House passes measure that creates new fire, EMS department

By a unanimous vote of 20-0, the House of Representatives passed a bill yesterday that would create the new Department of Fire and Medical Services within the Executive Branch of the CNMI government.

Senate Bill 18-057, SD 2 now goes to the desk of Gov. Eloy S. Inos. If he signs it or doesn’t act on it for 40 days, the bill becomes law and the Commonwealth will have 13 principal departments instead of the current 12.

Before the House voted on the bill, House Speaker Joseph P. Deleon Guerrero reminded members that since they are in the lame duck days of the 18th Legislature, bills like S.B. 18-057 that require appropriation or restructuring needs a three-fourths vote. In the case of the 20-member House, 15 votes were needed for the bill to pass.

The Department of Public Safety currently oversees the Fire and EMS divisions.

Acting Fire chief Juan Pua said a bill finally passing the Legislature affecting the separation of the Fire Division from DPS has been a long time coming.

“We brought our family members and the community, especially our firefighters. I didn’t think this bill will ever go through. I’ve been in the Fire service for 25 years and finally [it passed]. We just want to say that hopefully the governor will support the bill and let it pass. From our community and our family members we want to say thank you very much for their [House and Senate’s] support for the bill’s passage,” said Pua.

The acting fire chief believes that if the governor does sign the bill into law, Fire and EMS’ relationship with DPS will not be affected.

“Our relationship is still there. We’re still going to work together. But now we can focus on our specific mission but we’re still going to work with law enforcement.”

The bill stated that out of the $8 million earmarked for DPS, an estimated $2.7 million is allocated to the Fire Division.

Rep. Christopher Leon Guerrero (Ind-Saipan), who chairs the Committee on Judiciary and Government Operations and whose panel reviewed the bill, said while there’s no cost analysis conducted he believes that the only extra cost to the CNMI will be if the new department decides to have their own set of commissioner, deputy commissioner, and other officials.

He urged House members to support the bill because the CNMI’s Fire Division is the only remaining fire division in the U.S. under the wing of a public safety department.

“It’s the only one merged with another department. We should segregate the police operations from the fire department,” said Leon Guerrero.

With $7 million in potential ambulance revenues to be collected, the would-be Department of Fire and Medical Services could fund some of its operations, he said. “In the event this law is enacted, they will be collecting more revenues to operate.”

Rep. Teresita Santos (R-Rota) was initially hesitant to support the measure without any testimony or report from Rota’s own fire division.

“But today I finally got written support from firefighters from the First Senatorial District. I also took into consideration public comments made today,” she said in her decision to vote on S.B. 18-057.

A virtual army of firefighters and EMS personnel went up to Capital Hill yesterday morning to make known their support for the bill.

When Deleon Guerrero finally announced the 20-0 vote in favor of S.B. 18-057’s bill, the chamber reverberated from the applause of some 30 Fire and EMS personnel that attended the session.

Several Fire Division and EMS personnel also gave public comments yesterday, among them EMS coordinator Ton Kapileo, Fire public information officer Jairam Jayendar, EMS PIO Jocelyn Sablan, firefighter/paramedic J. Hokin as well as former DPS commissioner Charles Ingram and former teacher representative Ambrose Bennett.

Also submitted was a signature drive in support of the measure with over 900 names on it. The Fire and EMS divisions currently have 96 personnel on Saipan, Tinian, and Rota.

The Senate passed S.B. 18-057 last Aug. 21. Before the House passed it yesterday, there were also three other failed attempts to have similar bills passed before the Legislature.