‘Priority is to lower utility rates’

With their victory in the Nov. 21 runoff election for governor all but guaranteed, Gov. Eloy S. Inos and his running mate, Senate President Ralph DLG. Torres (R-Saipan), said they would now train their sights in tackling the Commonwealth’s No. 1 problem: high utility rates.

The governor said he would call for a meeting with the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. board of directors as early as this week to specifically try and solve the problem of high utility rates.

Surrounded by jubilant supporters and family members, Gov. Eloy S. Inos and his running mate, Senate President Ralph DLG. Torres, address the crowd at the NMI Republican Party campaign headquarters at Springs Plaza in Gualo Rai late Friday night after numbers from the runoff election showed that they’ve amassed an insurmountable lead against the independent tandem of former speaker Heinz S. Hofschneider and former Senate floor leader Ray N. Yumul. (Mark Rabago)

“Our first and most important thing to address is our high utility rates. We need to do something. I will be convening a meeting with the CUC board in the next week or two to get a heads up on what’s on the table right now,” he said Saturday at the NMI Republican Party headquarters.

“I’m really interested in finding out just where we stand on the integrated management plan and that’s the plan that would identify the different alternative energy applications and, most importantly, try and identify the kind of base load that we need here, which is something that should be cheap and reliable.”

The CNMI has one of the highest utility rates in the U.S. The high cost of diesel—coupled by $20 million owed by the Public School System and the Commonwealth Health Center and millions more by others users and the lack of technical workers—has forced Inos and his predecessor, Benigno R. Fitial, to declare a continuous state of emergency at the utilities company.

Torres, for his part, said the administration will also try to fix the myriad problems besetting the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp.

“I’ll sit down with the governor and reassess the government and all the departments and prioritize certain agencies like CUC and the hospital. Those are the two departments that we need to focus on as soon as possible. We need to reduce the utilities rates and address our healthcare concerns,” Torres said.

Humbled by victory

On the presumptive runoff win last Friday, Inos and Torres said they’re both humbled by the 1,599-vote margin their tandem has received so far, not counting absentee ballots, against the independent duo of former speaker Heinz S. Hofschneider and former Senate floor leader Ray N. Yumul.

“We’re overwhelmed by the results. I have to give it also to my opponent. I know they worked hard themselves, but for our supporters we’re really grateful for all the help Ralph and I received during the many months of hard work in the campaign,” said Inos.

“It hasn’t sunk in yet. Everybody’s happy and it was a lot of work. Seeing the people’s jubilant reaction last night shows that all the hard work has paid off. I’m just thankful for all the supporters and volunteers for what they did the last four months,” said Torres.

Both Inos and Torres also were magnanimous in victory.

“One of the key elements of my campaign is to stay clean because this is only a temporary thing and now that we’re over the hump, what I want to do—as I told my supporters last night—is when they wake up today, to open up their hearts and let’s embrace everyone, including those who were not supportive of our campaign, because as governor and lieutenant governor we all work for the people and the people is everybody in this community. Not just those who supported us. Not just Republicans, but also Democrats, independents, and everyone who want to live in this beautiful island. I want to keep it that way,” said Inos.

The governor congratulated Hofschenider and Yumul for a running a tough campaign and hopes that they could help his administration move the CNMI forward.

“I want to congratulate him too. I know that, although he didn’t prevail, he tried hard and he tried to put his people together and I’ve seen they have good ideas and I want to be able to embrace those ideas. I want to work with him and his group too because this is just one Commonwealth and that’s the common interest that we have. We all want to have a good community. Solutions may be different but the objective is the same. I want to be able to reach out to them and I hope they reciprocate so that we all can work together. The political season is over. All the political rhetoric should be behind us. We just need to look at practical ways to be able to help the people,” he added.

Torres echoed Inos’ message of unity to Hofschneider and Yumul as well as their supporters

“The governor and I extend our arms to them and their supporters. We’re one family and we want to ask them to come and contribute in the next four years. Give us some of your ideas.”

As the runoff numbers poured in at the GOP headquarters at Springs Plaza in Gualo Rai shortly before midnight Friday, Inos and Torres addressed their throng of jubilant supporters.

It concluded a night of festivities with abundant food and a lot of dancing—all drowned out by GOP and Inos/Torres campaign tunes.

Local GOP president James Ada also congratulated the Republican supporters and had kind words for the losing independent camp.

“The people have spoken and I truly respect the mandate of the people since the last general election. My hat goes off for Heinz and Ray camp for taking part in this election process. I applaud the GOP offices, the committee-to-elect Inos/Torres, and all the members of the Republican Party and of course all the supporters out there who have been with us since February when I came in as president and the last 10 months we worked hard.”

Committee-to-elect Inos and Torres chair Greg Camacho said all along he knew that the GOP candidates would prevail.

“We expected to win from the very beginning. The endorsement from former governor Babauta and the Democrats helped, of course, but we were really prepared for the entire election.”

As for the Hofschneider and Yumul camp, Camacho’s message is this: “I would like to congratulate them too for being part of this great democracy and I hope they come join us.”

‘Mathematically impossible’

While the runoff election results is still unofficial as the Commonwealth Election Commission still has to count absentee ballots coming in as late as Dec. 5, GOP campaign manager Jason Obsorne believes it is already mathematically impossible for Hofschneider/Yumul to catch up with the 1,599-vote lead of Inos/Torres.

“The absentee vote was our second biggest block in the general elections as we got 52 percent. Depending on how many ballots are able to come back—we understand some were returned due to insufficient postage—I think we’re still going to maintain the 52 percent, which will bring us to the 60/40 percent margin I predicted. Assuming that everybody got their absentee ballots, Hofschneider/Yumul has to get 87 percent of that, which is mathematically impossible.”