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Saipan Mayor’s Office back to beautifying island
The Saipan Mayor’s Office yesterday noted that they are officially reverting to their original priorities for Saipan, which is to make the island as presentable as possible for its residents and tourists.
Saipan Mayor David M. Apatang yesterday told Saipan Tribune that they have reverted to prioritizing the beautification of the island since the devastation of Super Typhoon Yutu in late October 2018 forced the office to prioritize undertaking cleanup efforts.
“We are back to our regular operation—we are doing village re-beautification now,” Apatang said, adding that teams have started in Koblerville, San Antonio, Chalan Kanoa, and Chalan Piao.
“We are working our way toward the north,” he said, specifically noting the Dandan area, San Vicente area, Kagman area, and the Capitol Hill area. “We are cleaning the villages along the roads and raking a lot of the trash.”
Apatang further noted that he had teams going around and doing bush-cut work around the villages.
Even as they work toward the beautification of the island, the mayor noted that previous beautification projects were affected by the devastation of Super Typhoon Yutu.
“There was more debris than we had ever seen,” Apatang recalled. “People were throwing out trash and even though it isn’t typhoon-related, they just [dump] it in one place, that’s why there are trash flying around and we are now cleaning those up again,” he said.
Saipan Mayor’s Office field operations director Joann Aquino further noted that the Bureau of Environmental and Coastal Quality would be issuing a statement soon regarding their enforcement of the 1989 Anti-Littering Act.
According to Aquino, BECQ would go far as to considering fines dependent on the severity of the violation.
