FLASHBACK – June 13, 2011

PSS awards contract for additional classrooms[/B]

Construction work on seven additional classrooms for Dandan and Gregorio T. Camacho Elementary Schools are scheduled to start soon after the Public School System last Friday awarded the contract to Guam Pacific Power Corporation. Four new classrooms at DES and three at GTC are being targeted to reduce overcrowding at the said campuses, according to a PSS Capital Improvement Projects status report. The CIP Committee headed by Board of Education Anthony Pellegrino has 46 ongoing major CIP projects worth approximately $44.5 million. Some 25 maintenance projects (less than $10,000) are also under construction. The project value for these upgrades is being pegged at $91,000.

The Public School System has disclosed plans to create a CNMI-wide annual assessment patterned after the nationwide Stanford Achievement Test-9th Edition aimed at putting tabs on the average norm of students based on local standards. Education Commissioner Rita H. Inos yesterday said one of PSS’ main thrusts this academic year is to look at the local validity and reliability of standards by setting benchmarks across all grade levels. SAT9, a nationally normed evaluation for students, does not really speak of the “real picture” in terms of standards in areas outside the U.S. mainland, according to the commissioner.

NMI businesses support Motheread Program[/B]

Standing pat on its belief that all children have a right to read, the Bank of Hawaii recently extended help to the Northern Marianas Council for the Humanities to support the Council’s Motheread Literacy Program. Motheread, a nationally-acclaimed reading program based in North Carolina, focuses on helping parents to become reading role models for their children. Parents meet regularly, two or three times a month, with volunteers who are trained in the Motheread curriculum. The small classes read and discuss a selected list of children’s books. Themes such as sibling rivalry, honesty, courage, the right to be different and host of issues related to family and social values are explored through stories that teach real life lessons.

The government is seeking the release of closure order for several business establishments in Western Garapan found operating as prostitution dens, according to Tourist-Related Crime Prevention Task Force Chair Herbert Soll. The move is part of a wider government plan to stop proliferation of sex trade in the Northern Marianas, especially the tourist and commercial district of Garapan. In an interview yesterday, Soll said government lawyers have started documentation of the violations committed by some business establishments in Western Garapan in relation to the Commonwealth’s anti-prostitution law.

New law boosts protection for fish and game[/B]

To equip the Division of Fish and Wildlife with needed funds for its various programs, the Commonwealth government has revived the Fish and Game Conservation Fund, to which all revenues collected by the Department of Lands and Natural Resources from licenses or permits issued and penalties or fines assessed would go. This came about after Gov. Juan N. Babauta signed into law House Bill 13-9 on Tuesday, re-establishing the revolving fund within the DLNR, to be used solely for the administration of programs under the fish and wildlife division. The new law, which 13 House of Representatives lawmakers introduced on February 5, is to be called hence as Public Law 13-8.

An Office of the Public Auditor review of the Saipan Beach Road sewer system project has determined disallowed costs amounting to $78,779.93, which the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. has to reimburse to the federal government. In a report it released yesterday, the OPA said that, of the $253,728 in total payments that the project’s contractor received, $78,779.93 are disallowed costs that represent missing equipment, reimbursements for purchases and other expenditures not specifically authorized in the contract, and additional work on the project that were never approved. The project’s A&E contractor was the Juan C. Tenorio & Associates (JCTA) and the project was funded by the Office of the Insular Affairs, which had requested the OPA review.