Torres chided for kid-glove treatment of NMC

Rep. Stanley T. Torres has advised the chairman of the House Committee on Health, Education and Welfare to take action and “seriously question” the Northern Marianas College about its ongoing deficiencies.

Rep. Stanley T. Torres also chided committee chair Rep. Ralph R. Torres for going easy on NMC president Carmen Fernandez during a committee hearing in the House chamber, when Rep. Ray Palacios asked her on the status of Rep. Stanley T. Torres’s court case with NMC.

“You interjected and told him that the court case was ‘personal problems’ between NMC and me,” Rep. Stanley T. Torres told Rep. Ralph R. Torres in a letter. “Ai adai, if you continue…taking this approach and refuse to call in NMC to seriously question them about its ongoing deficiencies, WASC [Western Association of Schools & Colleges] will continue to hear about my case in court until Judge David Wiseman renders his good judgment which I’m confident that I will win.”

Rep. Stanley T. Torres said that when NMC declared a state of exigency in March, that meant that NMC “would be fully transparent and it would adhere to the Open Government Act to satisfy WASC and the CNMI public.”

However, “NMC is still being sued in court for refusing to turn over simple public documents,” Rep. Stanley Torres said.

Rep. Stanley Torres filed an Open Government Act lawsuit against NMC in 2007 after the college refused to comply with his request for payroll information in connection with his investigation on alleged improper financial activities at NMC.

The Open Government Act request included information on the “president’s contract, housing benefits justification, her alleged $10,000 moving expense perk from nearby Guam and all of NMC’s recorded disaster items.”

According to Rep. Stanley Torres, NMC failed to furnish the requested documents to date.

Rep. Stanley Torres mentioned that after NMC declared its state of exigency, Fernandez did “what any good sustainable government leader does in a time of crises and lack of funds—she hurries down to the airport and jumps on the first plane (to Hawaii this time), in order to spend CNMI taxpayer funds to consult with anybody there in Hawaii about how to run a college in Micronesia!”

He added that if Rep. Ralph Torres can prove that NMC’s problems are only a figment of his [Stanley Torres’] imagination, “then I will publicly announce my ‘personal flaws.’”

Rep. Stanley Torres challenged Rep. Ralph Torres to request copies of the NMC president’s contract benefits, “and if you receive them, then a major part of Superior Court Case No. 07-0339 will be moot.”