Rota landowners seek offsetting of CUC bills

Some Rota private landowners are demanding offsetting of power and water bills in exchange for the CNMI government’s non-payment of land compensation involving the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.’s use of private lands to access their facilities, Rep. Teresita Santos (Ind-Rota) and two families said yesterday.

Their request to CUC for offsetting is in lieu of a planned lawsuit against the government over unpaid land compensation.

For a few weeks now, one of the landowners’ families has blocked access to a road leading to a major tank owned by CUC in Talakhaya. But the family later on allowed limited access to the road, including to CUC personnel treating the water at the tank in Talakhaya.

“What we ask is for CUC to offset our water and power bills, and also a $30 charge to connect to CUC water in the Talakhaya area,” the family of Ana Taimanao, 80, who owns a property in Talakhaya, told Saipan Tribune yesterday.

The family member said CUC has been giving one of their family members a hard time applying for a $30 water connection, when CUC or the government has not even compensated them for using their property to access the Talakhaya water tank.

Santos, for her part, wrote a letter to CUC executive director Abe Malae on Friday, telling him of some Rota landowners’ request but CUC has yet to respond to such request.

CUC has been using portions of private lands for sewer line, water line, access to waterline, and installations of power and/or telephone poles and other structures, the lawmaker said.

“On top of charging late payment fees and penalty charges to utility consumers not paying in a timely manner, it is ironic that CUC enjoys the benefits of using private parcels while some private landowners are not fairly benefiting from CUC’s utilization of their private property,” Santos told Malae.

The lawmaker said these landowners “have yet to be compensated by the CNMI government whose properties the CUC established its utilities or use private roads on private land to access CUC utility easements.”

Santos said for so long, Rota private landowners have asked for just and reasonable compensation, including requesting CUC “to offer some kind of fair trade such as adjustments to billings or offsetting utility charges but to no avail.”

“The patience of private landowners is becoming grim and may soon seek litigation that will be costly to both CUC and the CNMI government. Thus, it is high time and mandatory that CUC addresses this critical and urgent issue in the form of reasonable compensation. In the interim, it would be of great service for the CUC to offer billing adjustments or offsetting of billings to all landowners in the CNMI affected in one way or another by CUC’s use of private property,” she said.

In an interview yesterday, Santos said to date, there has been no monetary compensation or land exchange provided to any of those private landowners who have brought up the issue to her attention.

“For your information, consummation of all land exchanges is based on the fair market value of the land. To determine how much compensation each private landowner should get, appraisal should first be conducted,” she said.