David Sablan takes helm of new CUC board

The newly reconstituted board of directors of the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. holds its first official meeting at CUC?s conference room yesterday. (Jayson Camacho)

The newly revived board of directors of the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. has chosen David Sablan as its chairman during the body’s first official meeting at CUC’s conference room yesterday.
Sablan, a native of Guam, served as board chair for seven years at the Guam Power Authority, which has a clientele base of about 40,000 and generated a total capacity of 600MW.

Citing his experience, Sablan is confident that he can bring to the table valuable ideas that would benefit the utilities corporation and its customers.

The CUC board has one seat that requires the appointment of somebody from outside the CNMI. Gov. Eloy S. Inos picked Sablan for that post.

“It’s very interesting to be back in the utility board and I do hope we can take care of our people and our customers,” he told colleagues, describing current CUC power rates as “very high” and adversely impact everybody on the island.

When asked about the top priorities of his leadership, Sablan said: “The main thing is to re-instill confidence in our utilities. In going around, people have a lot of negative things against CUC. Some are probably justified but some are there because they just don’t fully understand what we’re doing here at CUC,” he told Saipan Tribune during a break at yesterday’s meeting.

Sablan acknowledged that it would take time for the new board to absorb all information about CUC. He assured, though, that “this new board is more compassionate to customers.”

“It will take us some time to absorb all of the issues, but once we fully understand them such as the fuel oil purchase contract, operations in various divisions, then we are going to make some adjustments. Our main objective is to try to bring the cost of power down,” he assured.

Sablan believes that CUC’s current water and wastewater rates are “probably reasonable” compared to the power side. Fuel cost comprises 60 percent of a customer’s bill.

Besides reducing power costs, the new board also aims to continually improve CUC’s customer service and Sablan cited the need for necessary staff training, especially for front-liners who are the face of CUC.

Sablan said he is committed to bringing in “fresh air” to CUC customers.

Since 2009, CUC has been struggling to address court-mandated requirements, called “stipulated orders.” The new board, however, vowed that all deliverables will be addressed to prevent any potential court takeover of CUC.

At yesterday’s first board meeting, Diego Songao was selected as vice chairman. He is the current chairman of the Commonwealth Development Authority, which has $45 million in preferred stock in CUC.

Sablan and Songao are joined on the board by Christopher Concepcion and former NMI Retirement Fund trustee Adelina Roberto.

CUC was well represented in the board’s maiden session yesterday. In attendance were executive director Alan Fletcher, chief financial officer Charles Warren, CUC counsel James Sirok, and about 20 CUC leadership team members from Saipan, Tinian, and Rota.