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Plans for Tinian and Rota house numbering in the works
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Posted on Jul 14 2021
From left, Office of Planning and Development director Kodep Ogumoro-Uludong; resident director for the Department of Commerce Dean Manglona; Rota Mayor Efraim Atalig, Saipan Mayor David M. Apatang, Tinian Mayor Edwin P. Aldan, Global Information System technician Janice Celis, and special assistant to the mayor Henry S. Hofschneider share a photo after their meeting at the Office of the Mayor conference room on June 28 regarding house numbering on Tinian and Rota. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)
The three mayors of Saipan, Tinian, and Rota and the heads of the Department of Commerce and Office of Planning and Development are joining forces and exchanging ideas about plans to implement house numbering projects on both Tinian and Rota.
Henry Hofschneider, who is the special assistant to the Saipan mayor, said yesterday that the Saipan Mayor’s Office first reached out to Tinian and Rota’s municipal leaders six years ago to discuss possible plans of numbering houses on the islands. He said the Office of Grants Management & State Clearinghouse had advised the Saipan office to get all of the CNMI’s municipalities involved in the house numbering project and to put together a proposal for a grant from the federal government that will fund the multi-municipality project. At the time, Tinian and Rota were working on their own respective “priority projects” and the initial house numbering plans did not come to fruition.
Moves are once again afoot to revive the project, with the mayors of the three islands meeting two weeks ago at the Saipan Mayor’s Office conference room to discuss the project. Joining Mayor David M. Apatang and Hofschneider at the June 28 meeting was Tinian Mayor Edwin P. Aldan; Rota Mayor Efraim Atalig; resident director of the Department of Commerce Dean Manglona; Global Information Systems technician Janice Celis; and Office of Planning and Development director Kodep Ogumoro- Uludong.
In a joint interview with Hofschneider, Celis, and GIS technician Jaycee Rdialul on Tuesday, it was learned that before the house numbering projects can begin, all of Tinian’s and Rota’s roads need to be identified and named. To the best of the three’s knowledge, not all of the roads on Tinian and Rota have been identified and named. However, compared to Tinian a much larger portion of Rota’s roads are named, and a house numbering project may take place on Rota first.
Hofschneider said that Saipan’s street naming and identification project was completed in 1998, and more than 20 years later the Saipan Mayor’s Office began its street addressing project. It first began issuing house numbers on Aug. 3 last year.
