Cannabis commission down to 5 prospects

The CNMI Cannabis Commission is down to five prospects for the managing director position and may announce a selection in the coming weeks.

Nadine Deleon Guerrero, who chairs the commission, said they’ve whittled the number of prospective candidates from an initial list of 13 applicants to five.

She did not specify the criteria used to shave down the number of qualified applicants.

“We plan on having the interviews next week and we are hoping to announce the managing director [soon],” Deleon Guerrero added.

She declined to specify who the applicants are, citing privacy concerns.

“We are really happy with the pool that we have. All of them hold not just leadership skills within what they are currently doing, but…their moral character is also really good. We feel these are people that [other] people look up to,” she noted. “We feel any of these [applications] would be a good fit for the position.”

Ultimately, the selection would possibly come down to the results of the interview.

“The interview is what is going to determine who we select and it really just depends on how the interview [goes],” Deleon Guerrero said. “…It will be the interview process that makes or breaks how the [managing director] is selected.”

According to Deleon Guerrero, local law mandates the commissioners, along with the managing director, to submit to a drug test prior to serving on the commission.

“The person that gets selected cannot be a user. That is according to the law. The [cannabis] commission did not come up with that; it’s what the law states,” she noted.

Deleon Guerrero said the deliberation to make the final selection would be done during an executive session after the interviews.

The managing director must score either a unanimous vote of the commissioners or at least obtain a majority vote in favor of his or her selection. Only then will the final selection be announced.

The Commonwealth Casino Commission held its second meeting so far yesterday at the commission office.

The CNMI Cannabis Commission is a five-person regulatory body consisting of Saipan representatives Matt Deleon Guerrero, Nadine Deleon Guerrero, and Valentino Taisakan, Rota representative Thomas Songsong, and Tinian representative Journie Hofschneider.