Don’t abolish the Mayor’s Office

Rep. Fred Deleon Guerrero has introduced House Legislative Initiative 17-6 to abolish the Saipan Mayor’s Office and save $1.9 million annually. If Congressman Deleon Guerrero is serious about this idea, maybe we should first close the Lower House and re-arrange the Legislature to make it unicameral like Guam and the city councils of many of the cities in the mainland. The District Legislature of the Mariana Island District during the TTPI was one house. Close the Saipan Mayor’s Office and save $1.9 million. Close the Lower House and save $10 million. Reduce the Legislative Bureau and save even more.

I say that the municipal government is like a city government. You need at least a legislative branch and an executive branch. How else could you sign bills and resolutions into law and service the island’s needs? The council cannot sign its own bills into ordinances the way our municipal government is designed. Congressman de Leon Guerrero would have to create a mechanism wherein the municipal council could sign its own bills into law without an executive branch. Close one and you have to close the other. Close both branches of the municipality and you just shut down the municipality of Saipan. One cannot save $1.9 million this way. The employees and the community at large are going to swarm over to food stamp, Medicare, CUC credits, etc. A critical welfare situation.

Congressman Deleon Guerrero did not include the mayor’s offices of Rota and Tinian. Why? It is because of “inbidiu?” Envy? A disappointment over something he did not get? Is he flexing his political muscle? The municipal government of Saipan is the government of the people. It is the people. I asked the man’amko: Who was the first mayor elected on Saipan? They told me Tun Gregorio “Kilili” Sablan. The first Saipanese to be elected in 1945 to the highest local office of the time. Tun Goru Kilili, for me, is our George Washington. His election as the first mayor of Saipan was the beginning of our municipal legacy. Congressman Deleon Guerrero shall not destroy that legacy. The municipality is us. It’s ours. The mayor’s office won’t be closed. What will be closed is the Lower House of our CNMI Legislature.

Each mayor left a legacy to be reckoned with. Our line of mayors. Our line of municipal councils. Our line of council speakers. Imagine, since 1945, our government. Congressman Fred Deleon Guerrero wants to shut down that venerable office. I do not agree that a congressman from one small precinct should take a gigantic step to shut down our Saipan, and even the Northern Marianas mayoral offices. Long live our Mayor’s Office.