Celebrating College Month with the face of truth

The challenges facing the Northern Marianas College are unprecedented in their scope, complexity, and gravity. To address these challenges successfully, NMC must have a Board of Regents that brings the CNMI together in a manner that optimally promotes the health and wellbeing of its academic community. It needs to be the engine that helps the CNMI identify the drivers and potential solutions to political, economic, and social problems. To accomplish its important mission, the NMC Board of Regents must not be subjected to political manipulation and interference. It must always maintain its independence, objectivity, and integrity. This November, proclaimed as CNMI College Month, the NMC Board of Regents has a special responsibility to show that it can and will protect that mandate.

Presently, the Board of Regents appears to be in crisis over claims published in a newspaper report that the term for certain board members may have expired. There is a growing dispute about the content of the forwarded information, as well as the motives under which it was conducted. Recently uncovered documents indicate that the records transferred to the AGO were fraught with spurious information. It was a revealing display of hard-core politics wherein intent and biases were validated by the AG’s determination. This is a serious problem because the AG’s findings were premised on erroneous applicable legal standard. To preserve the integrity of the college board and AG respectively, evidentiary and ultimate truths must be shed.

There may be little doubt about what the board chairman knows about the present controversy. As a former judge and now the present head of five other college board members, Juan Lizama should present shared knowledge about the controversy with the college president and the likely engineering of a special delivery information to Attorney General Edward Manibusan. The effect of a legal engineering was likely informed by unsound research, inconclusive findings, and inaccurate citations. The records used as a basis for the AG’s suggestion to the governor may have been unintentionally falsified, poorly cited or left to tinkle the reader and dangle a conclusion without an explanation. Surely, it is not a Ph.D. dissertation study, and may not be legal after all. The materials or records provided may be designed to instruct the AG what and how to think and what and how to do. The conclusion is probably most chilling on current board members’ term and has now become the modus operandi at the AG when determining vacancy or unexpired term of office through guessing game. Who knows, the AG may have applied the same technique in making the AG’s “comments” known to the Legislature through headline news about “corruption” exempting the casino commission from the Open Government Act one day after the Legislature acted on the exemption bill. Most classic of all is the OAG reportedly provided legal advice to the Casino Commission on the measure, yet the AG went out on a limb like a wounded duck claiming corruption over the bill by its own making through its legal representative to the commission, as reported by commission chair Juan Sablan.

It is time to bring the focus back to the role of the college president, who was paid to work at NMC without a valid contract, the same person privileged by a $20,000 cash bonus and untold fringe benefits, in addition to being a jet setter across the Pacific. It is also time to bring the focus back to Juan’s arbitrary and dictatorial circus act that has provided Miss Hart free rein while the rest of the board members are mumbling and fumbling thoughtlessly and aimlessly.

Hart’s phony appearance and manipulation of the board chairman warrants another vote of no confidence! By recklessly setting up this now intractable business of knowingly compromising the board’s autonomy by seeking solace and refuge in the AG, the NMC will once again be subjected to the watchful eyes of the accreditation agency. Denial does not exculpate her. Her arrogance is readily apparent as it advances her self-interest. There is only one credible rationale for her actions: anticipatory obstruction of justice. And let’s not forget how her employment contract deal extension was struck.

Misinforming the AG, and therefore the public, with questionable half-truths is not a way to raise confidence in the college or the board. If Sharon and Lizama want to accomplish this goal, transparency and due process must be upheld in order to protect the rights of each and every person who is connected with the college. Under the law, any individual or organization has the right to refute any claims made against them. At a minimum, there must be an inquiry relating to malicious and unsanctioned act surrounding Juan Lizama and Sharon Hart.

David Gérard Arriola
Palo Alto, CA