Why another pep rally?

While it must be admitted that CUC is a long way from perfect, it must also be admitted that strong progress has been made in the last few weeks. There is already a noticeable difference. The worst is already behind us. We have temporary generators installed in Lower Base that will produce enough to get us by while repairs are made to the main powerhouse generators.

Thanks to the legislative leaders, we already have a request into the Army Corps of Engineers via the Department of the Interior to come and give us an appraisal, strategy suggestions and a plan of action to bring CUC back to a reliable state. The Fitial Administration claims they also have a long range plan that involves privatization.

We already have a commitment from U.S. Navy Admiral French to send experts to Saipan to take a look at our problem and maybe even supply “barge power” or render some other form of assistance per a request from the business community.

Our government has already contacted the federal government about Stafford Act assistance, and have been turned down because our “disaster” did not qualify under their terms and definitions.

So why are the rabble rousers, Propst and Sablan, organizing yet another march/meeting/protest? May I suggest that they are doing it for self-interest and political purposes and not to help improve CUC. If one or more of the abovementioned courses of action produces results they will be there pretending to collect the credit when in fact the real work preceded their “pep rally” by many months.

To be fair it should be noted that they have another reason (besides trying to develop a new voter pool) for holding the rally. They are both of the naïve belief that CUC, and in fact all of the Commonwealth, should be taken over and run by the federal government. Until and unless they themselves get into Executive Office they trust no one locally to do a decent job of governing. They want, like children, to have it all their own way. Tina Sablan has only been a government worker her whole career so her paycheck has decided her choice of governmental bedfellows. Ed Propst, on the other hand has at least dabbled in private enterprise and should know better but maybe now has political aspirations himself. Advocates or aspirants?

Will they discuss long term plans and generate an actual policy statement or will we just hear more about hardships and worker decency and other off island generated gripes designed to uproot local government and replace it with stronger unilateral rule by the United States. They, being U.S. educated and socialized, have bought hook line and sinker the greener pastures doctrine that the U.S. does everything better than the CNMI does. These two will not be happy until there is a Wal-Mart on every corner and burgers replace Chamorro red rice on every plate. They want the Marianas to be a miniature Ames Iowa so it feels comfortable to them. They hope to attract other disaffected mainlanders and foreign workers with gleams of green cards in their eyes to the pep rally and to their voter bloc. Having already scammed the foreign workers, now they want to try their false tactics and unrealistic expectations on the rest of us.

They are just plain wrong in their aims. The last thing CUC needs is more government intervention, U.S. or otherwise, The only real possibility for a successful long term plan for CUC doesn’t involve any government action at all, other than to sell CUC. CUC must be cut loose from the entangling and inefficient hand of top down rule and be allowed to develop privately as successful Utility businesses all over the world do. It must be removed from government control.

Hey, Ames Iowa, if the power is on 24/7 where you live and the rates are affordable, just who is running your power company? Ahhhhh, it is a private company (owned by the rate payers. Ames users pay about 8 cents per kWh compared to our 45 cents). Hey Saipan, CNMI, just who is running our power plant now? Just who do the pep rally organizers want to run it? Do you really think changing one government agency for another one will make a difference? In your heart you know it will not.

In conclusion, we should be striving daily to get government, all government, fingers out of the CUC pie. Only then, when it is being run as a private sector company will we ever have the comforting feeling of being able to take reliable 24/7/365 power and water for granted. You won’t need to know what your grid # is or what your outage schedule is any more.

Go to the pep rally if you want the other kids to see that you lettered in provincial kowtowing; otherwise save your gas. The chances of this gathering doing more than ruffling your pom poms is remote.