Previous Story
Del Rosario is interim head of DPL
|
Posted on Feb 23 2006
With the exception of its board members, commissioner and outside legal counsels, employees of the former Marianas Public Lands Authority will keep their positions—for the moment—in the newly created Department of Public Lands.
Occupying the office of MPLA commissioner Edward Deleon Guerrero is newly appointed interim Public Lands Secretary John S. Del Rosario, who is also the governor’s senior policy adviser.
When asked about Deleon Guerrero’s stint, Del Rosario said that Deleon Guerrero’s term essentially ended with the dissolution of the board and the agency he used to head.
Also, pursuant to a memorandum of the Attorney General’s Office, “the new boss is the Secretary of Public Lands,” he added.
In a Feb. 22, 2006 memorandum, assistant attorney general Alan J. Barak formally informed Deleon Guerrero of the passage of Public Law 15-2—which abolished the MPLA—and the appointment of a secretary as head of the department.
Likewise, Barak instructed the management “to take no action that implements in any way the former MPLA’s board decisions taken this week of Feb. 19.”
“This shall be the case until the new secretary addresses the matters,” said Barak.
Del Rosario said that independent legal counsels Ray Quichocho and Antonio Atalig are now out of the agency while in-house legal counsel Alan Lane will keep his post.
Finance chief officer Dave Demapan, a brother of the former MPLA board chair, also keeps his position.
There are over 60 employees at the agency.
