Taisacan barred from blockading Rota’s Airport Road

Superior Court Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho has granted the CNMI government’s motion for preliminary injunction that prohibits estate administrator Simeon E. Taisacan from blockading Airport Road on Rota and all other roads in the Commonwealth.

“The threatened injury to the people of Rota is immediate and irreparable. It is immediate because Mr. Taisacan made a threat to close the road and took affirmative steps to carry out his threat,” said Camacho in an order on Saturday.

The judge noted that even after sending a letter to the court that Taisacan did not intend to close the road, he left the sign in place until the morning of the hearing on March 6, 2015.

“The potential harm is irreparable because it will be impossible to determine the precise amount of damage to the safety and wellbeing of the public and in terms of the inconvenience caused to the public,” Camacho said.

A status conference will be held at the Rota Court House on June 5, 2015, at 10:30am.

Taisacan was earlier given a temporary restraining order for threatening to block Airport Road on Rota. He has notified Gov. Eloy S. Inos that if his claim for compensation over the alleged taking of their land is not resolved in 30 days, he will file a lawsuit in federal court against the CNMI government.

In his letter to Camacho last March 4, Taisacan said he has been trying to resolve this matter outside of court for years, with no positive resolution coming from the CNMI government.

“If the CNMI government fails to work with me to resolve this matter, I will proceed with filing a federal lawsuit,” said Taisacan, who is the administrator of the Selvino A. Taisacan estate.

Taisacan also informed Camacho that he no longer intends to close the portion of Route 10, also known as Airport Road, that crosses his private property.

Last Feb. 26, Camacho issued the TRO after the CNMI government, through assistant attorney general Christopher M. Timmons, requested a TRO and filed a motion for preliminary injunction and a complaint against Taisacan.

Timmons stated that Taisacan wrote the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. last Feb. 17, threatening to close Airport Road on Rota on March 1, 2015, at 8am.

Timmons said Taisacan has long asserted that the government took two parcels of their land to build Airport Road, but he, however, has not filed a lawsuit.

In granting the preliminary injunction, Camacho said he is very much concerned that a blockade of Airport Road would be detrimental to the health, safety, and schools of Rota, especially in light of the fact that children would be denied access to school breakfasts and lunches, which for some may be their primary source of nutrition.

Camacho said the government has proven a significant degree of likelihood that it will succeed on the merits of its public nuisance cause of action as the threatened actions interfere with the public’s right to use a public thoroughfare.

The judge said the Commonwealth has proven a significant potential for irreparable harm to the people of Rota if a preliminary injunction is not granted (to include potential death, impairment of access to education, and denial of supplemental nutrition for hungry children).

Camacho said Taisacan will suffer no harm by an injunction, but the Commonwealth and its people will suffer greatly if it is denied.

“This is truly a case brought entirely in the public interest,” Camacho said.