To Governor Fitial:

I am the father of a Chamorro son. It is his future and the future of other Chamorro sons and daughters that concern me. It seems to be your intent to lease the Garapan fishing base—a historical landmark—to off-island investors, when this land was promised long ago to Chamorro farmers, fishermen and merchants.

First, you have many investors here on Saipan. They call themselves fishermen, farmers, and merchants. They are quite willing to invest their time and money to display their services or products. That is why they are called investors and business people. In addition you need not give them the tax breaks afforded to off-island “investors.” No, these local investors pay taxes. I am quite sure that tourists would rather have a place to go, eat, see, and shop, versus seeing another hotel blocking their view of the lagoon.

Second, a floating hotel? Why is there a need for more hotel rooms? Tourism is down. Hotels are quite welcome as is, but numerous infrastructure problems remain to be resolved before the island can build additional accommodations for tourists. Our infrastructure is crumbling. Power and water outages are not uncommon. Heck, our tap water kills plants and nobody here drinks it. We cannot support demands on these services at this time or in the foreseeable future.

A local market in Garapan with fresh sea and farm products would not be an excessive burden on the available infrastructure and would benefit tourists, local Chamorros and others. A few port-a-potties and power at the Garapan fishing base would suffice for a while until permanent facilities are available. We could start next week. We have the plans. We do not need to wait for some off-island investor to decide what prevails in the current market and when to make the move. A piece of history would prevail and could be expanded (such as a 1940 replication of the area) to benefit the “local investors” instead of multinational corporations or wealthy individuals.

The free spirit and free enterprise of local “investors” should dominate our development of the remaining local resources. We do not need any Donald Trump types here to exploit the resources of Saipan. Off-islanders should not be welcomed when they only want to make a buck at the expense of our environment.

The fate of the Garapan fishing base has been decided. Its promised use is approved, planned and budgeted already. Give my son and other Chamorro sons and daughters a chance to prevail in the future Saipan.

Brad Doerr
As Matuis