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‘USGS pullout shows failed priorities of administration’
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Posted on Sep 28 2005
Rep. Heinz S. Hofschneider believes the U.S. Geological Survey’s decision to close its Saipan office after 16 years is going to hamper the progress of the much promoted Babauta administration water program.
He said that, despite the constant publicity about the efforts to fix Saipan’s water service, the departure of USGS “is the result of the administration’s failure” to come up with $170,000 in matching funds for the federal program, “a tiny amount when compared with the millions in various grants and capital improvement funds that have been spent and committed to date.”
Hofschneider said that for years the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. has relied on USGS for expertise on water matters. He said that during the eight-year tenure of vice speaker and Covenant Party lieutenant governor candidate Timothy P. Villagomez as CUC executive director and up to the present, the utility has never built up the human resources and capacity to manage the water division well.
“We don’t really know how much the governor spent on the Rose Bowl float a couple of years ago when you figure everything in,” Hoschneider said, “but I would guess it was many times more than it would cost us to keep the USGS water experts on the job here.”
Hoschneider said, however, that for misplaced priorities, “it doesn’t get much worse than using $7.5 million in federal funds to buy La Fiesta Mall.”
“And it remains to be seen how much this boondoggle is going to cost us in local funds as the governor’s decision to buy it in the first place,” he said. (PR)
