Community encouraged to help beautify Saipan

The operations crew of the Saipan Mayor’s Office get ready to fan out across Saipan early morning yesterday for a day of cleanup operations in
the community. (Iva Maurin)

As the CNMI gets ready for the arrival of even more tourists on the island, especially Japanese, the Saipan Mayor’s Office is fortifying its beautification program and calls on the community to help.

It could be as simple as keeping the surroundings clean, said Saipan Mayor’s Office special assistant Henry Hofschneider. And it’s not just the tourists who will benefit.

“First and foremost, it is for the people living here, our residents and businesses, because without a clean environment, we will have sick people. [We will have] rats running around and carrying diseases,” Hofschneider said.

Keeping the islands beautiful and clean will also leave a good impression amongst tourists. “It is to show visitors that we care about their visit, their time here. We want them to bring back to wherever they come from nice memories, beautiful pictures that don’t show trash on the ground or graffiti all over the place.”

Saipan is expected to draw more tourists in conjunction with Skymark Airlines Inc.’s non-stop daily regular flights from Tokyo-Narita to Saipan that is set to launch on Nov. 29.

“We are asking the community to help us,” Hofschneider said. “[Help in] picking up the trash. Anyone walking on a sidewalk or jogging along a road, they can stop and pick up a plastic bottle or a can.”

Aside from helping with the cleanup, the mayor’s office is also calling on the community to report people who are vandalizing public facilities, as well as private properties.

All these small individual efforts will greatly help the Saipan Mayor’s Office, which is responsible for keeping villages clean, he said.

He assured that the mayor’s office’s operations crew will do whatever they can to make sure roads are clean. Vegetation growing and blocking or hindering traffic will also be cut and removed.

“[All these are] inclusive of the beautification program because we are cleaning our island. Beautification is not just planting ornamental plants, or painting the curbs,” he said.

The beautification program has been reprioritized by the mayor’s office early this year, following the cleanup operations that had to be implemented due to Super Typhoon Yutu.

One of the operations crew, Jeff Magofna, said they have been cleaning up sites along highways.