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‘Tinian residents waiting too long for 400 homestead lots’
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Posted on Apr 03 2009
Sen. Jude U. Hofshneider said Tinian residents have waited far too long for at least 400 homestead lots, even as the Department of Public Lands earlier said these lots will be distributed by early February.
Hofschneider, chairman of the Senate Committee on Resources, Economic Development and Programs, said Public Lands Secretary John S. Del Rosario indicated in a Jan. 9 letter that the “issuance of homestead lots will take place during the first half of next month,” which would have meant that the distribution of would have been completed by early February.
“To my knowledge, however, not a single homestead lot has been awarded on Tinian to this date,” Hofschneider told Del Rosario in an April 1 letter.
Del Rosario, when asked for comment on Hofschneider’s letter, said the homestead program is “an executive function.”
“It is very unbecoming for any legislator to try to micro-manage programs under the Department of Public Lands. If you have any problem, revisit the doctrine of separation of powers—the establishment of three equal branches of government,” he told Saipan Tribune.
Hofschneider, in his two-page letter, asked Del Rosario to provide his office with a realistic timeline as to when these lots will be distributed.
“Tinian homestead applicants have waited far too long for this process to be completed and at a minimum, they deserve to know when this issue will be resolved,” Hofschneider said.
The senator said Del Rosario’s Jan. 9 letter also indicated that a contract had been awarded to a surveying firm to define the metes and bounds of the proposed homestead lots on Tinian.
“As you indicated in your letter that this work would take approximately a month to complete, I trust that the issuance of these lots is currently being processed,” he told Del Rosario.
