what happened to the transparency?
I said before the last gubernatorial election that whoever won was going to be inheriting the biggest mess the CNMI has ever seen, and it would be a thankless task. I said that there was going to have to be a lot of pain as corrective measures were taken and things rectified from the debacle left by the last administration. That was true then, and it’s still true today. And it’s one thing if you’re experiencing the pain as you see the light at the end of the tunnel and realize it’s being done for your own good. I don’t believe that’s the case right now. There is no light at the end of the tunnel, and we have learned we can’t believe anything we’re told. Things have continued on a very steep downward spiral and there are no signs that we will pull out of it anytime soon. Family after family is packing their bags and heading out in search of a new start and a new life somewhere else, anywhere else. They have come to the conclusion that things couldn’t possibly be any worse anywhere else.
2 ½ years into their term, this administration is looking like it will go down in history as the worst administration in the history of the CNMI. Yes, they inherited a huge mess, but instead of tackling the problems with a plan and minimizing the pain and problems, they disregarded the cost of their actions and just blindly plowed ahead, driving families and business out of the islands as a result. And then when presented with an opportunity to make a positive impact, distributing the federal economic stimulus checks, they couldn’t even get that one right, and made a lot of people very mad in the process. This was a chance to pump some much needed dollars into a starving local economy, but they only managed to get part of the money where it belonged, the rest of it is still sitting in their bank account, accruing interest for them, while they try to fix their own mistakes so they can finally give people what the federal government wanted them to have much earlier. And instead of coming in on the air and explaining what is going on and offering some answers to the questions, they are still tucked away in their offices, trying to avoid the angry masses out in the hallways.
If I had to give the present administration a midterm grade on their performance so far, I’m afraid it would have to be a D-. The only thing that keeps them from getting a failing grade is that they have slowed down the spending and slashed the budgets, which is something their predecessor was unwilling to do or admit there was a need for. However, the nepotism and cronyism has been as entrenched in this administration as any other, I detected no difference at all. They have utterly and miserably failed in their handling of the entire CUC situation. They have failed to attract the new investors they promised when running for office. They have failed in their relations with the U.S. government. And they have failed to give people hope or a reason to stay here, the most stinging indictment of all.
Food For Thought is now available online at www.fftsaipan.blogspot.com and if you want it by e-mail distribution please send me an e-mail at harryblalock@gmail.com
I’m Harry Blalock, thanking you once again for giving me a generous slice of your valuable time, and allowing me to share my Food For Thought.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Lack of Responsibility
Food For Thought 4-18-08
Hi friends, this is Harry Blalock; General Manager for radio stations KZMI & KCNM. It’s that time once again to take a look at the issues of the week, and to offer some Food For Thought.
This past week has been one of the more trying weeks I can ever remember during my 12 years on Saipan. The main reason is that Commonwealth Utilities Corporation told us they had no money to pay for more fuel and they only had enough to go through Thursday. They said if the administration or legislature didn’t come up with more cash to give them, they would have to turn off power for the island on Friday. When you’re in business, that’s the last thing you want to hear, that there will be no power anywhere. So all week everyone on island has been waiting to hear what was happening. Did CUC all the sudden come up with enough cash to buy more fuel? Did the legislature come up with the money to buy fuel? Did the administration reprogram enough funds to keep the lights on for a while longer?
As we read the newspapers every day they didn’t really answer any of our questions, they just seemed to be blaming each other and coming up with excuses. I was hoping that since this was the #1 issue in the Commonwealth at the time, that maybe the Governor would come in Wednesday morning and tell everyone what his plan was and what the status of the utility was. Or at the very least that they would send in the Lt. Governor and Tony Guerrero, the Executive Director of CUC to give us some answers so that we all knew how to plan. But no, even though the Lt. Governor promised me just 2 weeks ago that they realized they had to be much more transparent about the crisis situation at the utility, and they would be coming out in the public to explain it more often, they didn’t come in either. Instead, the administration had the acting director of the Emergency Management Office come in to talk about their plans. Now it’s not that EMO isn’t important, but frankly it’s not what anybody wanted to hear, we all wanted to hear if the lights were going to be on Friday or not. But not one word from the administration or the utility as to the status of fuel to keep the generators operating.
So then Thursday came, the day before the utility told us the lights would be going out if they didn’t come up with more money to buy fuel. The Saipan Tribune didn’t really have any news about the situation at all. The Marianas Variety had a story from the Governor’s Press Secretary saying that the administration would not be giving the utility any money; there was no money to give or to reprogram. Earlier in the week there was a story in one of the papers in which the Governor’s Press Secretary was blaming CUC for their current mess, saying that since they had refused to take the pay cuts last year that everyone else had to take, they made their own mess and no one was going to bail them out now. Maybe if they had taken those pay cuts, they wouldn’t be in the financial mess they are in now. While there may be some truth in that story and those statements, this really wasn’t what anyone wanted to hear. Here we were all wondering if we would be able to keep the doors open for our businesses, and they were still playing politics, pointing fingers at each other. Now this whole thing was beginning to smell like a political power play, and it really stunk.
Around 11 am on Thursday as I was driving up to Mt. Topochou to start our generator for the next power outage, I had Lewie call CUC to find out if they were able to buy fuel or what the situation for Friday was going to be. The person Lewie talked to said they did get a fuel shipment the day before, so that would have been on Wednesday, but it was a secret, and they weren’t allowed to let that information out yet. So at 11 am on Thursday I knew that there wouldn’t be any island-wide blackouts over the weekend due to a lack of fuel, however I still couldn’t go on air and say anything, because I still didn’t have any official notice from the administration or CUC, basically all I had was hearsay, even though it was inside information.
I had a million questions going through my mind at this point, the first of which was, who is lying? The administration said they weren’t going to give CUC any money to buy fuel, and CUC had been telling us they had no money to buy fuel, yet evidently they somehow came up with money to buy another week’s worth of fuel, so where did they get the money, and who was lying about it and why? And why were they keeping this information a big secret? Shouldn’t they be telling people to avoid panic? Shouldn’t they be letting businesses know so they could also plan accordingly? Shouldn’t they be telling schools so they knew if there was any point in opening on Friday or not? What were they waiting for? If they already had the fuel, they obviously knew what their plan was, so what was the purpose in keeping quiet about it for over a day? Was this just another political ploy by the administration or by CUC? The more I thought about it, the more pissed off I got about it. There was no good or acceptable reason to not let the public know what was going on. This was part of some political game, pure and simple, and there is no excuse for it. Whoever was behind withholding this information should lose their job immediately, and I don’t care whether it was the Governor or the Executive Director of CUC. You are now putting political games ahead of the good of the Commonwealth and you need to lose your job for it, it’s really just that simple!
Then I started getting calls all Thursday afternoon from people saying they heard on a radio station that there would be total blackouts starting Friday because CUC had no money to buy any fuel and everything would go dark on Friday. Other rumors popped up on blogs that there would be total blackouts from 6 am to 6 pm on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The rumor mills were going into overdrive and everyone was grasping for straws. Why would a radio station start such rumors without any hard facts to go on? Were they just drawing their own conclusions from what they had read in the newspaper and then stating their conclusions as facts? Was this just simply a case of disc jockeys going too far and creating a public panic? But why would the management of those stations allow them to keep adding fuel to the fire and spreading these rumors? Did they think it was good for their business, to be screaming “wolf” and then watching the public panic as they called all their friends to let them all know the “latest news”? It was completely irresponsible for that station to be saying those things on the air and spreading false rumors, but then again, they have really never been known for taking the responsible route or for being a reputable source for any information. So why would anyone believe anything they had to say on the matter? I guess that’s a question that only those people can answer; I just hope they’ve learned a lesson through this whole thing.
I could have gone on the air at noon on Thursday and said that I had learned through an inside source that CUC had bought fuel the day before and therefore there would be no island-wide power outage over the weekend. But I didn’t have any official notification from the utility, because they were still playing their secretive games. So I waited to go on the air to say anything until 3:30 pm, when I finally received official notification from CUC that they had purchased 3500 barrels of fuel which was another week’s supply. It’s called doing the responsible thing, and not reporting on a situation when all you have is hearsay and rumors. Unlike other stations, I don’t believe in whipping the public into a false panic just to try and make a name for myself, I’d rather wait and just report the facts.
I also don’t understand why a private school principal would cancel school for half a day based on those same rumors and misinformation? But then again there are many things that I haven’t understood in the past, like why we wasted the money to put a float in the Rose Bowl parade. Wouldn’t be great if we had that money right now to give to CUC? But then I guess we wouldn’t have all those extra tourists that came here as a result of seeing our float in the Rose Bowl parade and came here as a result. Oh wait, we didn’t get any extra tourists did we, so I guess it would be pretty nice to have that money right now after all, wouldn’t it?
The topic today is really about responsibility and doing the right things for the right reasons, something that seems to be sadly lacking in the Commonwealth. We have legislators that bought their re-election by lowering the rate that CUC had to charge to their residential customers, even though they knew it would drive the utility to the point of bankruptcy. We have an administration who seems more concerned about pointing fingers at the utility and making an example of them for not taking an across the board pay cut than they do about coming up with the funding for paying for fuel. We have a utility that seems to also be involved in playing the political games by not disclosing that they had come up with money to buy another week’s worth of fuel and there would be no island-wide blackout this weekend. And we have another radio station that is more interested in starting and spreading rumors than they are in getting out the truth and checking their facts before going public with them. I don’t see any examples of taking proper responsibility and doing the right things for the right reasons. If this is what we are going to have to continue putting up with, is it any wonder that Hollywood Theaters is closing their doors? They won’t be the last business to shut their doors and say it’s just not worth it anymore, the only question is, how many businesses and residents will leave before our leaders finally wake up and realize they can’t operate this way anymore?
Food For Thought is now available online at http://www.fftsaipan.blogspot.com/ and if you want it by e-mail distribution please send me an e-mail at harryblalock@gmail.com
I’m Harry Blalock, thanking you once again for giving me a generous slice of your valuable time, and allowing me to share my Food For Thought.
Hi friends, this is Harry Blalock; General Manager for radio stations KZMI & KCNM. It’s that time once again to take a look at the issues of the week, and to offer some Food For Thought.
This past week has been one of the more trying weeks I can ever remember during my 12 years on Saipan. The main reason is that Commonwealth Utilities Corporation told us they had no money to pay for more fuel and they only had enough to go through Thursday. They said if the administration or legislature didn’t come up with more cash to give them, they would have to turn off power for the island on Friday. When you’re in business, that’s the last thing you want to hear, that there will be no power anywhere. So all week everyone on island has been waiting to hear what was happening. Did CUC all the sudden come up with enough cash to buy more fuel? Did the legislature come up with the money to buy fuel? Did the administration reprogram enough funds to keep the lights on for a while longer?
As we read the newspapers every day they didn’t really answer any of our questions, they just seemed to be blaming each other and coming up with excuses. I was hoping that since this was the #1 issue in the Commonwealth at the time, that maybe the Governor would come in Wednesday morning and tell everyone what his plan was and what the status of the utility was. Or at the very least that they would send in the Lt. Governor and Tony Guerrero, the Executive Director of CUC to give us some answers so that we all knew how to plan. But no, even though the Lt. Governor promised me just 2 weeks ago that they realized they had to be much more transparent about the crisis situation at the utility, and they would be coming out in the public to explain it more often, they didn’t come in either. Instead, the administration had the acting director of the Emergency Management Office come in to talk about their plans. Now it’s not that EMO isn’t important, but frankly it’s not what anybody wanted to hear, we all wanted to hear if the lights were going to be on Friday or not. But not one word from the administration or the utility as to the status of fuel to keep the generators operating.
So then Thursday came, the day before the utility told us the lights would be going out if they didn’t come up with more money to buy fuel. The Saipan Tribune didn’t really have any news about the situation at all. The Marianas Variety had a story from the Governor’s Press Secretary saying that the administration would not be giving the utility any money; there was no money to give or to reprogram. Earlier in the week there was a story in one of the papers in which the Governor’s Press Secretary was blaming CUC for their current mess, saying that since they had refused to take the pay cuts last year that everyone else had to take, they made their own mess and no one was going to bail them out now. Maybe if they had taken those pay cuts, they wouldn’t be in the financial mess they are in now. While there may be some truth in that story and those statements, this really wasn’t what anyone wanted to hear. Here we were all wondering if we would be able to keep the doors open for our businesses, and they were still playing politics, pointing fingers at each other. Now this whole thing was beginning to smell like a political power play, and it really stunk.
Around 11 am on Thursday as I was driving up to Mt. Topochou to start our generator for the next power outage, I had Lewie call CUC to find out if they were able to buy fuel or what the situation for Friday was going to be. The person Lewie talked to said they did get a fuel shipment the day before, so that would have been on Wednesday, but it was a secret, and they weren’t allowed to let that information out yet. So at 11 am on Thursday I knew that there wouldn’t be any island-wide blackouts over the weekend due to a lack of fuel, however I still couldn’t go on air and say anything, because I still didn’t have any official notice from the administration or CUC, basically all I had was hearsay, even though it was inside information.
I had a million questions going through my mind at this point, the first of which was, who is lying? The administration said they weren’t going to give CUC any money to buy fuel, and CUC had been telling us they had no money to buy fuel, yet evidently they somehow came up with money to buy another week’s worth of fuel, so where did they get the money, and who was lying about it and why? And why were they keeping this information a big secret? Shouldn’t they be telling people to avoid panic? Shouldn’t they be letting businesses know so they could also plan accordingly? Shouldn’t they be telling schools so they knew if there was any point in opening on Friday or not? What were they waiting for? If they already had the fuel, they obviously knew what their plan was, so what was the purpose in keeping quiet about it for over a day? Was this just another political ploy by the administration or by CUC? The more I thought about it, the more pissed off I got about it. There was no good or acceptable reason to not let the public know what was going on. This was part of some political game, pure and simple, and there is no excuse for it. Whoever was behind withholding this information should lose their job immediately, and I don’t care whether it was the Governor or the Executive Director of CUC. You are now putting political games ahead of the good of the Commonwealth and you need to lose your job for it, it’s really just that simple!
Then I started getting calls all Thursday afternoon from people saying they heard on a radio station that there would be total blackouts starting Friday because CUC had no money to buy any fuel and everything would go dark on Friday. Other rumors popped up on blogs that there would be total blackouts from 6 am to 6 pm on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The rumor mills were going into overdrive and everyone was grasping for straws. Why would a radio station start such rumors without any hard facts to go on? Were they just drawing their own conclusions from what they had read in the newspaper and then stating their conclusions as facts? Was this just simply a case of disc jockeys going too far and creating a public panic? But why would the management of those stations allow them to keep adding fuel to the fire and spreading these rumors? Did they think it was good for their business, to be screaming “wolf” and then watching the public panic as they called all their friends to let them all know the “latest news”? It was completely irresponsible for that station to be saying those things on the air and spreading false rumors, but then again, they have really never been known for taking the responsible route or for being a reputable source for any information. So why would anyone believe anything they had to say on the matter? I guess that’s a question that only those people can answer; I just hope they’ve learned a lesson through this whole thing.
I could have gone on the air at noon on Thursday and said that I had learned through an inside source that CUC had bought fuel the day before and therefore there would be no island-wide power outage over the weekend. But I didn’t have any official notification from the utility, because they were still playing their secretive games. So I waited to go on the air to say anything until 3:30 pm, when I finally received official notification from CUC that they had purchased 3500 barrels of fuel which was another week’s supply. It’s called doing the responsible thing, and not reporting on a situation when all you have is hearsay and rumors. Unlike other stations, I don’t believe in whipping the public into a false panic just to try and make a name for myself, I’d rather wait and just report the facts.
I also don’t understand why a private school principal would cancel school for half a day based on those same rumors and misinformation? But then again there are many things that I haven’t understood in the past, like why we wasted the money to put a float in the Rose Bowl parade. Wouldn’t be great if we had that money right now to give to CUC? But then I guess we wouldn’t have all those extra tourists that came here as a result of seeing our float in the Rose Bowl parade and came here as a result. Oh wait, we didn’t get any extra tourists did we, so I guess it would be pretty nice to have that money right now after all, wouldn’t it?
The topic today is really about responsibility and doing the right things for the right reasons, something that seems to be sadly lacking in the Commonwealth. We have legislators that bought their re-election by lowering the rate that CUC had to charge to their residential customers, even though they knew it would drive the utility to the point of bankruptcy. We have an administration who seems more concerned about pointing fingers at the utility and making an example of them for not taking an across the board pay cut than they do about coming up with the funding for paying for fuel. We have a utility that seems to also be involved in playing the political games by not disclosing that they had come up with money to buy another week’s worth of fuel and there would be no island-wide blackout this weekend. And we have another radio station that is more interested in starting and spreading rumors than they are in getting out the truth and checking their facts before going public with them. I don’t see any examples of taking proper responsibility and doing the right things for the right reasons. If this is what we are going to have to continue putting up with, is it any wonder that Hollywood Theaters is closing their doors? They won’t be the last business to shut their doors and say it’s just not worth it anymore, the only question is, how many businesses and residents will leave before our leaders finally wake up and realize they can’t operate this way anymore?
Food For Thought is now available online at http://www.fftsaipan.blogspot.com/ and if you want it by e-mail distribution please send me an e-mail at harryblalock@gmail.com
I’m Harry Blalock, thanking you once again for giving me a generous slice of your valuable time, and allowing me to share my Food For Thought.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Federal Takeover Of Our Immigration Is A Done Deal
Food For Thought 4-11-08
Hi friends, this is Harry Blalock; General Manager for radio stations KZMI & KCNM. It’s that time once again to take a look at the issues of the week, and to offer some Food For Thought.
As I was sitting at my desk writing my commentary, I got a call from Jeff Schorr who let me know that he was just notified by his office in Washington that the U.S. Senate passed the bill that would federalize our Immigration system here in the CNMI. This is the same bill that the Governor has been fighting vigorously, and that HANMI and the Saipan Chamber of Commerce have sent their representatives to Washington to lobby against. All the lobbying efforts were evidently totally in vain as the vote was 91 to 4; no one cared what they had to say. I have had the feeling for quite some time now that trying to fight against this was like trying to hold back a 20’ tsunami that was rolling up the beach. You can do anything you want, but it won’t matter or do any good whatsoever, it was going to happen for a number of reasons. Whether the bill has to go back to the House or not really doesn’t make any difference, they will pass it immediately, and the President has already indicated he would sign it into law. The federalization of our Immigration program is no longer something to be fought or debated, it is now a fact.
Let’s be honest, the CNMI does not exactly have a very good track record, we’ve gone back on our promises in the past to raise the minimum wage. Years ago our legislature passed a law that would implement increases of the minimum wage gradually bringing it up to U.S. levels. They did this right before we were supposed to go to Washington to deliver testimony to Congress in regards to a takeover of our labor laws and minimum wage. So the Saipan delegation which included business and political leaders was able to testify to the U.S. Congress that we had just passed a law that would raise our minimum wage in incremental stages until it reached the U.S. levels. As a result, the U.S. Congress shelved their plans to take over our labor laws and minimum wage since they believed we were trying to comply. No sooner did that happen than our legislature repealed the law raising the minimum wage, caving in to pressure from the garment industry about the effects raising the minimum wage would have on their industry. We showed the U.S. government at that point that our word and our laws meant nothing and that we couldn’t be trusted.
And our current leaders can’t just blame this whole thing on someone else claiming they had nothing to do with it, many of them were still in office back then. Governor Fitial was in the legislature at the time and several of those serving in the legislature currently were in it then as well.
Then instead of doing the right thing and implementing a plan to raise our minimum wage, we got bogged down in fighting over whether it should be broken down by industry and have different minimum wages for the different categories, or whether we should raise it across the board. Since we couldn’t manage to agree on anything, we did nothing, we just left the minimum wage alone and didn’t raise it at all. Instead we started a campaign of hiring lobbyists to fight off the threat of a federal takeover of our labor and immigration departments. We hired the firm that employed Jack Abramoff, and he became our new savior. He wined and dined the right people, and he even managed to bring Congressman Tom DeLay and some of his colleagues out here on a trip. Ben Fitial was in the legislature at the time and was instrumental in negotiating the multi-million dollar contracts that were used to hire Abramoff’s firms and fight off the federalization attempts. Ben made no secret of his ties to Abramoff at the time, calling him his brother. These actions infuriated certain people like Congressman George Miller who vowed to not let this issue go away, and continued to introduce it in the U.S. House.
The shift of power in the U.S. House and Senate, and the disgrace of former Congressman Tom DeLay, and the imprisonment of lobbyist Jack Abramoff all started an inevitable ball rolling that wouldn’t stop until it brought the CNMI under the U.S. minimum wage and federalized our immigration system. There are many other factors that come into play here as well, including the buildup of military forces on Guam, real or perceived security threats in the region and a system that hasn’t always done a very good job of policing itself.
Whether you agree with the federalization of our Immigration or not, I don’t think many people can argue with a straight face that we haven’t asked for this with our actions over and over in the past. This can simply be considered as the consequences of our actions and inaction over the years.
So what will this really mean for the CNMI, will it be good or bad, will it cost us access to the Chinese and Russian tourist markets? I don’t think anybody can really give you a straight answer to any of those questions right now. There are too many unknowns and variables in the legislation, too many “mays” and “ifs” in the legislation to really get a good read on it. Until the rules are promulgated and we see what really happens with our Chinese and Russian tourists, anything that anybody tells you will be basically speculation.
There is one good thing that I believe will come of this, and that is that it finally ends the uncertainly of potential investors. Now they will know what the situation is and they won’t have a threat hanging over their heads making them nervous above moving forward with their plans. To be honest, it may chase some of them away and make them want to locate elsewhere, but I’m sure there are others who may look at it as a positive development and may be willing to finally pull the trigger on investing in the CNMI. Let’s just hope it’s not too little, too late. The uncertainty of the whole thing has been absolutely killing us for the last couple of years, and I for one am glad that at least the uncertainty is now gone. As for whether it will ultimately be good or bad for the CNMI, we will all have to wait and see together.
It is possible that there might be those who got the impression from my commentary last week that I think all the problems at Commonwealth Utilities Corporation should be blamed on the legislature. I believe the legislature has to own up to its responsibility for the utility company’s current financial woes as a result of their moronic law to lower the rate the utility charges to residential customers. They created a huge mess, and I don’t believe they have ever taken responsibility for their role in it. But let’s be perfectly clear, that is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to problems at the utility.
From some of the facts that are starting to come out and come to my attention now, I don’t think there can be any disputing the fact that the utility has been mismanaged for years and years, and our current problems are a compounding of all the incompetence over the years. You may get tired of hearing me talk about the utility company over the next several months, but I truly believe it poses one of the biggest challenges to survival of the CNMI, and therefore it needs to be discussed, exposed and addressed.
When talking about problems at the utility, it’s difficult to know where to start, there are just so many different topics and areas that need to be addressed. One of the first things I guess that deserves to be considered is whether CUC really has to charge as much as they are trying to just because of the cost of fuel? While it’s true that the cost of fuel has been skyrocketing and the cost of power needs to be tied to the cost of the fuel, it is also true that our engines and generators have been so poorly maintained that the efficiency on most of them is at about 40%. Not only does that mean that we’ve had to use over twice as much fuel to operate them as we should have, but also that we’re burning through 3 times as much lube oil as we should. In other words, CUC is throwing away money in fuel and lube oil all because they have not properly maintained the generators. So they could be charging about half as much as they want to charge and still be recouping their costs, if they would just operate the generators as they are supposed to be. They have tried telling me that there is no mismanagement at the utility, but that is just blatantly not true, and there are a myriad of facts to back that statement up.
One of the other things that has been suggested is burning dirty oil, which is much cheaper and would lower the cost of operating the units substantially as well. There are a lot more hoops we would have to jump through with the EPA to make that happen, but it is definitely a possibility, however not one that seems to be seriously considered by CUC. Why did they let our generators get in this condition in the first place instead of keeping them properly maintained? I really don’t believe our generators have been properly maintained for many years, but it is a fact that during the last administration Governor Babauta instructed CUC to stop spending money maintaining the generators since he was planning to privatize it anyway. I guess he might have believed that a private company would put in new generators anyway, so why throw money away on the old ones. There are so many flaws in that thinking I’m not even going to try addressing them all, but if you want to know how our generators wound up in the condition they are in, that’s where the lion’s share of the blame lies. So do you really think he deserves another chance to mess things up even worse? I think he’s going to give you the opportunity to vote for him in the next election if you still haven’t learned your lessons.
But there is also plenty of blame to go around inside the utility as well. They have not run it properly for as long as I can see. Let me just give you one example, Telesource charged CUC about $15 million dollars to build a power plant on Tinian which included an itemized list of all improvements. During an auditors visit many years ago, it was discovered that Telesource neglected to construct a used oil incinerator which was valued at about $350,000 and was listed on the itemized list of improvements to the facility. After being provided notice of the missing equipment, Telesource told them that they took care of the used oil problem themselves and therefore there was no need for an incinerator. There are a couple major problems with this though, #1 – CUC has already paid for the unit listed on the schedule of values in support of their contractual obligations. And #2 – when CUC takes back the power plant, it should not have to incur the cost to have the used oil shipped off island since the incinerator is already listed as an asset of the power plant, and has already been paid for. The cost to purchase and install this equipment would be considerably higher today than it was 10 years ago when the agreement was entered into with Telesource, and there are newer emission regulations in place today which would push the costs even higher. You would think that CUC would be pressing Telesource to purchase and install this incinerator since they are contractually obligated to do so and since CUC has already paid for it, but no, they are not pressing the matter and it appears that they are just willing to let it disappear. That means that CUC will either have to purchase an incinerator themselves after they take over the power plant, or that they will have to pay to have the oil shipped off island. But why, since they’ve already paid to have an incinerator installed? Is that what you consider proper management and oversight?
And the incinerator on Tinian is just one of the many examples of mismanagement and wasted money at this government owned and operated utility. I will be sharing many more examples in the coming weeks of just how bad things have gotten at the utility and of how they seem either incapable or unwilling to run things properly and professionally. Maybe it’s time that the federal government take-over not only our Immigration but also our utility company. Frankly I don’t blame the federal government for not being willing to bail out the utility, why throw more money away on an organization that has shown itself to be incompetent and incapable of running itself in a responsible manner. If there are to be more federal takeovers on the island, I’m praying that the next one will be of CUC.
Food For Thought is now available online at www.fftsaipan.blogspot.com and if you want it by e-mail distribution please send me an e-mail at harryblalock@gmail.com
I’m Harry Blalock, thanking you once again for giving me a generous slice of your valuable time, and allowing me to share my Food For Thought.
Hi friends, this is Harry Blalock; General Manager for radio stations KZMI & KCNM. It’s that time once again to take a look at the issues of the week, and to offer some Food For Thought.
As I was sitting at my desk writing my commentary, I got a call from Jeff Schorr who let me know that he was just notified by his office in Washington that the U.S. Senate passed the bill that would federalize our Immigration system here in the CNMI. This is the same bill that the Governor has been fighting vigorously, and that HANMI and the Saipan Chamber of Commerce have sent their representatives to Washington to lobby against. All the lobbying efforts were evidently totally in vain as the vote was 91 to 4; no one cared what they had to say. I have had the feeling for quite some time now that trying to fight against this was like trying to hold back a 20’ tsunami that was rolling up the beach. You can do anything you want, but it won’t matter or do any good whatsoever, it was going to happen for a number of reasons. Whether the bill has to go back to the House or not really doesn’t make any difference, they will pass it immediately, and the President has already indicated he would sign it into law. The federalization of our Immigration program is no longer something to be fought or debated, it is now a fact.
Let’s be honest, the CNMI does not exactly have a very good track record, we’ve gone back on our promises in the past to raise the minimum wage. Years ago our legislature passed a law that would implement increases of the minimum wage gradually bringing it up to U.S. levels. They did this right before we were supposed to go to Washington to deliver testimony to Congress in regards to a takeover of our labor laws and minimum wage. So the Saipan delegation which included business and political leaders was able to testify to the U.S. Congress that we had just passed a law that would raise our minimum wage in incremental stages until it reached the U.S. levels. As a result, the U.S. Congress shelved their plans to take over our labor laws and minimum wage since they believed we were trying to comply. No sooner did that happen than our legislature repealed the law raising the minimum wage, caving in to pressure from the garment industry about the effects raising the minimum wage would have on their industry. We showed the U.S. government at that point that our word and our laws meant nothing and that we couldn’t be trusted.
And our current leaders can’t just blame this whole thing on someone else claiming they had nothing to do with it, many of them were still in office back then. Governor Fitial was in the legislature at the time and several of those serving in the legislature currently were in it then as well.
Then instead of doing the right thing and implementing a plan to raise our minimum wage, we got bogged down in fighting over whether it should be broken down by industry and have different minimum wages for the different categories, or whether we should raise it across the board. Since we couldn’t manage to agree on anything, we did nothing, we just left the minimum wage alone and didn’t raise it at all. Instead we started a campaign of hiring lobbyists to fight off the threat of a federal takeover of our labor and immigration departments. We hired the firm that employed Jack Abramoff, and he became our new savior. He wined and dined the right people, and he even managed to bring Congressman Tom DeLay and some of his colleagues out here on a trip. Ben Fitial was in the legislature at the time and was instrumental in negotiating the multi-million dollar contracts that were used to hire Abramoff’s firms and fight off the federalization attempts. Ben made no secret of his ties to Abramoff at the time, calling him his brother. These actions infuriated certain people like Congressman George Miller who vowed to not let this issue go away, and continued to introduce it in the U.S. House.
The shift of power in the U.S. House and Senate, and the disgrace of former Congressman Tom DeLay, and the imprisonment of lobbyist Jack Abramoff all started an inevitable ball rolling that wouldn’t stop until it brought the CNMI under the U.S. minimum wage and federalized our immigration system. There are many other factors that come into play here as well, including the buildup of military forces on Guam, real or perceived security threats in the region and a system that hasn’t always done a very good job of policing itself.
Whether you agree with the federalization of our Immigration or not, I don’t think many people can argue with a straight face that we haven’t asked for this with our actions over and over in the past. This can simply be considered as the consequences of our actions and inaction over the years.
So what will this really mean for the CNMI, will it be good or bad, will it cost us access to the Chinese and Russian tourist markets? I don’t think anybody can really give you a straight answer to any of those questions right now. There are too many unknowns and variables in the legislation, too many “mays” and “ifs” in the legislation to really get a good read on it. Until the rules are promulgated and we see what really happens with our Chinese and Russian tourists, anything that anybody tells you will be basically speculation.
There is one good thing that I believe will come of this, and that is that it finally ends the uncertainly of potential investors. Now they will know what the situation is and they won’t have a threat hanging over their heads making them nervous above moving forward with their plans. To be honest, it may chase some of them away and make them want to locate elsewhere, but I’m sure there are others who may look at it as a positive development and may be willing to finally pull the trigger on investing in the CNMI. Let’s just hope it’s not too little, too late. The uncertainty of the whole thing has been absolutely killing us for the last couple of years, and I for one am glad that at least the uncertainty is now gone. As for whether it will ultimately be good or bad for the CNMI, we will all have to wait and see together.
It is possible that there might be those who got the impression from my commentary last week that I think all the problems at Commonwealth Utilities Corporation should be blamed on the legislature. I believe the legislature has to own up to its responsibility for the utility company’s current financial woes as a result of their moronic law to lower the rate the utility charges to residential customers. They created a huge mess, and I don’t believe they have ever taken responsibility for their role in it. But let’s be perfectly clear, that is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to problems at the utility.
From some of the facts that are starting to come out and come to my attention now, I don’t think there can be any disputing the fact that the utility has been mismanaged for years and years, and our current problems are a compounding of all the incompetence over the years. You may get tired of hearing me talk about the utility company over the next several months, but I truly believe it poses one of the biggest challenges to survival of the CNMI, and therefore it needs to be discussed, exposed and addressed.
When talking about problems at the utility, it’s difficult to know where to start, there are just so many different topics and areas that need to be addressed. One of the first things I guess that deserves to be considered is whether CUC really has to charge as much as they are trying to just because of the cost of fuel? While it’s true that the cost of fuel has been skyrocketing and the cost of power needs to be tied to the cost of the fuel, it is also true that our engines and generators have been so poorly maintained that the efficiency on most of them is at about 40%. Not only does that mean that we’ve had to use over twice as much fuel to operate them as we should have, but also that we’re burning through 3 times as much lube oil as we should. In other words, CUC is throwing away money in fuel and lube oil all because they have not properly maintained the generators. So they could be charging about half as much as they want to charge and still be recouping their costs, if they would just operate the generators as they are supposed to be. They have tried telling me that there is no mismanagement at the utility, but that is just blatantly not true, and there are a myriad of facts to back that statement up.
One of the other things that has been suggested is burning dirty oil, which is much cheaper and would lower the cost of operating the units substantially as well. There are a lot more hoops we would have to jump through with the EPA to make that happen, but it is definitely a possibility, however not one that seems to be seriously considered by CUC. Why did they let our generators get in this condition in the first place instead of keeping them properly maintained? I really don’t believe our generators have been properly maintained for many years, but it is a fact that during the last administration Governor Babauta instructed CUC to stop spending money maintaining the generators since he was planning to privatize it anyway. I guess he might have believed that a private company would put in new generators anyway, so why throw money away on the old ones. There are so many flaws in that thinking I’m not even going to try addressing them all, but if you want to know how our generators wound up in the condition they are in, that’s where the lion’s share of the blame lies. So do you really think he deserves another chance to mess things up even worse? I think he’s going to give you the opportunity to vote for him in the next election if you still haven’t learned your lessons.
But there is also plenty of blame to go around inside the utility as well. They have not run it properly for as long as I can see. Let me just give you one example, Telesource charged CUC about $15 million dollars to build a power plant on Tinian which included an itemized list of all improvements. During an auditors visit many years ago, it was discovered that Telesource neglected to construct a used oil incinerator which was valued at about $350,000 and was listed on the itemized list of improvements to the facility. After being provided notice of the missing equipment, Telesource told them that they took care of the used oil problem themselves and therefore there was no need for an incinerator. There are a couple major problems with this though, #1 – CUC has already paid for the unit listed on the schedule of values in support of their contractual obligations. And #2 – when CUC takes back the power plant, it should not have to incur the cost to have the used oil shipped off island since the incinerator is already listed as an asset of the power plant, and has already been paid for. The cost to purchase and install this equipment would be considerably higher today than it was 10 years ago when the agreement was entered into with Telesource, and there are newer emission regulations in place today which would push the costs even higher. You would think that CUC would be pressing Telesource to purchase and install this incinerator since they are contractually obligated to do so and since CUC has already paid for it, but no, they are not pressing the matter and it appears that they are just willing to let it disappear. That means that CUC will either have to purchase an incinerator themselves after they take over the power plant, or that they will have to pay to have the oil shipped off island. But why, since they’ve already paid to have an incinerator installed? Is that what you consider proper management and oversight?
And the incinerator on Tinian is just one of the many examples of mismanagement and wasted money at this government owned and operated utility. I will be sharing many more examples in the coming weeks of just how bad things have gotten at the utility and of how they seem either incapable or unwilling to run things properly and professionally. Maybe it’s time that the federal government take-over not only our Immigration but also our utility company. Frankly I don’t blame the federal government for not being willing to bail out the utility, why throw more money away on an organization that has shown itself to be incompetent and incapable of running itself in a responsible manner. If there are to be more federal takeovers on the island, I’m praying that the next one will be of CUC.
Food For Thought is now available online at www.fftsaipan.blogspot.com and if you want it by e-mail distribution please send me an e-mail at harryblalock@gmail.com
I’m Harry Blalock, thanking you once again for giving me a generous slice of your valuable time, and allowing me to share my Food For Thought.
Friday, April 4, 2008
The CNMI Legislature - The Root Of All Evil?
Food For Thought 4-4-08
Hi friends, this is Harry Blalock; General Manager for radio stations KZMI & KCNM. It’s that time once again to take a look at the issues of the week, and to offer some Food For Thought.
I’ve been detecting a very marked change in the last several months, many people are completely losing hope that things will ever change or improve here. Up to this point, many of us believed that things would continue getting worse for a while, but then we would turn a corner and things would actually start to rebound and the worst would be behind us. Things have admittedly been very bad here for quite a while. Corruption is not only rampant, but seems to be encouraged as no one is ever held accountable for their misdeeds, and that is something that many people have just come to expect as a way of life when you live in the CNMI. It’s sad that this has become an accepted way of life, because it shouldn’t be this way, and certainly doesn’t have to be. But it is because people continue to put the same old politicians back into office that got us into all these messes in the first place. They continue to fall for the same old campaign promises and lies even though they have never seen them fulfilled even once. For many years I have been saying that the key to any meaningful and lasting change here is abolish and completely revamp the way our legislature works. But we all know that will never happen because the good old boys are not about to give up their stranglehold on power and actually do something that would serve the needs of the people. This is a lesson now being learned by some of the freshman lawmakers who were just elected last November. I certainly don’t think the legislature is the only place in government that we have real problems, but I do believe it is the heart of the problem that needs to be addressed first.
This past week the Lt. Governor and Tony Guerrero, the Executive Director of Commonwealth Utilities Corporation came in to explain on the air what is going on with the utility, why we have been experiencing so many power outages lately, and the general state of the utility. I know they meant for the talk to be encouraging, as they are in the final stages of rehabbing a couple of the main engines and generators, and once they are back online we shouldn’t have the rolling blackouts we’ve been experiencing recently.
But at the same they were sharing the good news about some of the generators finally being repaired and back online, they told about the utilities inability to pay for a fuel delivery from Mobil later that same day. They told me that CUC had only $1 million to pay for a $4 million dollar delivery. They were hoping that they could either come up with the money from somewhere else in government, or that Mobil would agree to some kind of terms. Then they broke the news to me that the utility is still forced to charge the low rate of .17 cents a kilowatt hour to residential customers as a result of the ridiculous law passed by both houses of the legislature before the previous election. You might recall that Tao Tao Tano went up to the legislature demanding that the legislators do something about the high cost of power or the supposed thousands of Tao Tao Tano supporters would vote them all out of office. Our leaders who are full of something, but integrity isn’t it, caved in and voted to lower the rates for residential customers to .17 cents a kilowatt hour, while raising the cost of power to business to .32 cents. They were told repeatedly that this was charging far below what it actually cost the utility to produce the power, but they didn’t care, they were too busy buying votes to secure their income for the next 2 years, or 4 years in the senate’s case. They knew that this would mean the utility wouldn’t have money to make its fuel purchases, but again, they just didn’t care, they were too afraid of being voted out of office if they didn’t cave in to Tao Tao Tano’s demands.
And now the chickens are coming home to roost, the utility had to lower the rates back down as of March 1st, and they are still continuing to bill at that rate. It might be worth noting at this point that the same legislator who authored the bill to lower the power rate in the first place has now also authored a bill to repeal that law. Did he all of the sudden wake up and realize this wouldn’t work, that CUC wasn’t going to be able to buy fuel, or did he only do it in the first place to buy votes before the election? The bill has passed the House and is now awaiting action from the Senate.
But up until March 1st, CUC was charging the higher rate for electricity, and yet they are still $3 million short for the fuel delivery, and that’s when they were supposedly charging enough to cover their costs. The billing cycle for these new lower rates won’t be felt until May and June, which means that CUC will again not have even close to enough money to pay for their fuel deliveries. Are we really supposed to expect Mobil to just keep bringing fuel knowing that we won’t be able to pay for it and that we’re not doing anything to fix the problem? Where will the Governor and the legislature reappropriate money from to pay for fuel the next time? Will it come from your department? Will they cut your job? One thing that I can guarantee you is they won’t take it out of their own pockets or operating expenses.
In the midst of the crisis, we have everybody blaming everybody else for the mess the utility currently finds itself in. The administration would blame the legislature for stalling and not approving their appointments to the Public Utilities Commission. The legislature would accuse the administration of using political favors in their appointments and not appointing those best qualified to serve in that capacity, or those with a conflict of interest. And CUC would blame the legislature for passing a law lowering the rates for residential customers to .17 cents a kilowatt hour, knowing that it costs far more than that to produce the electricity. And in the midst of all the arguing and finger pointing, the situation just gets more and more desperate and hopeless. It’s no wonder that so many people are choosing to move away and start over somewhere else; they just don’t have the confidence that things will ever change or improve here.
It’s very well documented just how cash strapped the government is and how we need to make some drastic cuts just to survive. But you might be interested to know that the legislature is willing to make cuts, but only to you, they don’t even want to consider inflicting any cuts that might impact them personally. In Friday’s edition of the Saipan Tribune there is a story on page 5 entitled “Austerity bill hurdles bitter House debate”. This bill reinstates the austerity Friday program and suspends holiday pay for the 3 remaining holidays this fiscal year. It also reduces the government’s retirement contribution rate to 11 percent, which is far less than the actuary recommended rate of 36.77 percent. The bill also reprograms $6 million from various revenue sources outside the General Fund. This bill is expected to raise $17 million for government operations.
As you may recall from the last round of austerity Friday’s, the only effect that has on the legislators themselves is that it gives them an extra day off every other week, while not touching their pay. So they’ve done it again, they’ve given themselves more time off at the same pay while cutting your pay. And they are also putting off their retirement obligations, and letting another administration down the line have to deal with the deficit to the Retirement Fund.
Voting against the bill were David Apatang, Heinz Hofschneider, Tina Sablan and Ralph Torres, Rosemond Santos was absent. Tina Sablan attempted to make an amendment to terminate government paid mobile phones and vehicle leases, which would also save the government a lot of money. She wanted to make other amendments as well, but was never allowed to introduce them. Representative Diego Benavente voted down Sablan’s proposed amendment, saying that her suggestion might cause controversy and delay passage of the bill in the Senate. Representative Joseph Deleon Guerrero said that this kind of amendment has no room in this legislation. In other words, Tina Sablan’s amendments would take away some of the lawmakers perks, and they weren’t willing to give up any of their own personal goodies for the good of the Commonwealth, they’d rather just have you pay for it. They have obviously learned no lessons at all and why should they? You put them back into office last November after watching them pull all these same shenanigans during their last term, and didn’t hold them accountable or make them answer for any of it. They believe they are truly above the rest of us and shouldn’t have to face the same hardships they inflict on the rest of us. They behave this way because they can. Instead of punishing them for it and booting them out of office, you re-elected them and rewarded them for their greedy and selfish behavior.
Yes, I have a lot of respect for Tina Sablan and her ideas, but the problem is she is vastly outvoted in the legislature, and it is still a numbers game there. Common sense, fiscal responsibility and ethics really don’t have any place in the legislature, and those that employ them and hold them dear will be outvoted and silenced every single time. So as business close because they can’t afford the outrageous power bills being levied against them, and as there are more blackouts because CUC can’t afford to pay for the fuel shipments, you can thank your lawmakers for lowering the residential rate before the last election in a sleazy attempt to hold onto their jobs and power.
If the legislature isn’t the root of all evil, it certainly isn’t far from it!
Food For Thought is now available online at www.fftsaipan.blogspot.com and if you want it by e-mail distribution please send me an e-mail at harryblalock@gmail.com
I’m Harry Blalock, thanking you once again for giving me a generous slice of your valuable time, and allowing me to share my Food For Thought.
Hi friends, this is Harry Blalock; General Manager for radio stations KZMI & KCNM. It’s that time once again to take a look at the issues of the week, and to offer some Food For Thought.
I’ve been detecting a very marked change in the last several months, many people are completely losing hope that things will ever change or improve here. Up to this point, many of us believed that things would continue getting worse for a while, but then we would turn a corner and things would actually start to rebound and the worst would be behind us. Things have admittedly been very bad here for quite a while. Corruption is not only rampant, but seems to be encouraged as no one is ever held accountable for their misdeeds, and that is something that many people have just come to expect as a way of life when you live in the CNMI. It’s sad that this has become an accepted way of life, because it shouldn’t be this way, and certainly doesn’t have to be. But it is because people continue to put the same old politicians back into office that got us into all these messes in the first place. They continue to fall for the same old campaign promises and lies even though they have never seen them fulfilled even once. For many years I have been saying that the key to any meaningful and lasting change here is abolish and completely revamp the way our legislature works. But we all know that will never happen because the good old boys are not about to give up their stranglehold on power and actually do something that would serve the needs of the people. This is a lesson now being learned by some of the freshman lawmakers who were just elected last November. I certainly don’t think the legislature is the only place in government that we have real problems, but I do believe it is the heart of the problem that needs to be addressed first.
This past week the Lt. Governor and Tony Guerrero, the Executive Director of Commonwealth Utilities Corporation came in to explain on the air what is going on with the utility, why we have been experiencing so many power outages lately, and the general state of the utility. I know they meant for the talk to be encouraging, as they are in the final stages of rehabbing a couple of the main engines and generators, and once they are back online we shouldn’t have the rolling blackouts we’ve been experiencing recently.
But at the same they were sharing the good news about some of the generators finally being repaired and back online, they told about the utilities inability to pay for a fuel delivery from Mobil later that same day. They told me that CUC had only $1 million to pay for a $4 million dollar delivery. They were hoping that they could either come up with the money from somewhere else in government, or that Mobil would agree to some kind of terms. Then they broke the news to me that the utility is still forced to charge the low rate of .17 cents a kilowatt hour to residential customers as a result of the ridiculous law passed by both houses of the legislature before the previous election. You might recall that Tao Tao Tano went up to the legislature demanding that the legislators do something about the high cost of power or the supposed thousands of Tao Tao Tano supporters would vote them all out of office. Our leaders who are full of something, but integrity isn’t it, caved in and voted to lower the rates for residential customers to .17 cents a kilowatt hour, while raising the cost of power to business to .32 cents. They were told repeatedly that this was charging far below what it actually cost the utility to produce the power, but they didn’t care, they were too busy buying votes to secure their income for the next 2 years, or 4 years in the senate’s case. They knew that this would mean the utility wouldn’t have money to make its fuel purchases, but again, they just didn’t care, they were too afraid of being voted out of office if they didn’t cave in to Tao Tao Tano’s demands.
And now the chickens are coming home to roost, the utility had to lower the rates back down as of March 1st, and they are still continuing to bill at that rate. It might be worth noting at this point that the same legislator who authored the bill to lower the power rate in the first place has now also authored a bill to repeal that law. Did he all of the sudden wake up and realize this wouldn’t work, that CUC wasn’t going to be able to buy fuel, or did he only do it in the first place to buy votes before the election? The bill has passed the House and is now awaiting action from the Senate.
But up until March 1st, CUC was charging the higher rate for electricity, and yet they are still $3 million short for the fuel delivery, and that’s when they were supposedly charging enough to cover their costs. The billing cycle for these new lower rates won’t be felt until May and June, which means that CUC will again not have even close to enough money to pay for their fuel deliveries. Are we really supposed to expect Mobil to just keep bringing fuel knowing that we won’t be able to pay for it and that we’re not doing anything to fix the problem? Where will the Governor and the legislature reappropriate money from to pay for fuel the next time? Will it come from your department? Will they cut your job? One thing that I can guarantee you is they won’t take it out of their own pockets or operating expenses.
In the midst of the crisis, we have everybody blaming everybody else for the mess the utility currently finds itself in. The administration would blame the legislature for stalling and not approving their appointments to the Public Utilities Commission. The legislature would accuse the administration of using political favors in their appointments and not appointing those best qualified to serve in that capacity, or those with a conflict of interest. And CUC would blame the legislature for passing a law lowering the rates for residential customers to .17 cents a kilowatt hour, knowing that it costs far more than that to produce the electricity. And in the midst of all the arguing and finger pointing, the situation just gets more and more desperate and hopeless. It’s no wonder that so many people are choosing to move away and start over somewhere else; they just don’t have the confidence that things will ever change or improve here.
It’s very well documented just how cash strapped the government is and how we need to make some drastic cuts just to survive. But you might be interested to know that the legislature is willing to make cuts, but only to you, they don’t even want to consider inflicting any cuts that might impact them personally. In Friday’s edition of the Saipan Tribune there is a story on page 5 entitled “Austerity bill hurdles bitter House debate”. This bill reinstates the austerity Friday program and suspends holiday pay for the 3 remaining holidays this fiscal year. It also reduces the government’s retirement contribution rate to 11 percent, which is far less than the actuary recommended rate of 36.77 percent. The bill also reprograms $6 million from various revenue sources outside the General Fund. This bill is expected to raise $17 million for government operations.
As you may recall from the last round of austerity Friday’s, the only effect that has on the legislators themselves is that it gives them an extra day off every other week, while not touching their pay. So they’ve done it again, they’ve given themselves more time off at the same pay while cutting your pay. And they are also putting off their retirement obligations, and letting another administration down the line have to deal with the deficit to the Retirement Fund.
Voting against the bill were David Apatang, Heinz Hofschneider, Tina Sablan and Ralph Torres, Rosemond Santos was absent. Tina Sablan attempted to make an amendment to terminate government paid mobile phones and vehicle leases, which would also save the government a lot of money. She wanted to make other amendments as well, but was never allowed to introduce them. Representative Diego Benavente voted down Sablan’s proposed amendment, saying that her suggestion might cause controversy and delay passage of the bill in the Senate. Representative Joseph Deleon Guerrero said that this kind of amendment has no room in this legislation. In other words, Tina Sablan’s amendments would take away some of the lawmakers perks, and they weren’t willing to give up any of their own personal goodies for the good of the Commonwealth, they’d rather just have you pay for it. They have obviously learned no lessons at all and why should they? You put them back into office last November after watching them pull all these same shenanigans during their last term, and didn’t hold them accountable or make them answer for any of it. They believe they are truly above the rest of us and shouldn’t have to face the same hardships they inflict on the rest of us. They behave this way because they can. Instead of punishing them for it and booting them out of office, you re-elected them and rewarded them for their greedy and selfish behavior.
Yes, I have a lot of respect for Tina Sablan and her ideas, but the problem is she is vastly outvoted in the legislature, and it is still a numbers game there. Common sense, fiscal responsibility and ethics really don’t have any place in the legislature, and those that employ them and hold them dear will be outvoted and silenced every single time. So as business close because they can’t afford the outrageous power bills being levied against them, and as there are more blackouts because CUC can’t afford to pay for the fuel shipments, you can thank your lawmakers for lowering the residential rate before the last election in a sleazy attempt to hold onto their jobs and power.
If the legislature isn’t the root of all evil, it certainly isn’t far from it!
Food For Thought is now available online at www.fftsaipan.blogspot.com and if you want it by e-mail distribution please send me an e-mail at harryblalock@gmail.com
I’m Harry Blalock, thanking you once again for giving me a generous slice of your valuable time, and allowing me to share my Food For Thought.
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