· FINAL -1- THE SENATE • FIFTEENTH LEGISLATURE • COMMONWEALTH OF THE NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS...

FINAL

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THE SENATE • FIFTEENTH LEGISLATURE • COMMONWEALTH OF THE NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS

Senate Journal FIFTH SPECIAL SESSION, 2007

SJ 15-34

First Day Thursday July 26, 2007

The Senate of the Fifteenth Northern Marianas Commonwealth Legislature reconvened in its

First Day, Fifth Special Session, on Thursday, July 26, 2007, at 11:00 a.m., in the Senate Chamber, Capitol Hill, Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The Honorable Joseph M. Mendiola, President of the Senate, presided. A moment of silence was observed.

ROLL CALL Senator Luis M. Crisostomo Present Senator Paterno S. Hocog Present Senator Jude U. Hofschneider Absent Senator Paul A. Mangloña Present Senator Felix T. Mendiola Present Senator Maria Frica T. Pangelinan Present Senator Pete P. Reyes Present Senator Henry H. San Nicolas Present President Joseph M. Mendiola Present

The Clerk called the roll. Eight (8) members are present.

ROLL CALL - Eight (8) members are present, One (1) absent excused (Sen. J. Hofschneider)

President J. Mendiola: With Eight (8) members present this morning, we are ready to conduct business with the necessary quorum. For the record, Senator J. Hofschneider is excused for the day.

READING AND APPROVAL OF THE JOURNAL:

1. SJ 15-022 (11-30-06 Regular Session) ADOPTED

Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Mr. President, I move for the adoption of Senate Journal

15-022.

First Day, Fifth Special Session SJ 15-034

President J. Mendiola: There’ s a motion to adopt 15-022 Senate Journal. Any

second to that? Several members seconded the motion. President J. Mendiola: Seconded. Discussion? Several members voiced, “ready”. President J. Mendiola: Ready. No discussion. Those not in favor say, “aye”. Several members voiced, “aye”. Those not in favor say, “nay”. Motion was carried by voice vote. President J. Mendiola: Senate Journal 15-022 is hereby adopted.

MESSAGES FROM THE GOVERNOR:

1. Gov. Msg. No. 15-425: July 02, 2007 – Withdrawing the

appointment of Mr. Juan SN. Lizama to serve as a member of the

Northern Mariana Islands Retirement Fund Board of Trustees.

2. Gov. Msg. No. 15-426: July 03, 2007 – Withdrawing the

appointment of Mr. Vitu A. Ulloa to serve as a member of the

Commonwealth Development Authority representing Rota.

3. Gov. Msg. No. 15-427: June 14, 2007 – Responding on the request

for copies of reports relating to the pozzolan deposits on Pagan.

4. Gov. Msg. No. 15-428: July 06, 2007 – Signed into law H.B. No.

15-20, HS1, SD1, entitled, “ To account for fixed assets and capital

goods purchased by the Legislative Branch,” becomes PUBLIC

LAW NO. 15-72.

5. Gov. Msg. No. 15-429: July 06, 2007 – Signed into law H.L.B. No.

15-55, SNILD 1, entitled, “ To name an existing unnamed road and

to rename other roadways,” becomes SAIPAN LOCAL LAW NO.

15-20.

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SJ 15-034 July 26, 2007

6. Gov. Msg. No. 15-430: July 06, 2007 - Signed into law H.L.B. No.

15-52, entitled, “ To rename the “ Chamolinian Drive” located in

the village of Tanapag to the “ LCpl. Adam Emul Road,” in honor of

the late Lance Corporal Adam Emul of the US Marine Corps, for

making the courageous and ultimate sacrifice while unselfishly

serving in our mother country’ s fight to liberate the people of Iraq

and defend freedom in Operation Iraqi Freedom,” becomes SAIPAN

LOCAL LAW NO. 15-21.

7. Gov. Msg. No. 15-431: July 06, 2007 – Vetoed H.B. No. 15-22,

HD1, entitled, “ To require the Scholarship Office and any other

governmental agency issuing scholarship recipient lists to

governmental entities; and for other purposes.”

8. Gov. Msg. No. 15-432: July 09, 2007 – Certification for vacant

positions of (2) two Immigration Inspector Trainee within the Office

of the Attorney General, Div. of Immigration.

9. Gov. Msg. No. 15-433: July 12, 2007 – Supplemental list of

exempted employees from government austerity holidays for the

Dept. of Finance.

10. Gov. Msg. No. 15-434: July 16, 2007 – Vetoed H.B. No. 15-259,

HD1, entitled, “ To appropriate $54,000.00 from the Second

Senatorial District Solid Waste Management Fund; and for other

purposes.”

11. Gov. Msg. No. 15-435: July 17, 2007 – Signed into law H.L.B. No.

15-57, D1, entitled, “ To establish a Municipal Park Rangers

Division within the Office of the Mayor of Tinian and Aguiguan,”

becomes TINIAN LOCAL LAW NO. 15-8.

12. Gov. Msg. No. 15-436: July 16, 2007 - Signed into law H.B. No.

15-262, entitled, “ To appropriate $50,000.00 from SLL 15-12,

Section 2 (f),” becomes PUBLIC LAW NO. 15-73.

13. Gov. Msg. No. 15-437: July 19, 2007 – Copies of resume,

statement of financial interests, and drug test receipt and result of

Mr. Efrain F. Camacho to serve as a member of the PUC.

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14. Gov. Msg. No. 15-438: July 19, 2007 – Re-appointment of Ms.

Lina Villagomez to serve as a member of the PUC representing

Accounting/Saipan.

15. Gov. Msg. No. 15-439: July 19, 2007 – Re-appointment of Mr.

Allen Perez to serve as a member of the PUC representing

Engineering/Saipan.

16. Gov. Msg. No. 15-440: July 19, 2007 – Re-appointment of Mr.

Manuel Rabauliman to serve as a member of the PUC representing

Telecommunications/Saipan.

17. Gov. Msg. No. 15-441: July 20, 2007 – Signed into law H.B. No.

15-69, HS1, entitled, “ To criminalize theft of utility services by

adding a new Section 1609 to Chapter 1, Part 2, Division 1, Title 6

of the Commonwealth Code; and for other purposes,” becomes

PUBLIC LAW NO. 15-74.

18. Gov. Msg. No. 15-442: July 24, 2007 – List of vacant positions

within departments in the Executive Branch and autonomous

agencies. (See attachment) President J. Mendiola: Discussion on Governor’s Message? Chair recognized Senator Pangelinan. Senator M. Pangelinan: Thank you, Mr. President. I do have several concerns and comments on some of the Governor’s Messages, I believe that requires our attention. First, the message 15-432, that’s for certification for vacant positions from the Governor. The Governor is letting us know that positions are vacant and must be filled during the period of our present continuing resolution underline. I believe we are no longer under continuing resolution and that all vacancies not exempted under public law 15-71 must be approved by joint resolution of both Houses. According to the Governor’s Message, these positions are being filled without regard to the latest moratorium in hiring or need for joint resolution approval. Mr. President, 15-442 from some departments knows about the current law and it just shows that some of our departments are oblivious to what is happening in the Legislature and maybe that’s why we have so many problems with respect to the budget and the hiring. 15-433, this again is a supplemental list of exempted employees from government austerity holidays for the Department of Finance. I really believe that this is becoming a routine for exemptions and we do not even have any justification whether the austerity is really generating more savings to our CNMI government and that the law is becoming discriminatory by increasing the exempted list without showing the dollar impact it is making for its exemption. Message 15-427 has stated in this message by the Governor, the consultant Mr. Wilson delivered two reports I believe that was from your request. One of the reports considered the question of quantity and quality of the pozzolan deposits and other contained analysis of market and industry trends that may influence the CNMI’s ability to

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SJ 15-034 July 26, 2007

develop and sale the pozzolan. Mr. President, I believe that our government wasted the large amount of money it paid to get these two reports. What is really important is for the consultant to let us know whether there are other companies willing to mine and pay more royalty than what JG was offering. Why advertise when we already have a buyer? What makes this project less credible than the 300,000,000 development that the Governor was so proud to publish and even take the extra step to ask these bodies to exempt the rules of professional standards to accommodate the projects which would later be on the final reading for us to discuss. I am sorry, but even the MRDC on Tinian the speculator is still probably looking for stakeholders in this projects. That’s my message to the Governor about the Governor’s Messages. President J. Mendiola: Any other discussion on Governor’s Messages? Chair recognized Senator San Nicolas. Senator H. San Nicolas: Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, this is in regards to Governor’s Message 15-437 to 15-440 in regards to Mr. Effrain Camacho, Ms. Lina Villagomez, Mr. Allan Perez, and Mr. Manuel Rebauliman, in regards to being appointed to be a member of the PUC Commission. Mr. President, because of its’ urgency this CUC privatization and the Governor’s Secretary coming out in the media saying that even with the Public Auditors recommendation, the administration is still going forward with the privatization. In addition to that, with your instruction to the PUC Chairman Senator Crisostimo, to do an oversight on CUC. As your Chairman on EAGI, I personally feel that this Legislature, because it requires both Houses to confirm such appointment. Should first confirm the appointees and let us give this body the opportunity to take the range on the privatization issue. I believe that your committee on EAGI is very much ready to accommodate the confirmation on our side, on the Senate side. I have spoken to the Chairman on the House side, Congressman Dela Cruz and he mentioned that it is very important that we should wait first for the drug test results. I don’t know how long the drug test result can be presented to us. It may take weeks. Again, like I said, because of the urgency if there’s no objection, like I said your EAGI Committee is very much ready to entertain such confirmation hearing. Thank you, Mr. President. President J. Mendiola: Thank you. As of this morning, I have instructed the Legal Counsel to come up with a joint letter for both the Senate Committee and the House Committee to do a joint public hearing on the nominees of the PUC Commissioners. So, I’m urgently asking both committees to expedite the review process and the recommendation for both bodies. Thank you. Chair recognized Senator Manglona. Senator P. Manglona: Thank you, Mr. President. Well, it’s good that we are trying to do a joint hearing. I think that the Senate should pursue its’ own hearings if the House are not ready. The reason Mr. President is that these are reappointments. In other words, they have sat before the House and the Senate for more than 90 days and they are just being sent to the Senate now. I think that we should proceed whatever the House, whether they want to delay it or what, we should just set our dates and move on. As you know, this Legislature passed a temporary acting PUC and placed it in the hands of one individual, the Attorney General. That’s kind of dangerous. I remember when that bill was before this body, I did not support it and reluctantly

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after being convinced that it’s only temporary and we’re going to move forward with the permanent PUC I voted for that, but it’s been 90 days and it sat before this body. So, we cannot I guess make an excuse that the House is not moving forward. So, we just have to ask them to conduct it jointly, but immediately we should determine whether if they want to work with us. If not, we should just conduct our own hearings and confirm them, because as you know the Senate can act on the confirmation before the House, but I think that since we passed that temporary PUC authority to the AG, there hasn’t been any serious attempt at least by the House to really move these nominations forward and there are many critical issues with CUC, which the Chairman here would be addressing in the coming weeks. So, my recommendation is if by this week they don’t decide to hold the hearings jointly, we should just move forward, Mr. President and Mr. Chairman. Thank you. President J. Mendiola: I agree with you. We will, regardless of the joint. If the House is not ready to act, we should just go ahead and act on the nominees. Chair recognized Vice President Reyes. Vice President P. Reyes: Thank you, Mr. President. I also share the same concern, especially now with the fact that the administrations are considering moving ahead with the privatization despite the finding and recommendation of OPA. I remember Mr. President, sometime ago a similar situation occurred in Guam and the Legislature intervened and successfully managed to control the privatization issue of the utility in Guam. I wonder if there’s any way that the Legislature can intervene. Let me share my concern with the members. It appears that the administrations are accelerating the process of acting on the privatization of CUC. This is a concern, because if this is not done right, then it’s going to have a very long-term effect. Some told me it’s 25 years that the CNMI government is going to be tied down with this kind of agreement. We cannot allow that to happen without closely scrutinizing the aftereffect of that or the effect of that action. So, I ask Mr. President if we can request that our Legal Counsel find a way for us to intervene and try to stop the move to privatize CUC. As you know Mr. President and members, when this issue first came up, I asked to be made a party to the PUC privatization team. The Governor and the Lt. Governor has agreed to make me a party to this, to make me a part of this negotiating team. For some weird reason I was conveniently not given any information with respect to PUC privatization. So, I’m wondering why. In the mean time, we have an Executive Director who is and I have to say this on record that I really feel sorry for him, because he is left without any direction as to where CUC is supposed to go without the board member being in place. So, we need to act on this and I am under the impression that the House are willing to sit with us and act on the confirmation of the board. So, if this is at all possible and with your letter Mr. President, I’m sure that we can have both committees sit down and come up with a committee report. I’m just wondering on this issue, because there’s only one thing that’s holding this confirmation up as far as I know, and that is the result of the drug test and that takes weeks right? So, I don’t know how we can whether we can act to confirm them without any absence of the results of the drug test. So, this is something we need to think about. President J. Mendiola: I think the three of the nominees here that was submitted should have their drug test back by now except for one recently appointed. So, we can go ahead and do a conditional review on the other one pending the submission of the drug test result.

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SJ 15-034 July 26, 2007

Chair recognized Senator Crisostimo. Senator L. Crisostimo: Thank you, Mr. President and members. In regards to the 15-437 to 15-438, I share the sentiment of the Chairman of EAGI too that we have briefly spoken about these vital appointees of the Governor. This is really the people that would be incharge of setting the rates the PUC. Today, we get bombarded by various groups and even our local people are calling in asking us to come up with a rate. We don’t even know today what is the true cost of doing business in CUC and what would be the rate to give our local business as well as our local consumer. This is the body really that should be doing. I ask members to help me and closely monitor, because I am moving forward on my oversight with CUC. I gave Tony a letter on July 21 asking him for a bulk, really a great number of information that I know that my members need, and this would really determine the true rate of what our customer should pay in the Marianas. If we don’t do this we don’t know if they’re charging us under or over. The bottom line is, if they’re charging us under, who is going to pay for the difference? If they’re charging us over, then they should refund our customers back, but PUC, their function is actually to regulate, set rates in CUC. So, it’s very important that we come up in a week or two to hear this individual and see if they’re really sincere in coming around and hopefully, by the time the PUTC Committee does the oversight that they are ready to see what we have done and carry our work so that they can continue to find tune and find really the crack of CUC. I mean, I have people calling me, writing letters about CUC, and I feel for these people. I really feel for them. Our neighbors, sometimes if their power is out, it just tells you that either they disconnected or they don’t want to turn on. So, the more we get these people on track the faster we can help our Commonwealth. You know the local consumer? It’s a bust. Now, I’m looking forward in the new business that this administration promised, the shoe factory, and whatever. If they know that the cost of doing business is not feesable, they’ll never look our way. Better times, are yet. It’s not really a matter of time it’s never going to be achieved. I feel for you colleagues. We work very hard. I thank Vice President Reyes for reminding us that maybe the privatization would really hurt us. Tinian for example, Tinian, they have a private company and I think it was good, because they have power, but really they pay a premium for this. They pay big amounts and to get out of it, it costs us an arm and a leg. By that, I don’t know if the privatization of this administration that they are leaning on will really help our local consumer, whether it’s a cent or two. In my true gut feeling, it’s the cost of doing utility is going to go up again. Thank you. President J. Mendiola: Thank you. Chair recognized Floor Leader Mendiola. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Thank you, Mr. President. In addition to what has been addressed concerning PUC and the entire utilities services provided the public. I believe and I concur with the comments of these honorable colleagues. The thing of concern as well and the urgency for this PUC Commission to be unborn to start deciding things, one of which is how to run the show currently, because we have a lot of dissatisfied customers out there, people that are hurting. To begin with as a good example, I did call CUC on the issue of separating the water from the electrical bills. So, they’re going to do it administratively. It should’ve been done last week as promised. Now, those are some of the issues where we don’t have to get involved, the

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Commission can do that, but most importantly, in my vision and I’m sure shared by everybody is the fact that we must be really focused. Not only on the fossil fuel how to run it more efficiently, I’m sure a cost benefit analysis has been done. Where is it more advantageous, whether it’s privatization or government run? Those should have been determined already. Maybe that’s the reason why we are trying to privatize it and whether or not we’re going to go ahead with it, but most importantly alternate energy. We should not forget, we must maintain the course for that. That’s the only way we can get away from the dinosaurs. Thank you, Mr. President. President J. Mendiola: Thank you. Any other discussion under the Governor’s Message? None.

COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE JUDICIARY:

1. Jud. Comm. 15-12: July 03, 2007 - Amendment to the Commonwealth

Rules of Civil Procedure – Venue.

2. Jud. Comm. 15-13: July 23, 2007 – Vacant position of Law Clerk.

President J. Mendiola: Discussion? Chair recognized Senator Pangelinan. Senator M. Pangelinan: Mr. President, again on the Judiciary. I mean, isn’t this supposed to be also part of the joint resolution requirement? President J. Mendiola: It is. Senator M. Pangelinan: I mean it’s so sad that they are oblivious to the current law. President J. Mendiola: It’s supposed to be a part of the joint resolution. The existing law like you said, 15-71 mandates that any vacant position shall be filled be a joint resolution. Senator M. Pangelinan: So, who’s incharge of responding back? President J. Mendiola: So, if we don’t adopt the joint resolution they cannot fill this position. Unless, both Houses approves. Chair recognized Vice President Reyes. Vice President P. Reyes: Mr. President, just curious. On this vacant the certification of vacant position, isn’t this only applicable when we have continuing resolution? Senator M. Pangelinan: I can answer that. That’s why maybe we have so many incompetent people in the departments, because they don’t even know that we passed the budget. There is no more continuing resolution and then a subsequent law was passed exempting certain positions and that any approval of vacant position must be by a joint resolution. At the last session, I did mention that we would be wasting our time here calling a session everytime, because somebody did not plan right. I also have a question, because why so suddenly now we are knowing how

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SJ 15-034 July 26, 2007

this government operates. Suddenly, there was no money, they come here and testify, they cannot hire, they cannot do these things because they cannot hire. The minute we put a freeze on the hiring they come with their joint resolution. They have the money. Since when was this vacant? If it had been vacant since 6 months or 3 months ago, why couldn’t they wait one more month, 4 more weeks? So, why should we make that effort to come here and sit down and accommodate this type of request when we know that it comes from incompetence of department heads? This even proves more, because they don’t even know that such law existed based on what they write. Chair recognized Vice President Reyes. Vice President P. Reyes: Thank you, Mr. President. I rest my case on that issue. Senator Pangelinan has sufficiently answered that, but I think it’s appropriate time now if I may be allowed, Mr. President, to just say a little bit about that subject. President J. Mendiola: Okay. You have the floor, vice. Vice President P. Reyes: Yes. Mr. President, I remember one weekend when I was playing golf in Lao Lao, that I met a ranking officer of DPS, and I am being informed that there is no money to buy gas for patrol cars because of the budget situation. At that time, I came close to offering my account to pay for the fuel, but I was concerned about the cuts that are happening. So, I put that recommendation on hold until I find that there’s money in my account, but in the mean time, knowing that there’s no money under DPS account seems to suggest to anyone with logical thinking that if there’s no money for patrol cars to be given fuel so they can protect the safety of the public that we serve, then there is no money to hire people especially from off island. I have a copy of a contract with me of a person by the name of Luis Ella Terry. I know that Congressman Torres from the House of Representative on their last session have raised this into concern, but I need to put this on record as well. By the way, I am told that Ella, Luis Ella Terry, is the niece of the current Commissioner of DPS. This individual was hired as a Legal Research Analyst for $48,000, $48, 704.70 to be exact. At a time when we don’t have money to buy fuel, makes you wonder, because not only was this individual hired and I am at a loss as to the need for this kind of position, especially when the Commissioner herself is an Attorney especially by the fact that I know a little bit about the operation of government were the Attorney General’s Office is supposed to be the legal advisor of DPS. If there’s an illegal research analysis to be done, then it should’ve been done by the Attorney that is assigned to DPS by the Attorney General’s Office. Apparently, this does not happen, but to make matters come more questionable, the person that was hired appears to have a very questionable background. This individual, Terry, Ms. Ella Luis Terry, has 18 counts of violation to her name. The record shows that Terry was cited for numerous violations during driving over the speed limit. She was cited for example for no insurance. She was cited for menacing and you know what? Because I’m not very good in the English language I looked up what’s menacing in the Websters 9th New Collegiate Dictionary and this is what it has to say. Menacing, means to make a show of intention to harm, to represent or pose a threat to endanger to act in a threatening manner, that’s what menacing is about. She was also cited for failure to wear seatbelts. She was cited for driving with expired registration plates. She was cited for operating on suspended and revoked operated license. She was cited for driving under the influence of alcohol. She was also found

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fishing without a license permit and reckless driving. She was sent off island on a traffic forum and you know what, I say well you know if she’s hired and she’s hired on the federal program account, on the federal grants, and then maybe it’s okay. I try to be more reasonable, but I looked up the account, Account No. 1340-61090, and guess what? This is a local funded account. It’s the funds that provides normally for fuel or it can be reprogrammed to pay for fuel. I remember when driving up here, Mr. President, to the office every morning and when I drive to Dan Dan every night after working, I used to see about 5 patrol cars on the road, and I feel good, because I say we have adequate protection here. You know what? Lately, I’m lucky if I see one. I wonder whether those fuel funds are actually going to Mrs. Warfields niece. It makes you wonder whether the safety of our people is being compromised by bad decisions, management decisions. So, I think that we need to find a way to bring the DPS Commissioner and have herself explain these very questionable expense. I also understand that there is 14 or $18,000 payment for some contract on employment contract that violates the procurement regulation. I have yet to obtain the copy of this, but I am told that this is legitimate and actually a factual information. I will present this to the members when I get the document, but just to give you a heads up. I will be speaking about this one particular issue also. The other thing that I want to raise Mr. President is that there is a memorandum circulated by the Attorney General’s Office. I wanted to get that information and talk to the AG before I present that information, but it appears that the Attorney General have written a memorandum, and I will share that with the members. I have a copy of that memorandum. Advising government agencies, division’s heads, and even autonomous agencies that there will be no legal advices from the Attorney General’s Office. The Attorney General uses the justification for that kind of lack of service to the agencies that it has to do with budget cuts. The advice goes on to say that, until such time that those requires legal action by the Attorney General, there will be no legal advices given to departments. This is sad, because the reason why we need legal advices is because we want to prevent the need for litigation. If the Attorney General’s Office is giving that kind of memorandum to departments, it is a sad day for the CNMI. I remember when the CNMI only has 9 Attorney’s Assistant AG and we move and protect all the agencies that are under the umbrella by the government. Not just the departments, even those agencies that are embraced into the government. So, Mr. President, again I raised this issue up with respect to the Attorney General, because there’s so many things that are happening over at the Attorney General’s Office that are creating problems for the CNMI. For example, the issue of asylum, the assistant secretary of interior David Cohen has raised up creates a problem for the CNMI, and because of that, there were some concerns the CNMI wanted protected in DC, and we lose that support from Mr. Cohen. So, we need to find out what is going across the street. While I feel bad for the Governor, I often wonder whether the Governor is being appraised, really about everything that’s going on. For example, the marijuana issue is not dead. I found out that there is an assistant AG that really works hard in trying to entice and invite over the people from expertise from Canada and some other pro marijuana organization to try and convince the Commonwealth to decriminalize marijuana or to remove it from the control substance list. So, Mr. President, we need to keep an eye on this Attorney General. Instead of pursuing prosecution and conviction of the person that literally bleed the public land corporations of money, and I’m referring to the attorney there (Ramon Quichocho?). Nothing is being done till this date. Nothing is being done. Millions of dollars, even documents that shows that this person when traveling even bills the government for the time that he was sleeping on the plane and route to a destination on coming back to the point of origin, and still, nothing is being done. Well, I was very optimistic when we confirmed (Mr. Gregory, McGregory?). I’m being told that the reason why there’s no action on the MPLA violations is because he used to work with Quichocho. This

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is bad. This is really sad that something like this should happen and it’s bad that I even entertained the idea of asking the Federal Bureau of Investigators (FBI) to intervene and prosecute, because of lack of attention on something like this that is so important to the CNMI. Since the new administration took over, it’s almost two years, and nothing is being done. Not a flicker of hope that they are going to address this issue and people are holding their breathe out there, because we move immediately to departmentalize MPLA to get to stop the bleeding, but nobody is doing anything about the loss of blood that have already taken place. So, Mr. President, we need to keep an eye on this, and most especially I ask that we encourage our legal counsel to look into the possibility for the Legislature to intervene on the issue of CUC privatization. Thank you. President J. Mendiola: Thank you, Vice President Reyes. I will discuss this with our Legal Counsel and see the possibility of legislative participation in the privatization. One thing that I do agree with is that we have an AG which is responsible for the entire government and for him to cease from providing legal advice. Maybe that’s a good issue we should take up on our next budget and we’ll just put two attorneys’ there, the AG and his assistants. So, go ahead and hire an independent Legal Counsel for the other agencies, separate and away from the AG. Any other discussion? Vice President P. Reyes: Can I just ask the clerk to make a copy for the members, the memorandum that I’m talking about.

COMMUNICATIONS FROM HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS: 1. Dept. Msg. No. 15-33: July 03, 2007 - SAPLR acknowledge receipt of

certified copy of S.J.R. No. 15-18, entitled, “Requesting the Governor

to enter into discussions with the Dept. of Interior regarding the

possibility of expending federal monies to prepay the loan made to

construct the Capital Improvement in Susupe known as the Guma

Hustisia.”

2. Dept. Msg. No. 15-34: July 06, 2007 – Director of Personnel regarding

PL 15-69 (Sick Leave Hours)

President J. Mendiola: Yes. Please provide us copies of that. Any other comments or discussion on Communications from Heads of Executive Departments? I have one concern here that a letter from the Director of Personnel regarding the recently passed Public Law 15-69. This has to do with defining the sick leave that we have for immediate relatives. I haven’t had the opportunity for the Legal Counsel to sit down and discuss this, but they are inquiring or possibly recommending that we amend certain section of the law that was passed. The law is good. It’s intended for a good purpose, so I encourage everybody to look into this if we need to amend the law, and address the concern. If not, we should come up with our own interpretation of the definition of sick leave for immediate relatives. There is one concern too, that was brought up is that common-law wives or common-law husband, according to the personnel it is not defined in either the personnel regulation or the CNMI law what is a common-law wife. I think we should

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address this, because most of the people that live together and have children practically are wife and husband. So, if somebody gets sick, we should not deny that common-law wife or common-law husband to get the sick leave to assist in recuperation of his or her husband. So, I encourage everybody to look into this. Again, we pass this law with its good intent. It’s just merely defining some section of the law. Chair recognized Senator Pangelinan. Senator M. Pangelinan: I voted for that law and I thought it was clear, but this is again an example of why probably the AG is saying I’m not going to provide anymore services for you, because it would’ve been helpful if they would draft the recommended amendment that’s needed and then get this explanation, but I would like our Legal Counsel to clarify about our common-law, because my understanding is that common-law does apply in the CNMI and all you need to do is go and record it at the recorders office that the couple are common-law wives or spouse. This is why our government maybe is just so in distorted mess because some people just do not want to take the extra steps to do their own clarification and just let somebody else do the thinking for them. We should probably be evaluating heads of departments to make sure that we really do have competent people that would just not create more problems, and including us, you know the more we make laws, the more we create problems probably, but I would like to clarify that, and it was very clear that you can apply for sick leave to take care of your immediate relative. That is all administrative policy. We make the law and then the regulation would clarify those things and this is where the AG’s opinion probably would be needed, and then we’ll work with it, but for now I would like our Legal Counsel to clarify about common-law. Chair recognized Senator Manglona. Senator P. Manglona: At the same time, we need to make it applicable uniformly, because they want to have their cake and eat it too, because they want to say they’re qualified so they can avail the sick leave, but then in homestead programs, they don’t want to qualify so that they can both have homesteads. So, this has to be consistent when we address issues such as this, because it might work against you also. Thank you. President J. Mendiola: Can we have a short recess so we’ll have the Legal Counsel kind of explain this, if everybody is in agreement? Okay. Let’s have a short recess.

RECESS: 11:35 A.M. President J. Mendiola: --- I think we’re very much in like Senator Pangelinan, they can come up with a legislation to address, but they’re just throwing that thing back to us. Legal Counsel Mike Ernest: Yes. Thank you. I did have a chance to read the letter before the session. I must say, my initial impression was that and I don’t know this person, I don’t know Ms. Rosario and so I don’t want to cast dispersions on her, but I do think that it shows more that her general disagreement with the bill rather than any particular portion of the bill. Whether there is the Commonwealth recognizes common-law is I cant say right now that, that’s an issue right before a court. I know of a case squarely before the courts were this matter would be ruled on so

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SJ 15-034 July 26, 2007

I don’t want to say too much about it. My understanding is that nowhere else in the code does it mention common-law. So, normally how that works is that if we don’t mention it, if it’s not a federal thing, and there is no federal recognition of common-law that would be left to the states, if we don’t actually codify that there is something as common-law marriage, and it goes the restatement of laws, and I have not read what their latest restatement is. What I don’t think the restatement also recognizes it currently. So, the other thing would be is whether common-law marriages were traditionally recognized by Chamorro or Carolinian culture. Of course, I’m not upon Chamorro or Carolinian culture enough. I could research it, but I can’t stand here before you today and say that I know anything about Chamorro common-law marriages, whether they existed or not. So, my understanding is that if the Commonwealth were to recognize common-law marriages, it would have to be because it was a recognized Chamorro or Carolinian custom. Senator M. Pangelinan: But they do register at the court. There is people that are registering as common-law and homestead recognize that and social security recognized it too, I think. Legal Counsel Mike Ernest: That would be a very good argument saying that it’s a traditional… Senator M. Pangelinan: Yes. I realized that, but in order for it to be valid and to get the benefit of that common-law husband is that you have to register. Legal Counsel Mike Ernest: Yes. If that’s the fact Senator, then I believe that we do recognize common-law marriage just by the fact that you’re saying that we have been recognizing it officially on government documents, but I’m not aware of that, because I’ve never had to try and register a common-law or anything. Senator L. Crisostimo: If we don’t have a statute mandate, so we really cannot… (SIDE B) Senator M. Pangelinan: The point is that it’s been recognize by the court or the recorders office and they are being benefits that are being applied because of that. So, the question is, if people register, what benefits do they get from that, and maybe our Legal Counsels should look into that and just report to us and that’s why we have not made the statute. President J. Mendiola: Okay. The thing is they’re making this a big thing where the intent of the law is very clear is to assist a sick person. So, it would be very simple in their part to define common-law despite the fact that they don’t have a statute to it. One of the concerns in their letter is that, because individuals are not recognized common-law on the government health insurance. That’s the whole thing about the common-law, but can we, Mike, we will sit down and come up with our position on this. Legal Counsel Mike Ernest: Sure. I can state though that we do recognize common-law marriage right now, because the statute says that we do. President J. Mendiola: Okay.

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Vice President P. Reyes: (In audible) Legal Counsel Mike Ernest: The statute in question says that for the purposes of this section say that immediate family member means the employee’s legal or common-law spouse, that’s the law of the Commonwealth. So, we now recognize common-law marriage. President J. Mendiola: So, that creates it. Legal Counsel Mike Ernest: Again, I rest on my previous statement was that my initial reading of this letter was that they were trying to find problems with the statute. They don’t agree with the statute. I think they disagree with the intent of the statute and they’re trying to find the reason to… President J. Mendiola: Not implement it. Legal Counsel Mike Ernest: Correct.

RETURNED: 11:40 A.M. President J. Mendiola: Yes. Okay. Alright, let’s go back into our plenary session. We are still under communications from Heads of Executive Departments. Any other discussion on this? None.

COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE SENATE:

1. Sen. Comm. No. 15-12: July 26, 2007 from Senator Crisostimo

regarding CUC Oversight hearing.

President J. Mendiola: Any discussion? None.

COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE HOUSE:

2. Hse. Comm. No. 15-288: July 02, 2007 – Transmitting certified

H.R. No. 15-134, entitled, “ Requesting the DLNR to look into the

concerns raised by the farmers of the Kagman commercial farm

plots.”

3. Hse. Comm. No. 15-289: July 11, 2007 – Returning with

amendments S.B. No. 15-87, SD1, HS1, entitled, “ To amend 4 CMC

§ 3214; and for other purposes.” (Temporary License)

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SJ 15-034 July 26, 2007

4. Hse. Comm. No. 15-290: July 11, 2007 – Accepted the Senate

amendements to H.L.I. No. 15-16, SD1, entitled, “ To amend Article

III, Section 4 of the Constitution of the NMI to require a runoff

election for governor and lieutenant governor if no candidates

receive a majority of the votes cast and counted for that office in a

general election.”

5. Hse. Comm. No. 15-291: July 11, 2007 – Accepted the Conference

Committee amendments to H.B. No. 15-53, HS1, HD2,SD1,CCS1,

entitled, “ To promote businesses owned by US citizens by

amending 1 CMC § 7404 of the Planning and Budgeting Act of

1983.”

6. Hse. Comm. No. 15-292: July 11, 2007 – Transmitting for Senate action

H.B. No. 15-271, HD1, “ To amend the Alcoholic Beverage Control

Act, and for other purposes.”

7. Hse. Comm. No. 15-293: July 11, 2007 - Transmitting for Senate action H.B. No. 15-282, HD3, “ To establish a revolving fund within

the Board of Professional Licensing; and for other purposes.”

8. Hse. Comm. No. 15-294: July 11, 2007 - Transmitting for Senate action H.L.I. No. 15-14, “ To amend Article IV, Section 5 of the

Constitution of the CNMI to authorize the election of the chief

justice and presiding judge by a majority of the justices and judges,

respectively.”

9. Hse. Comm. No. 15-295: July 11, 2007 - Transmitting for Senate action H.L.I. No. 15-15, HD1, “ To amend Article VI of the

Constitution of the CNMI to abolish the municipal councils of Rota,

Tinian and Aguiguan, and Saipan and the Northern Islands.”

10. Hse. Comm. No. 15-296: July 11, 2007 – Transmitting a certified copy of

H.J.R. No. 15-21, entitled, “ Requesting the Secretary of DLNR to

explore potential military and civilian markets in Guam and clear

bureaucratic impediments for the export sale of local agricultural

and fisheries products.”

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11. Hse. Comm. No. 15-297: July 11, 2007 – Transmitting for senate action

H.J.R. No. 15-25. entitled, “ To approve the request for the

recruitment of nineteen very critical positions for the NMC.”


H.J.R. No. 15-26. entitled, “ To approve the request of the

Executive Branch to hire employees certified as very critical to the

delivery of essential services under PL 15-28 as amended by PL

15-71, Section 2(d)(1)(c).”


H.J.R. No. 15-27, HD1. entitled, “ To approve the hiring of any

employee by a member of the Legislature for a position certified by

either presiding officer of the Legislature as very critical to the

delivery of essential services until September 30, 2007.”


H.B. No. 15-286. entitled, “ To amend 4 CMC § 1103; to repeal and

re-enact 4 CMC § 1503; to repeal and re-enact 4 CMC § 1505.”


H.B. No. 15-285. entitled, “ To amend 3 CMC § 4434; and for other

purposes.”

President J. Mendiola: Any discussion on House Communications? Chair recognized Senator San Nicolas. Senator H. San Nicolas: Thank you, Mr. President. This is again in regards to House Communication 15-295. This is pertaining to House Legislative Initiative 15-15, HD1, the abolishment of the municipal council. Mr. President, personally I feel that instead of abolishing the municipal council maybe we should give them authority to give them authority to enact local ordinance. If I’m going to compare the First, Second, and Third Senatorial District, the first and second senatorial district on the local level the Mayor appoints his or her resident department head and the council confirms them. Unlike the third senatorial district, which is the capital or sitting government the Governor appoints and the Legislature confirms. As former chairman of the municipal council for Tinian again, maybe instead of abolishing the municipal council we

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SJ 15-034 July 26, 2007

should give them authority to enact local ordinance and take care of our local matters that are on a grass root level and should this initiative find itself on the final reading. For the record, I just can only say that I cannot support or vote for its passage. Thank you. President J. Mendiola: It’s not on final reading. Senator H. San Nicolas: Should it find itself… President J. Mendiola: Oh, in the future. Senator H. San Nicolas: Just for the record. Thank you. President J. Mendiola: Anything else on House Communications? None. Chair recognized Senator Pangelinan. Senator M. Pangelinan: Mr. President, can I just clarify on House Communication 15-299, to approve the hiring of any employee by a member of the Legislature for a position certified. So, if I want to hire you have to approve or certify? President J. Mendiola: Yes. Senator M. Pangelinan: But again we’re talking only until September 30th. President J. Mendiola: I’m not sure who’s going to hire unless somebody has a big account out there, but as far as we’re concerned I think the Senate is down in red already. It’s a certification by the presiding officers. Anything else on the House Communication? None.

COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE WASHINGTON REPRESENTATIVE: (NONE)

UNFINISHED BUSINESS:

(NONE)

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS, INITIATIVES, LOCAL BILL& RESOLUTIONS: BILLS:

1. S.B. No. 15-98: To amend the Commonwealth Code to reform the administration of the sick leave bank and place prudent fiscal controls thereon. (SEN. JOSEPH M. MENDIOLA – 07/25/07)

INITIATIVES:

LOCAL BILLS:

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RESOLUTIONS: Chair recognized Floor Leader Mendiola. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Mr. President, I would like to introduce Senate Bill No. 15-98, To amend the Commonwealth Code to reform the administration of the sick leave bank and place prudent fiscal controls thereon. (SEN. JOSEPH M. MENDIOLA – 07/25/07), of course for placement on final reading for action. President J. Mendiola: Is that a motion? Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Yes sir. President J. Mendiola: Okay. Any second to that motion? Several members voiced, “no objection”. President J. Mendiola: No objection. Okay. Senate Bill 15-98 is hereby placed. Anything else on introduction of bills? None. Chair recognized Vice President Reyes. Vice President P. Reyes: This is not introducing bills, but I would like with the members consensus I would like to make a motion for placement on final reading two bills. I know that this was originally on calendar and was taken out, Senate Bill 15-96 with respect to the open government act and also House Bill 15-269, HD1 also with respect to the open government act, so that we can dispose of these two bills on the session. President J. Mendiola: Any objection to that? Several members voiced, “no objection”. President J. Mendiola: None. Okay, both bills are hereby placed on final reading. Any others under introductions?

REPORTS OF STANDING COMMITTEES:

1. Standing Committee Report No. 15-107: July 25, 2007 – Committee on

REDP reporting on S.B. No.15-90, entitled, “To create a Marine

Reserve Area on Tinian from Southwest Carolinas Point and to Puntan

Diablo; and for other purposes.”

(Recommended for passage on final) ADOPTED

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SJ 15-034 July 26, 2007

2. Standing Committee Report No. 15-108: July 25, 2007 – Committee on

REDP reporting on S.L.I. No.15-10, entitled, “To amend Sections 5 and

6 of Article XI of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of the

Northern Mariana Islands to authorize the use of Marianas Public Land

Trust funds in the amount of $14,000,000.00 in revolving funds for

home loans to first-time borrowers of Northern Marianas Descent and

$14,000,000.00 in revolving funds for business loans to borrowers of

Northern Marianas Descent; and for other purposes.” ADOPTED

3. SCR 15-109: Confirmation for Ignacio Quichocho – CPA -

ADOPTED & CONFIRMED

4. SCR 15-110: July 26, 2007 – JGL reporting on SB 15-14 – ADOPTED

RECESS: 12 Noon RETURNED: 12:10 P.M.

Chair recognized Floor Leader Mendiola. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: None, Mr. President. President J. Mendiola: We are under Standing Committee Reports. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: I’m sorry. I thought we were still under resolution calendar. Resolution Calendar, Mr. President? President J. Mendiola: No, Standing Committee Reports. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Right. I move for adoption of Standing Committee Report 15-107. Several members seconded the motion. President J. Mendiola: Second to that motion. Discussion? Several members voiced, “ready”. President J. Mendiola: Ready. Those in favor say, “aye”. Several members voiced, “aye”. Those not in favor say, “nay”. Motion was carried by voice vote.

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President J. Mendiola: No objection. Standing Committee Report 15-107 is hereby adopted. Chair recognized Floor Leader Mendiola. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Mr. President, I move for the adoption of Standing Committee Report 15-108. President J. Mendiola: Any seconds to that motion? Several members seconded the motion. President J. Mendiola: Seconded. Discussion? Chair recognized Senator Crisostimo. Senator L. Crisostimo: Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, I know that this legislation came in the most difficult time for our people of the CNMI. This is really a Senate Legislative Initiative. I altered this legislative initiative. Today, I asked myself when I read this legislation all over. It’s been in the committee quite some time and I saw also the correspondence from the various government agency, but on the very bottom of the line I ask myself, where are really our indigenous people the Article 12 that we protect and preserve for their rights. When we give them their homestead, they can’t barely maintain, and down the line they lose it. This program would’ve really helped our indigent people. They can loan so that they can put more permanent structure just so that they will have that very little piece that our founding father that created the Article 12 down the line. I mean these individuals, they’re really here to stay, and they want to build something, but they’re hampered because they don’t have a great opportunity like some of us and you know that some of us can seek great financial assistance from a various variety of financial institute in the CNMI. For CNMI descent, you ask yourself when you see those houses it’s like squatters, that their built 2 x 4 plywood and when the typhoon comes it’s just blown away, and then they rebuilt then gets blown away. They’ve been doing it for the last I don’t know how many times, so many times. They want to get and obtain that last piece of private land that DPL can provide them, but unfortunately they don’t have the financial means. Also on the other side, the 14 Million for the business for Northern Marianas descent, I look at our local businesses today, and I ask people Northern Marianas descent, because this is really the money of the indigents. Are the local business or the people of Northern Marianas descent given that preview? I mean, I ask myself this. How many of our businesses are standing up? Where do they seek financial help when they want to grow bigger? I’ve seen Saipan Chamber of Commerce, they peddle, but for the indigent when there was a Saipan’s Farmers Market then, I look at that. I said, you know, one day I’m going to graduate, I’m going to be a farmer, and I’m going to sale to the Saipan’s Farmers Market. Then, Senator Pangelinan was the President of that. When she moved on, the Saipan’s Farmers Market failed. Now, our farmers, they don’t even have a place to showcase. This is really their arts and craft that they produce in their farm. Where do they sell it? I ask, if we don’t give them financial help, how are they going to exhale? Who really owns MPLT? Whose money is MPLT? Does it belong to people of the Northern Marianas descent or does it belong to the CNMI as a whole? I ask myself these questions and we should ask ourselves this question. We should also feel pity. When I look at Senator Felix across the isle

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SJ 15-034 July 26, 2007

and I think about Rota great opportunity that Guam is coming along with big military budget coming around, but would our farmers be able to have funding to buy tractors, trailers, or be able to self finance their farm. We ask ourselves this question, are we ready? This is a legislative initiative to be approved by the people. I only ask this and I ask you guys, I know that I don’t have the great votes to pass this legislation, but if it’s for my people and the people of the Northern Marianas to exhale themselves and put them in a business. Jet ski operators, we have a statute mandate that all jet ski operators in the CNMI are only for Northern Marianas Descent. Not even one or two that I know of is capable of just going tomorrow and opening a jet ski business, because it’s high stakes. As our kids come back in business majors, kids graduate from Marianas High School, kids that want to undertake private business, they’re not given this financial cushion to undertake the challenges in life. You know when I look at the Tao-Tao Tanu, I feel for them. When I became a member of Tao-Tao Tanu I gave them $200 and they say Luis, what do you have for Tao-Tao Tanu? This is depriving them. Those people could be the business of the future, today, and tomorrow, but we just have to give them a jumpstart. It’s like a lighter when you light a fire it becomes bigger, bigger, and bigger. Then, you can probably fill CUC. I look at Australia and other countries, they’re taking their garbage and turning it into reliable energy or instead of throwing their garbage away they turn it into a substitute to other forms of energy. How do we give our people salape’? Hafa taimanu pat tana’e taotao-ta salape’-na angen este ha e mas dididi na direchuna pat ta deprive. Manelu yan manenao yan my colleagues here in the Senate hasu fan. Some of us are going to retire. Some of our kids want to retire. They have a pension. If there’s this 14 Million it can cushion to make them more competitive. They can compete with this --- of influx of people want to owning convenient store. They come up with an I don’t know what kind of manager or assistant manager that you don’t even see in their stores. They continue to hurt our side. That’s all I ask you guys. Look at this and maila ya ta fan ma’ase dididi lokkue ni taotao-ta enao ha. Si yu’uy ma’ase members yan most especially you Chairman Pangelinan. Thank you, members. Chair recognized Vice President Reyes. Vice President P. Reyes: Mr. President, this is not to rebut Senator Crisostimo. I just want to bring to the attention of the members that we have some very special people in the gallery. Dr. Carmen Fernandez, who is the President of NMC and a former colleague in the Senate from Guam, and the Speaker way in the back, and also I’d be remised if I don’t mention Tina Sablan and her father who is sitting right next to her, and a former colleague from the House of Representative Former Congressman Pete Arriola. I just thought I’d mention that for the record. President J. Mendiola: Yes. Thank you, Vice President Reyes. You beat me to it. I was just going to, but welcome to the chamber everybody. It’s nice for you to be here. We’re still discussing the committee report. If I’m not mistaken, I would like to say a few words in this. The committee report specifically mentioned certain things that the bills intent is very good as well as commendable, but there’s a very big concern as to the administration of this funding. I remember when we do this legislation, we all voted yes on that because the intent is good. The problem we are having right now in according to the committee reports finding is who’s going to administer it and all kinds of remedies additional cost in creating a loan department for this specific purpose. It was originally mandated that MPLT, MPLA should handle it. There’s letters from NMHC as well as DPL stating that the most proper agency that will be handling this is possibly

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CDA. So, I would recommend that we revive the same initiative and address the concerns of these agencies, because the agencies that we’re giving to administer this program is saying that they’re not capable of doing it, and the most proper agencies are the CDA, which is a lending institution. I would like to recognize Congressman Tebuteb too, to the chamber. Welcome, Congressman. Chair recognized Senator Manglona. Senator P. Manglona: Thank you, Mr. President. I signed this committee report with reservation and that is actually to encourage our colleague Senator Crisostimo to work on this initiative and as you pointed out Mr. President, see if we can place the funding for the revolving fund. For example, for the Housing loan under MIHA. As you know, we have done something similar in the past assisting MIHA with MPLT funding. I believe there’s still a significant amount of that loan balance with MIHA and as a matter of fact, last year we even eliminated the payment of MPLT from MIHA in the interest payment due the CNMI government is no longer applied toward that loan. So, actually I wanted to find out more about how that is to be paid by MIHA so that we can all incorporate all of these concern on housing under one initiative. We should maybe forgive MIHA or have some kind of payment arrangement, because right now I don’t know how they’re going to be paying that from MIHA, but that kind of arrangement I think that we can provide additional funding. If we give it to MIHA and I think that in addition to that, we have to specify how they’re going to develop these housing units, because I think that a model subdivision development is in Koblerville, but of course, the problem there is the construction defect. Other than that, I think I’d like to see more of those kind of development, because we want to make sure that they are orderly development and the investment last a long time. So, I will support using MPLT funds for housing… President J. Mendiola: Senator Manglona, just very short. Just to change the tape. I’m sorry. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Short recess, Mr. President. President J. Mendiola: Short recess. Okay. Let’s have a short recess. RECESS. President J. Mendiola: We’re back to our plenary session. We’re still under Standing Committee Report. Senator Manglona, you had the floor before we took a recess. So, you have the privilege again. Senator P. Manglona: Thank you, Mr. President. Basically, I want to encourage Senator Crisostimo to pursue this intent of providing additional funding for housing and for business loans. The only concern here is the agency that we are providing the funding to. I believe if it’s for housing loans that it should be conducted by the Northern Marianas Housing Corporation. They have already set in place procedures and requirements and the details as to how loans are to be provided. So, I think that’s a critical component in any legislative initiative. The other concern I have are the existing loans with MIHA from MPLT and how is that being addressed. I

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think that we need to look at that also and I will support initiative that will provide additional housing loans. Thank you, Mr. President. President J. Mendiola: Thank you. Chair recognized Senator Crisostimo. Senator L. Crisostimo: Thank you, Mr. President and members. I just talked to Senator Pangelinan and we both also see the importance of this legislation. I want to report and be on record on some of the issues. For the resident single-family dwelling loan for individuals of Northern Marianas Descent that get, we’re just trying to give them a small loan. Usually, it’s 5-10,000 to dwell either --- system, whatever. Sometimes, these are very difficult for them to go to and build a bigger structural with all the facility. So, this is what they call a small, it’s almost like a small loan, nominal loans. It’s not really the 100,000, the 75,000 that completes really one structure, and on another hand. I received from MPLT and on their communication, I see that one of their first, the largest fund that they’ve sent out is $18,000,000 and the rate of return is not even 1%. It’s .9 of a percent. This is how we should really scrutinize our autonomous agency and in order for them to be strong and know that we put them on notice and we look on what they do. If you put this fund in Bank of Guam, Bank of Saipan, City Trust Bank, or local banks, we’d probably get 2.5% back on the 18,000,000. On the 18,000,000, we got $80,000. On the 18,000,000, we had to pay 41,000 for what management fee. So, it brings this signal and we should put these people on notice that if you can get anything beyond 2%, we should give to the local bank, because the local bank can loan to our farmers directly. Our fishermen, our business community whether it’s CNMI descent or non CNMI descent, and they can get 3% and we are assured 2%. So, this is how when it comes to tough times, tough economic times, there’s a push and shove, we help our resident business here, and also give an opportunity to the indigenous people who deep in my heart I feel that MPLT really belongs these funds, they should benefit one way or another. Thank you, Mr. President and members. President J. Mendiola: Thank you. Any other discussion on Standing Committee Report 15-108? Again, I commend the author of this bill, but I would kindly request that we’d go back and amend some of the sections. This bill is good for indigenous people and I think everybody here is in support of that. It’s just a matter of coming up with the right mechanism to address some of the concerns that were brought to the committee’s attention. So, this will not be, I hope Senator Crisostimo, this will not be the end of this legislative initiative. You can revive it again within a couple of weeks to address some of the concerns of what is being addressed by the committee. Anything else on committee reports? Chair recognized Floor Leader Mendiola. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Mr. President, I move for the adoption of Standing Committee Report No. 15-109. Chair recognized Vice President Reyes.

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Vice President P. Reyes: Point of clarification. On the motion to adopt the Standing Committee Report 15-108, we have not passed it. President J. Mendiola: I’m sorry. Okay. Standing Committee Report 15-108, if there’s no more discussion can we vote on it? Those in favor say, “aye”. Several members voiced, “aye”. Those not in favor say, “nay”. Senator L. Crisostimo voiced, “nay”. Motion was carried by voice vote. President J. Mendiola: Okay. Clerk, there’s a division on the floor. Senate Clerk please roll call. The roll called on the motion for the adoption of SCR 15-108.

Senator Luis M. Crisostomo No Senator Paterno S. Hocog Yes Senator Jude U. Hofschneider Absent Senator Paul A. Mangloña Yes Senator Felix T. Mendiola Yes

Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Yes, with reservation. Senator Maria Frica T. Pangelinan Yes

Senator M. Pangelinan: Yes. I want to just state that I do support this intention and --- for helping our CNMI descent, and we would work further on the bill to make sure that they face all the concerns on the issues so that it will not be deeply challenged when it’s put on the (ballot?). Thank you.

Senator Pete P. Reyes Yes

Vice President P. Reyes: My vote is yes, but at the same time, I would also like to qualify that I am in support of the intent of this bill. I’m sure that once the bill is reintroduced with all the concerns so that when it’s ready to be placed on the ballot, it will be something that the people can understand and support. Thank you.

Senator Henry H. San Nicolas Yes

Senator H. San Nicolas: Yes, with reservation. President Joseph M. Mendiola Yes

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President J. Mendiola: Yes. I agree with the intent of the bill and like Senator Pangelinan says, it needs a little refining, and if it comes up again, I will vote for this legislative initiative. President J. Mendiola: With Seven (7) members voting yes, one (1) member voting no, SCR 15-108 is hereby adopted. Chair recognized Floor Leader Mendiola. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Mr. President, I move for the adoption of Standing Committee Report 15-109. Several members seconded the motion. President J. Mendiola: Seconded. Discussion? Several members voiced, “ready”. President J. Mendiola: Ready. Senate Clerk please roll call. The roll called on the motion for the adoption of SCR 15-109.

Senator Luis M. Crisostomo Yes Senator Paterno S. Hocog Yes Senator Jude U. Hofschneider Absent Senator Paul A. Mangloña Yes Senator Felix T. Mendiola Yes Senator Maria Frica T. Pangelinan Yes Senator Pete P. Reyes Yes Senator Henry H. San Nicolas Yes President Joseph M. Mendiola Yes

President J. Mendiola: With Eight (8) members voting yes, SCR 15-109 is hereby adopted. Chair recognized Floor Leader Mendiola. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Mr. President, I move for the adoption of Standing Committee Report 15-110. Several members seconded the motion. President J. Mendiola: Seconded. Discussion? Chair recognized Senator Pangelinan. Senator M. Pangelinan: Just a point of clarification. We’re on final reading, and this is Senate Bill 15-14.

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President J. Mendiola: Yes, we are adopting the committee report. Senator M. Pangelinan: I don’t have the Standing Committee Report. Vice President P. Reyes: (Inaudible) President J. Mendiola: Senate Bill 15-14. Senator M. Pangelinan: Okay. Sorry. President J. Mendiola: Okay. Senate Clerk please roll call. The roll called on the motion for the adoption of SCR 15-109.


President J. Mendiola: With Eight (8) members voting yes, SCR 15-110 is hereby adopted. Anything else on the Standing Committee, Floor Leader? Floor Leader F. Mendiola: None. President J. Mendiola: Okay.

SPECIAL/CONFERENCE COMMITTEE REPORTS:

1. CONFERENCE COMMITTEE REPORT NO. 15-04: July 2, 2007 – Reporting on H.B. No. 15-53, HS1, HD2,SD1,CCS1, entitled, “To promote businesses owned by the US citizens by amending 1 CMC § 7404 of the Planning and Budgeting Act of 1983.

ADOPTED Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Mr. President, I move for the adoption of Conference Committee Report No. 15-04. Several members seconded the motion. President J. Mendiola: Seconded. Discussion?

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Several members voiced, “ready”. President J. Mendiola: Ready. Senate Clerk please roll call. The roll called on the motion for the adoption of CCR 15-04.


President J. Mendiola: With Eight (8) members voting yes, CCR 15-04 is hereby adopted. Anything else? Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Nothing further, Mr. President. Chair recognized Senator Manglona. Senator P. Manglona: Mr. President, since we just confirmed Mr. Quichocho and I have not objection, and we didn’t have a hearing. I don’t know if it’s worth a try, but for PUC we all know Effrain Camacho, we all know Lina Villagomez, and I believe we all know Mr. Alan Perez. The only person I don’t know really is Manuel Rebauliman. I don’t know him, but my point is I’m going to give it a try to see if we can confirm them. I think the issue here is so big at CUC and PUC that we have to get some people on board and start trying to organize. I know Mr. Camacho. He’s local engineer. We all know Lina and Alan Perez. I don’t know if this is trying to take it away from the committee, but you know if we can confirm these people and get them on board starting, we’ll force the issue to get other names to have a quorum and move them forward. President J. Mendiola: Can we have Senator Reyes, because I’m kind of confused on the rules? So, is it possible? Vice President P. Reyes: Mr. President, I certainly will vote in support of the candidates, because I know them as Senator Paul had indicated. My only concern is that we have already established communication with the House and for us to sort of --- on that agreement to hold a joint hearing that it may send the wrong signal to the House. Had we not establish communication with the House? This is the best way to force the House to act on, the Speaker, and also the Chairman. I think that if we had not established this dialogue it may be one of the best way to force the House to act on it, but since the House are willing to cooperate and work with us I urge my colleagues in the Senate to please respect that even though I know I’m going to vote if the issue is forced on today’s session. Thank you.

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President J. Mendiola: Okay. Can we make it for the record then, that these nominees should be entertained by next week, no later than Friday? Make it a point that because of the urgency of this. Chair recognized Vice President Reyes. Vice President P. Reyes: Mr. President and members, the Chairman of the committee in the House of Representative, the Standing Committee have signaled that he will be willing to work with the Chairman of the Committee in the House of Representative, the Standing Committee had signaled that he will be willing to work with the Chairman of PUTC in the Senate to a joint hearing. President J. Mendiola: Okay. So, that’s for the record. The Chairman is here, Congressman Dela Cruz. If I may, Mr. Chairman, I urge that we expedite the hearing at least by next week so we can have something for the entire Senate to at least a recommendation from the joint committee. So, if we can be patient, Senator Paul, and I think that Senator Reyes got it to the point that if it was brought up I’ll vote yes, too. Vice President P. Reyes: Mr. President, I want to correct the record. I mentioned the Chairman of PUTC, it should be the Chairman of EAGI. President J. Mendiola: Okay. Chair recognized Senator Crisostimo. Senator L. Crisostimo: Mr. President, just one quick comment. I know that we are on recess. President J. Mendiola: No, we’re on record. Senator L. Crisostimo: Okay, we’re on record. So, if that’s the case, if I may Senator Paul, I will ask if you can hold off to your… I probably also voted “yes” without reservation, because his name has come to the Senate numerous times and we see it. This is 90 days already and has lapsed. Now, they reappointed. If we really put these people in order, I guarantee you Tao-Tao Tano will not be knocking on our doors, because PUC these are the agencies that would regulate and do their work. When we start mandating CUC, I have to agree with Senator Pangelinan, we might be creating more trouble to the agency. Thank you. President J. Mendiola: Thank you. So, with that in mind, let’s proceed to resolution calendar.

RESOLUTION CALENDAR:

1. H.J. R. No. 15-25: To approve the request for the recruitment of

Nineteen Very Critical Positions for the Northern Marianas College.

(See Hse. Comm. No. 15-297) ADOPTED WITH AMENDMENTS

COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE: 12:43 P.M. RET. TO SESSION 1:40 P.M.

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2. H.J.R. No. 15-26. entitled, “ To approve the request of the Executive

Branch to hire employees certified as very critical to the delivery of

essential services under PL 15-28 as amended by PL 15-71, Section

2(d)(1)(c).” (See Hse. Comm. No. 15-298)

REFERRED TO COMMITTEE

RECESS: 1:45 P.M. RETURNED: 1:55 P.M.

3. H.J.R. No. 15-27, HD1. entitled, “ To approve the hiring of any

employee by a member of the Legislature for a position certified by

either presiding officer of the Legislature as very critical to the

delivery of essential services until September 30, 2007.” (See Hse.

Comm. No. 15-299)

REFERRED TO COMMITTEE

Chair recognized Floor Leader Mendiola. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Mr. President, I move for the adoption of House Joint Resolution 15-25, To approve the request for the recruitment of Nineteen Very Critical

Positions for the Northern Marianas College. (See Hse. Comm. No. 15-297) Several members seconded the motion. President J. Mendiola: Seconded. Discussion? Chair recognized Vice President Reyes. Vice President P. Reyes: Mr. President, let me be the first to throw in my support on House Joint Resolution 15-25, but before I do that, I want to go on record saying that this is a very sensitive issue when we start to exempt FTE’s, because as you know it has a domino effect on all the agencies. Everybody is coming up now with request for exemption, but we have been very sensitive and supportive of exemptions involving the education of our children. Earlier, Senator Pangelinan has raised up the issue that they were agencies who were financially suffering because of the cuts and all that. Then, we see a search for additional to be allowed additional FTE’s to be filled. While the appearance is not very good, there are some agencies as in the case of NMC where the positions that they are seeking are not necessarily all locally funded positions. There are some federal funded positions and our austerity program had touched on many of these federal grants that are questionable in terms of what benefit can be derived as a result of that. Actually, the CNMI loses out because of that, but the education of our children are involved, Mr. President. I have been very supportive, not just on PSS, but also on the Northern Marianas College. For the longest time Mr. President, I can go back into history when Agnes McPheters was the President of NMC, that there has been a tremendous reaction by elected officials to support programs under the Northern Marianas College. I remember when I was in the House of

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Representative there was an oversight made and all kinds of questions have been raised by members of the committee on oversight committee and honestly, by the end of the day, when all the dust settles, we find ourselves supporting the request from NMC. I’m not sure whether any of the members here Mr. President, have had children old enough to go to NMC, but I do. I have two daughters that have gone through NMC and believe me, the quality of college preparation that goes on for students as in the case of my two daughters. they both went on to graduated from the University of Guam with a great deal of academic achievement. My oldest daughter is now the Principal for Garapan Elementary School, graduated at the top of her class “Sumacumlade”. She told me that’s a straight “A” and since I don’t graduated from college, I don’t have a college degree sometimes I wonder whether she’s telling the truth, but Sumacumlade supposedly a 4.0 GPA and what I do recognize is the fact that she is on the President’s list and the Dean’s list as well. So, the second daughter who came down and I’m saying this because I have a point to make. My second daughter that went to college graduated from a high school in the Philippines where many of us question the academic quality of educations from the Philippine, but if many of you are aware, the equivalent of a high school graduate in any US jurisdiction where 12th grade is the high school, in the Philippine it’s the 10th equivalent. So, there’s two grades, but when she came over and took the entrance examination and passed that and went to NMC, it has prepared her to the challenges that she eventually had to make having to compete with students from Guam and she graduated Magnacumlade record to speak for itself. Unfortunately, for my son who graduated about 5-6 years ago, I just told him to graduate and I’m very happy that he did, because he wanted to stay at the University of Guam for as long as he can stretch it with the financial help that we provide, because the scholarship decided to stop… Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Career students. Vice President P. Reyes: Yes, career students. President J. Mendiola: Vice, can we just give a very short… Vice President P. Reyes: Sure. President J. Mendiola: He’s just going to turn the tape. Vice President P. Reyes: Mr. President, I had a change to speak to Doctor Fernandez before the session. Unfortunately, I’ve never had the opportunity to sit down with this wonderful lady when she was a Senator in Guam. I know that I had an occasion to meet with her and briefly exchange greetings, but I guess that’s the amount of our relationship, so I don’t know her much, but I’ve followed her career while she was a Senator and I listened to both 6-10 and 5-70 on the radio AM radio station and I know that of all the things that were covered during her 10 year that she has demonstrated an exemplary performance as a Senator on 6-10 when my good friend Former Senator Blas was the host of the show, there were some critical moments when many of her work has been questioned. I distinctly remember one time when Former Senator Blas was actually criticizing one of the work that she had done and to his biggest surprise, the next one on the telephone line was Doctor Fernandez justifying why she did the things that she had done and it was like a somersault, because Former Senator Blas quickly changed his positions and begin to support what he was criticizing previously and if you are familiar with this channel, you would

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hear other callers coming in questioning why you criticizing her and now you’re supporting her, but this is a quality of the person in Doctor Fernandez. I am very glad that she is now the person heading NMC and leading NMC into a future that is bright and promising for our people. So, if we, my good colleagues allow her to showcase her stuff, show us what she can do, and we provide our support, I’m sure that we will not regret doing this. So, I ask my fellow colleagues to support this. Thank you. President J. Mendiola: Thank you, Vice President Reyes. Chair recognized Floor Leader Mendiola. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Thank you, Mr. President. I would first like to acknowledge the presence of the NMC President and Former Senator of Guam Ms. Fernandez. I believe her presence here demonstrates the urgent need for our continuing support with NMC. At one time I was with NMC, my heart is with education and while we meet challenges for both primary and secondary schools that we have operating here in the CNMI catering to our kids equally, as equally important as the post secondary education. These are young adults for which is entrusted to educate and prepare to take the roles in the discipline they are pursuing at NMC. I can see as Senator Reyes clearly stated that prior, rather President Ms. Agnes McPheters had been very instrumental in obtaining a lot of the funding through the Legislature. I was there. I was one of those guys crying to the President before the President comes to you at that time. I do appreciate the continuing support and without much due I ask my colleagues to please, let’s support this and continue to support our post secondary education, because these are the young adults we need to man the stern as we move forth in our economic recovery and our posterity. Thank you. President J. Mendiola: Thank you. Chair recognized Vice President Reyes. Vice President P. Reyes: One more thing, Mr. President. I throw in my support to Doctor Fernandez and NMC after my concern is satisfied that the funding that they have at the present time is sufficient to cover the request of FTE’s that she’s asking exempt. Otherwise, if she’s asking for more money, then we probably will have a longer conversation before I offer my support. Thank you. President J. Mendiola: Thank you. Chair recognized Senator Manglona. Senator P. Manglona: Thank you, Mr. President. I know the Chairman of Education is off island, but he has met with the President and this morning he called from the US asking for my support. So, I trust the chairman has discussed this matter with the President and for that reason Mr. President my support. Thank you. President J. Mendiola: Thank you. Any other discussion?

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Chair recognized Senator Pangelinan. Senator M. Pangelinan: Thank you, Mr. President. I have no problem with our current President. I have all the confidence that she is working hard and will improve the college. I do not question her ability. I do question the need to hire before September 30th, because I would really like to know when were these positions vacant. It was out in the paper that our nursing students were not certified, because we did not have we failed to do our job at the college. I would like a respond for that. Budget technician, we have a CPA, why can’t we wait for the budget technician and accountant until September 30th? I would like to know what is a program manager, a program coordinator. I mean, I look at this and really, if you have waited the past 6 months or 8 months not to fill the position I’m sure you can live another 30 days before you can recruit. It just looks like we here at the Legislature, we’re being always so accommodating. We call them in and they cannot do the job. We failed to do this. The Director, the student nursing is one big issue that really shocked me and surprise me, and it failed us. They don’t have the money, because they don’t have the money, then suddenly we know what they’re doing, because now they have to present to us who are the people they are hiring. Is it really critical that we cannot wait until October 1st or the month of October to hire them. That is my concern. We put ourselves in this position, because we really want to abide by the law, because it’s not based on critical needs. We exempted those critical needs already on the law and that’s why we say we would have a joint resolution to approve and they really have to justify, because that is the law. I’m going to stick to that law and I’m really sorry, but I’m not voting for any exemption outside of the 15-71 for these next 30 days. This is my position. Chair recognized Vice President Reyes. Vice President P. Reyes: Mr. President, can I just make a motion, because I think those issues that Senator Pangelinan raised are very real and important that they’d be answered. So, I move to resolve into a committee of the whole so we can have Doctor Fernandez answer some of those questions if the members do not have any objection. President J. Mendiola: Any objection to that? Several members voiced, “no objection” President J. Mendiola: Okay, if there’s no objection, I’m hereby moving for committee as a whole.

COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE: (NMC President – Dr. Carmen Fernandez)

President J. Mendiola: Can we go back? Thank you, Madame President. Can we go back into our plenary session? No objection? Several members voiced, “no objection”. President J. Mendiola: We’re back to our plenary session. We’re still discussion House Joint Resolution 15-25. Just for the information of the members, 15-71 shows the mechanism of

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departments to request for critical position, but we do not have to approve the entire position. We can cut out if they’re asking for 12 we can cut out 2 or whatever. It does not mandate us to approve the entire thing. It is within the discretion of the Legislature both Houses to determine that. Again, when we’re deliberating the budget, I mentioned this when remove that lateral transfer opportunity for each department to share FTE’s. I’ve forecasted that we will be entertaining resolution after resolution. Unfortunately, we are faced with that now, because if we would inserted that position we would could’ve asked Department of Revenue of Finance to lend the NMC an accountant or maintenance worker for the remaining of the fiscal year. Unfortunately, we have to go back to the resolution. So again, it is up to the Legislature to approve all the numbers that are requested or we can go back and not approve the entire number, and put it the way we want. It’s in our discretion. However, I urge everybody to support the request of NMC. As everybody Ms. Fernandez, the new President is just into the new office. She’s trying to restructure NMC so it can work efficiently and provides the maximum benefits for the community and most especially the students. Thank you. Any other discussion? Chair recognized Vice President Reyes. Vice President P. Reyes: Mr. President, I know that on the resolution is says on the heading to approve the recruitment of 19 very critical positions. So, looking at the titles of all the position, maintenance manager, for example. We have a director of library program and service and then we have a librarian. Perhaps we can hold on to the director position, but provide the librarian just to keep the program going. Those are the only two. I don’t know about the 4-H extension and I’m not sure what it does or the Tinian and Rota site coordinator. I’m going to leave that up to Tinian and Rota to decide whether that is a critical position at this time, but if there’s no objection I would just like to make a floor amendment to reduce it to 17 instead of 19. President J. Mendiola: That would be the proper… Vice President P. Reyes: Yes. President J. Mendiola: Okay. So, you’re making a motion for? Vice President P. Reyes: The motion is to purch maintenance manager and #19 and #2 out of… Senator M. Pangelinan: How about #10 and 11? They have a --- Vice President P. Reyes: I don’t know. Do we have a current budget technician in NMC? Maybe, because of the on-going issue of budget… Senator P. Manglona: Mr. President, can I just? President J. Mendiola: Go ahead. Vice President P. Reyes: I yield. Senator P. Manglona: I’m going to recommend that if we can just come up with a language that says let her decide to approve 15 of the 19 and let the President Board of Regents knowing that

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we are serious trying to cut the number of employees. Let them decide which of these 19 they’re going to cut. That way we don’t try to tell them which is more critical. So, to accomplish the savings if we can just come up with a language. If we want to approve 15, let’s say 15 of the 19 they can select. Thank you. Vice President P. Reyes: Mr. President, let me refresh then my motion to approve the request for the recruitment of 17 very critical position and we just allowed the President to select. Unless, the members wish to reduce that any further. Senator M. Pangelinan: For me, I only see 4 critical positions. That’s why they come here for us to decide what is critical. For me, the critical is a Director of Nursing, the Librarian, the Registrar, she justified the Administrative Manager, and you don’t need a financial aid specialist, an account, and a budget technician. That can wait. That’s not critical. So, I’m off for four or I don’t vote. President J. Mendiola: Okay, your motion again Senator Reyes is? Vice President P. Reyes: Let me please, Mr. President. President J. Mendiola: Go ahead. Vice President P. Reyes: I need the patience of the members. The financial aid specialist is critical too, because these are the necessary support for any students going into the school. They would need to talk to a financial aid specialist in order to sufficiently prepare them for enrollment and with their necessary financial support I see the director of institutional effectiveness as being also a critical position to the institution so that it can measure the effectiveness of the program. The Dean for community programs and services also necessary. The Director of Admission and Records, that if there’s none, I believe this is also very necessary for enrollment purpose for those of you that college graduate probably can relate to that better than I am. Director of Information and Learning Technology, I think this is also a critical position. So Mr. President, as maybe the budget technician and eliminate accountant… President J. Mendiola: Do we need a short recess? Vice President P. Reyes: Short recess, Mr. President. President J. Mendiola: Okay, because my situation here before we get to the recess is that, NMC has come to us with good faith to request to us all these positions. Now, we’re telling her that you don’t need this and you don’t need that. Maybe we should go and ask NMC at a different venue before we even approve this, because they are requesting us that it’s critical, it is essential, and it’s needed. We’ve never been to the NMC Administration. We never really went there and look at it. So, I don’t think it’s our position to say, you don’t need this, you don’t need that, she’s the best person to know. Vice President P. Reyes: Mr. President, we’re still in…

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Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Mr. President, may we have a recess? President J. Mendiola: We’re still in session. We’re not in recess yet. Vice President P. Reyes: So, Mr. President, Dr. Fernandez is not a stranger to politics and the works of the Legislature as she herself has been a member of the Senate. So, may I request for a short recess? President J. Mendiola: Yes. Let’s go into a short recess.

RECESS

President J. Mendiola: We’re back to our plenary session. Still discussion 15-25 and there’s a motion being offered by Senator Reyes. Chair recognized Vice President Reyes. Vice President P. Reyes: Mr. President, the motion is a floor amendment to House Joint Resolution 15-25. On Page 1 Line 16, to just add after recruitment of “any 15 of the”, and before the word 19, just add the following “listed in the July 2nd letter” after the word positions on Page 1 Line 17. President J. Mendiola: Okay, can you state that for the record again? Vice President P. Reyes: Okay. On Page 1 Line 16, add the following… President J. Mendiola: After the word recruitment? Vice President P. Reyes: Yes, any 15 of the 19 listed on the July 2nd Letter, after the word position on Line 17, okay. Several members seconded the motion. President J. Mendiola: Seconded. Discussion? Chair recognized Senator Manglona. Senator P. Manglona: Mr. President, I wonder if we need to do it also in the to approve the request for the recruitment. Vice President P. Reyes: I already orally did that, 15. President J. Mendiola: Yes. That’s part of this oral amendment. Senator P. Manglona: Okay.

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President J. Mendiola: Ready? We’re still under discussion. Chair recognized Senator Crisostimo. Senator L. Crisostimo: Mr. President, I know that we are making this amendment and giving the college the 15 as critical position, but you know, even in our Supreme Court ruling the college may have some autonomy and I don’t think this is necessary, but I will vote on this amendment and this joint resolution. Thank you. President J. Mendiola: Okay, again, no discussion. It has been seconded. Chair recognized Vice President Reyes. Vice President P. Reyes: Mr. President, this is voting on the floor amendment. President J. Mendiola: Yes, on the floor amendment. Senate Clerk please roll call. The roll called on the motion for the passage on the oral amendment.

Senator Luis M. Crisostomo Yes Senator Paterno S. Hocog Yes Senator Jude U. Hofschneider Absent Senator Paul A. Mangloña Yes Senator Felix T. Mendiola Yes Senator Maria Frica T. Pangelinan No Senator Pete P. Reyes Yes Senator Henry H. San Nicolas Yes President Joseph M. Mendiola Yes

President J. Mendiola: With Seven (7) members voting yes, oral amendment is hereby passed. We’re back to the main motion. Chair recognized Vice President Reyes. Vice President P. Reyes: Mr. President, I would like to comment on the joint resolution as amended. The reason why I recommended that it’s 15, because this is part of the problem with the accreditation team, we cannot dictate to NMC what position to eliminate, what position directly affects the accreditation. We should leave this up to NMC to decide what they need for accreditation. It was just brought to my attention to, that part of the position that are being requested is a direct result of an audit perform at NMC to bring NMC back to compliance. So, that’s the reason for my support. President J. Mendiola: Okay. Chair recognized Senator Panglinan.

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Senator M. Pangelinan: Mr. President, I would just like to clarify that, I did not vote for this, because I do not want to step on my own tongue that I voted for 15-71, because of for a basic reason, the budget issue. Crisis has been going on for the past 6 months. All I’m saying is that 30 more days will not cause a disaster for the college. We are not interfering with the college. We understand everything is critical. We understand that accreditation is critical. We’re not questioning that the management is on its way to recovery. It’s just that again, I do not want to step on my own tongue. Thank you. President J. Mendiola: Thank you. Any other discussion? Several members voice, “ready”. President J. Mendiola: Ready. Senate Clerk please roll call. The roll called on the motion for the passage on HJR 15-25.

Senator Luis M. Crisostomo Yes Senator Paterno S. Hocog Yes Senator Jude U. Hofschneider Absent Senator Paul A. Mangloña Yes Senator Felix T. Mendiola Yes Senator Maria Frica T. Pangelinan No Senator Pete P. Reyes Yes Senator Henry H. San Nicolas Yes President Joseph M. Mendiola Yes

President J. Mendiola: With Seven (7) members voting yes, One (1) voting no HJR 15-25 is hereby passed. Chair recognized Floor Leader Mendiola. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Mr. President, I move for the adoption of House Joint Resolution 15-26. President J. Mendiola: Any second to that motion? Several members seconded the motion. President J. Mendiola: Seconded. Discussion? Chair recognized Vice President Reyes. Vice President P. Reyes: Mr. President, without objection from the members, can we refer this to the committee so that we can digest the proper implication this is going to have on a lot of things including the continuing saga of the austerity program.

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President J. Mendiola: If there’s no objection. There’s a recommendation on the floor to refer it to maybe, Vice, you will refer it to the proper committee? Chair recognized Senator Pangelinan. Senator M. Pangelinan: Mr. President, I really believe it’s a waste of time to refer this to the committee. Senator Paul just made it very clear, 15-71 says that the administration and CUC are not included. Let’s just not vote on it. President J. Mendiola: Again there’s a motion and we’re still discussing it. If we’re going to withdraw that motion, then have that motion… You’re not withdrawing your motion Floor Leader? Floor Leader F. Mendiola: That’s not my motion. That’s coming from the Vice President. Mr. President, however, I support the Vice President’s motion. I believe that there is a substance as to the validity of “very critical” positions. I believe the committee can identify such to scrutinize and do the research with the Executive Branch and I would like to ask the Vice President if he can include in this motion perhaps I’ll make an amendment to his motion to include House Joint Resolution 15-27, HD1. So, the committee will scrutinize on both and come up with their recommended course of action. President J. Mendiola: Okay. So, that motion includes the amended motion by Senator Mendiola has been seconded. Any further discussion? Chair recognized Vice President Reyes. Vice President P. Reyes: Sometimes, we need to have humor in our work and in these two resolutions is humorous. So, I agree with Senator Pangelinan that this would be an exercise in ---, because Senator Paul admitted… Senator M. Pangelinan: (Inaudible) Vice President P. Reyes: Yes. Make reference to citations of provisions of the law that made it very clear that these two agencies are not part of those listed as critical departments or agencies, but let’s humor the author, and just refer it to the committee and let their faith rest with the committee. Senator M. Pangelinan: And the committee report will come up October 15th. President J. Mendiola: I think it’s the obligation of the committee to bring in the respective agency to make sure that whether these positions cannot wait until October 1st. Okay, so motion on the floor was withdrawn and the motion is to refer it to the committee. Those in favor say, “aye”. Several members voiced, “aye”.

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SJ 15-034 July 26, 2007

Those not in favor say, “nay”. Motion was carried by voice vote. President J. Mendiola: These two resolutions are hereby referred to the committee. Chair recognized Vice President Reyes. Vice President P. Reyes: Thank you, Mr. President. I’ll take responsibility to apologize to the Speaker at a later time, both resolutions. President J. Mendiola: Okay. If there’s no objection, can we get a short lunch break, because the staff, and then come back to the final reading? Vice President P. Reyes: Mr. President, before we do that, I don’t know if the members have noticed that Mr. Sablan and Tina were here from the beginning of the session waiting to have that one particular bill entertained. With the consent of the members, may I ask for your patients again, just so we can get rid of these two bills? President J. Mendiola: Okay. If there’s no objection, we’ll go to the final reading and entertain that particular bill. Senator Reyes, what is the number of this particular bills? Vice President P. Reyes: I’m going to leave that up to the Floor Leader, Mr. President, to make the motion. President J. Mendiola: Okay. We’re on final reading. Chair recognized Floor Leader Mendiola. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Mr. President, I move for the passage of Senate Bill 15-96, SS1. Several members seconded the motion. President J. Mendiola: Seconded. Discussion? Chair recognized Vice President Reyes. Vice President P. Reyes: Mr. President, again, I ask the members patience with me. I know that I’ve been asking a lot of the members’ tolerance, but I would like to make a motion before we debate on the fate of Senate Bill 15-96. I would like to make a motion to resolve to a Committee of the Whole so that we can have Mr. Sablan talk to us regarding this bill. President J. Mendiola: Is there any objection on the floor for going into Committee as a Whole. Let me entertain Senator Manglona first before we do that. Go ahead.

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Senator P. Manglona: I think that it would be the right time to call them in if the bill that was motion was not 15-96, SS1. I think the motion is SS1 and I know that Tina had expressed in her letter the passage of 15-96, but since this is SS1 I think that it would be wise first for the body to discuss why SS1 came about so that we can agree first that that’s the version. Vice President P. Reyes: Can we ask for a very short recess just to check with Mr. Sablan if he is familiar with the text on 15-96, SS1? President J. Mendiola: Okay, can we have the record, because the author is Senator Manglona, and must explain it briefly before we go into recess? Senator P. Manglona: Mr. President, I know that the Legal Counsel tried to explain that also before the session. I was under the assumption that the bill as originally introduced would be passed, but maybe we should go into the Committee of the Whole and listen to the Legal Counsel and Tina. President J. Mendiola: Okay. So, if there’s on objection we’ll go into Committee as a Whole. Several members voiced, “no objection”. President J. Mendiola: No objection.

COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE: (Mr. Sablan & Tina Sablan – HB 15-269 & SB 15-96)

Note: Mr. Sablan submitted documents to this session and has been carried to the Senate Clerk. President J. Mendiola: We’re back to our plenary session. Can we have a 30 minute lunch break? Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Mr. President, I move for a recess. President J. Mendiola: No, we’re going on a lunch break, because we still have to go through the agenda. We haven’t even gotten to the final reading. Chair recognized Vice President Reyes. Vice President P. Reyes: Mr. President, just a note. You know, we have a whole bunch of list in the agenda. If we don’t finish the agenda we’re being violation of the open government act, right? President J. Mendiola: Yes. We have to finish that. Okay. We got 30 minutes. Just a short lunch break and we’ll be back. LUNCH BREAK

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SJ 15-034 July 26, 2007

President J. Mendiola: We’re back to our plenary session. We were entertaining the two previous bill and then went into a Committee as a Whole. After further discussion it was recommended that these bill will be referred to a joint committee conference. However, there was no motion for adoption when we went into, so can we have a motion… Chair recognized Vice President Reyes. Vice President P. Reyes: Mr. President, just so that this bill goes into the JGO Committee in the Senate so maybe the Chairman would coordinate with the House counterpart and see if we can do this jointly. Thank you. President J. Mendiola: So, if we can Chairman. We’re going to refer this to your committee and work together with the House counterpart to address some of the concerns that we raised during the Committee as a Whole. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Mr. President, point of clarification. That’s House Joint Resolution 15-26 and 15-27. President J. Mendiola: No, we’re talking about the open government act 15-96 and House Bill 15-269. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Thank you.

BILL CALENDAR:

FIRST READING

LEG. NO. TITLE

FINAL READING

LEG. NO. TITLE

S.B. No. 15-14 (See SCR 15-110) PASSED

To amend 1 CMC § 8117(i) of the Commonwealth

Civil Service Act to provide that the Civil Service

Commission shall amend the Civil Service Rules and

Regulations to remove any and all provisions

requiring that persons seeking to be certified as

eligible for a civil service position have prior work

experience if such persons possess a Bachelor’s,

Masters, or Doctoral degree, in a field of expertise

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related to the civil service position for which the

person has applied

H.B. No. 15-249, HD1

(Hse. Comm 15-236)

PASSED

To reappropriate Section 3(c) of PL 14-80; and for

other purposes (Tanapag Youth Learning Center

and PSS)

S.B. No. 15-87, SD1, HS1 PASSED

To amend 4 CMC § 3214; and for other purposes

(Temporary License)

H.B. No. 15-286 (Hse. Comm 15-300) REFER TO COMM

To amend 4 CMC § 1103; to repeal and re-enact 4

CMC § 1503; to repeal and re-enact 4 CMC § 1505

H.L.I. No. 15-2, HD2 (See Hse. Comm 15-220) next session

To permit the Legislature to provide by law that

government retirees may be reemployed without

losing retirement benefits for an unrestricted period

of time by amending Article III, section 20(b) of the

Constitution of the NMI S.B. No. 15-98 PASSED

To amend the Commonwealth Code to reform the administration of the sick leave bank and place prudent fiscal controls thereon

H.B. No. 15-22, HD1 (Gov. Msg. No. 15-431) OVERRODE 8-0

To require the Scholarship Office and any other

governmental agency issuing scholarship recipient

lists to governmental entities; and for other purposes

H.B. No. 15-259, HD1 (Gov. Msg. No. 15-434) OVERRODE 8-0

To appropriate $54,000.00 from the Second

Senatorial District Solid Waste Management Fund;

and for other purposes

S.B. No. 15-90, SD1 (SCR 15-107) PASSED

To create a Marine Reserve Area on Tinian from

Southwest Carolinas Point and to Puntan Diablo; and

for other purposes

H.B. No. 15-285

(See Hse. Comm 15-3

REFERRED TO COMM

To amend 3 CMC § 4434; and for other purposes

(CUC essential positions)

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SJ 15-034 July 26, 2007

S.B. No. 15-96, SS1

REFER TO JGL

Open Government Act

COMM OF THE WHOLE: 2:10 P.M. RET. TO SESS.

3:40P.M.

H.B. No. 15-269, HD1

REFER TO JGL

Open Government Act

President J. Mendiola: No objection. We’re referring this to the respective committee. We’re on final reading. Chair recognized Floor Leader Mendiola. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: If there’s no objection to my good colleagues. I move for the passage of Senate Bill 15-14. Several members seconded the motion. President J. Mendiola: Seconded. Discussion? Several members voiced, “ready”. President J. Mendiola: Ready. Senate Clerk please roll call. The roll called on the motion for the passage on SB 15-14.


President J. Mendiola: With Eight (8) members voting yes, SB 15-14 is hereby passed. Chair recognized Floor Leader Mendiola. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: I hereby move for the passage of House Bill 15-249, HD1. Several members seconded the motion. President J. Mendiola: Seconded. Discussion?

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Several member voiced, “ready”. President J. Mendiola: Ready. Senate Clerk please roll call. The roll called on the motion for the passage on HB 15-249, HD1.


President J. Mendiola: With Eight (8) members voting yes, HB 15-249, HD1 is hereby passed. Chair recognized Floor Leader Mendiola. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Motion for passage on SB 15-87, SD1, SS1. Several members seconded the motion. President J. Mendiola: Seconded. Discussion? Several members voiced, “ready”. President J. Mendiola: Ready. Senator M. Pangelinan: What bill is this? Floor Leader F. Mendiola: 15-87. President J. Mendiola: It’s the temporary license. Senator M. Pangelinan: I have a comment on this Mr. President. I just want to clarify. I remember that we passed the bill originally. This is the same bill that we passed from the House right? President J. Mendiola: Yes, we passed it in the Senate. Senator M. Pangelinan: Originally passed and it went to the House and it had a House Substitute1. The first time I relied on our good Senator here Senator Paul, because he was an engineer and he said that he was going to give it a sunset provision so I voted for it. This time I got bombarded from the professional licensing board against the bill that we passed. So, I would like to know what is the difference. What was put by the House Substitute 1 that was changed from the original version of the Senate.

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SJ 15-034 July 26, 2007

President J. Mendiola: I think if you look at Senate bill 15-87, HD1, HS1, there are changes to license or certify on Line 12 or certify instead of in another, and it goes down to line 14 where obtaining the license meet those requirements instead of required for licensor. Before it was by these board, it says for licensor under 3215AE. Senator M. Pangelinan: So, is this again the same bill that’s going to accommodate the San Antonio project? President J. Mendiola: Yes. Senator M. Pangelinan: So, I have to vote against this bill. I’m sorry. President J. Mendiola: Okay. Any other discussion? Chair recognized Senator Manglona. Senator P. Manglona: Just for the record, because Senator Pangelinan said that she relied on my comments. I never supported that bill. I only offered the amendment to accommodate the Senate President in trying to move the bill, but I never supported that bill per say that, because as I mentioned in that deliberation just like we license accountants or the legal profession, I think that we should do likewise for the engineering field, but because I believe the sentiment of the body was to pass that, then I offered the sunset provision, and because of that I supported that. Again, Mr. President, I want to follow up on Senator Pangelinan’s question. 15-87, I’m sorry I do not have a copy in front of me. Can I get a copy of that? President J. Mendiola: It’s in House Communication 289. Vice President P. Reyes: (Inaudible) President J. Mendiola: Yes. If you look at the attachment, there is a letter from Frances Florence Sablan dated 06/19/07. It’s part of the attachment urging the support of this bill. Originally, the licensing board objected to this bill. What I understand is that when they remove that two-year sunset provision they were in support of it. So, if you look at HS1, that sunset provision is no longer there. Should we take a short recess? Senator P. Manglona: Yes. Short recess. President J. Mendiola: Okay. Let’s have a short recess so everybody can review the document. RECESS President J. Mendiola: We’re back to our plenary session. We’re still discussing SB 15-87. Senator Manglona, you had the floor before we went into recess.

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Senator P. Manglona: Mr. President, I believe there is a letter attached to the documents here from Florence Bocago who is I believe the Executive Director for the licensing board. I believe if she signs off on this, she must have cleared it with I’m sure the local engineer who are represented in the board. So, at this point I don’t have any objection to that legislation. Thank you. President J. Mendiola: Okay. Any other discussion? Several members voiced, “ready”. President J. Mendiola: If not. Senate Clerk please roll call. The roll called on the motion for the passage on SB 15-87, HD1, HS1.

Senator Luis M. Crisostomo No Senator Paterno S. Hocog Yes Senator Jude U. Hofschneider Absent Senator Paul A. Mangloña Yes Senator Felix T. Mendiola Yes Senator Maria Frica T. Pangelinan No

Senator M. Pangelinan: No, I’m sorry. I don’t like temporary bills. I like a bill that applies. We made it, because it’s good for everybody permanently. Chair recognized Vice President Reyes. Vice President P. Reyes: Mr. President, before I vote, but they took out the temporary provision. This is not permanent. President J. Mendiola: The sunset provision. Vice President P. Reyes: Yes, they took out the temporary provision so this now applies for everyone. Senator M. Pangelinan: But it’s still a temporary license for foreigners. Vice President P. Reyes: Yes, but they took out the sunset clause. Senator M. Pangelinan: But we have permanent licenses in the CNMI. Vice President P. Reyes: I think what we have here in this bill is a temporary permanent. My vote is, “yes”.

Senator Pete P. Reyes Yes Senator Henry H. San Nicolas Yes President Joseph M. Mendiola Yes

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SJ 15-034 July 26, 2007

President J. Mendiola: With Seven (7) members voting yes, two (2) voting no, SB 15-87, HD1, HS1 is hereby passed. Chair recognized Floor Leader Mendiola. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Mr. President, I move for the passage of House Bill 15-286. President J. Mendiola: Any second to that motion? Several members seconded the motion. President J. Mendiola: Discussion? Chair recognized Senator Crisostimo. Senator L. Crisostimo: Mr. President, the funny thing about this legislation is that it was actually vetoed by the Governor. I personally feel that it’s a good legislation, but I’d really like to see if we can add some amendments. The main problem here is doing business is very harsh, but adding more fees and other assessment to this industry would definitely hurt it. I also want to tell you that I’m pro-business. I always believed that if you give the business in opportunity they might just stay, but if we start changing policies in the middle of the game, the middle of the business year in cycle, it really will hurt them. I wonder if we got some at least some comments from these people. How would they feel? Should these mandates be hand down? This is a very I would say requires a lot of administrative. For example, I’ll give you a classic example like the Dynasty. If their slot machine would have won, they would have to pay 30% if it’s above $999. If this person or whoever comes and plays in the Dynasty and don’t have a social security, he would have to pay 33% more. So, we’re actually asking that person to pay 66% of the $1,000 ---. I just wonder if the Dynasty would afford to open their machine. Senator Hofschneider, this morning called me this morning about this and asked if it can be held and I don’t want to comment anymore than that. I would support these measures, but I think we have to look at the buy ability of this business. It might be very detrimental. Thank you. Chair recognized Senator Manglona. Senator P. Manglona: Thank you, Mr. President. For my part, as far as the poker machines on Rota I am always in support of increasing the taxes of the machines, because that’s one way of reducing the numbers of the machines on the island. My problem though Mr. President, if for example on Page 4 subsection B of 1505. Again, I commented on this particular concern in a similar legislation where winnings of the machines between $99 and $999 you have to assess them a tax, and at present the only tax that we impose other than the per machine tax is the jackpot winnings. That’s easy to assess, because jackpot winnings are I understand when you get a royal, a royal flush. So, it makes a sound and everybody knows that it records how many jackpots per machine in a given month or if somebody were to come in and check the machine, they know how many royal flush in the machine. So, it’s easy to audit and keep on track, but again $99 is a person can put in so many $20 bills and have $99 worth of points. Then, let’s say he decides, he got an emergency call, he has to collect that, that one is hard to monitor, because

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it doesn’t register. Nothing in the machine would register it that you got $99 worth of points. I don’t think the way that it registers the jackpot. So, this is going to be putting a burden again on the owners to be honest and to monitor this, then how is the government going to audit this. I don’t think the government can audit and say how many of those machines actually pay out a player $99 or $110 worth of points. It’s very hard to monitor. So, if they want to compute this and get the equivalent of amount per month, let’s just might as well tax it as a 1-time fee per machine. Maybe I’ll support that, because it’s easy to monitor, to audit, and to keep the owners honest, but also it’s less paper work. I hope I can make it clear when I say that a person can put in a $100 and then the next second say, hey I have to go, give me back my $100 bill. The attendant will just pay you your $100 and then readjust the machine back to zero. Then, that would be passed and that player would not even have played more than 10 minutes. So, why don’t we just decide how much money we want to raise and just say divide that per the number of machines and say that’s an additional $1,000 per machine, then just change the law and say instead of 8,000 or whatever it is here on Saipan. If it’s 12 say make it 13 per machine. It’s easy to raise the revenue. That’s what we want and it’s clean and fair, because it will not be a level playing field if the honest operators are the one really monitoring putting that extra effort, but then some operators, they don’t make the effort, and they don’t pay the tax. Then, the honest operators are the one getting the hit. So, I’m just saying that if we want to carry out the provision of Section B, then why don’t we just calculate how much is that and translate it into flat rate. That’s all. Thank you, Mr. President. President J. Mendiola: Thank you. I think this similar bill went through the Senate before and I think we defeat it because of the manpower needed to monitor from $99 -$999. So, if that’s the case, maybe we should amend and delete this portion of the bill. Chair recognized Floor Leader Mendiola. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Mr. President, I concur with what Senator Manglona was pointing out at this vital issue to this. The operator can easily use this as a shelter deceitfully to save some of the moneys that is obligated to fork out. At the same time, of course, it’s kind of detrimental discouraging to those gamblers who wants to really, who knows how to win the machines per say, but because of the vagueness and such vital point that Senator Paul is mentioning that we had discussed prior, I will withdraw my motion for passage, and instead move that this particular bill be referred to the committee so that we can put in on the scrutiny and study it a bit more so that it wont be challengeable and not be taken advantage of by anybody. Chair recognized Senator Pangelinan. Senator M. Pangelinan: I also really believe that what we’re doing is just shifting the revenue. A person that won would have to report that income on his tax, and then get a credit for the tax that he was assessed. So, in the end revenue did not get anything. So, who are we trying to fool here? They were going to be generating for PSS. Might as well have a straight tax system that would actually give us that impact of assessment and the real money that we’re going to really see. Otherwise, this is going to go into a very complicated tax filing system that we will not be able to make an assessment whether it really is generating revenue or not.

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SJ 15-034 July 26, 2007

President J. Mendiola: Can we delete this section then if that’s the major concern? If not, then I’ll yield to refer it to the committee. Chair recognized Vice President Reyes. Vice President P. Reyes: Mr. President, I’m not sure I fully digest the bill, but if it means referring this to the committee so that the bill doesn’t die, then I support that move. We may have to verify this with the author and see what’s the true intent of the bill so that we don’t necessarily kill any bill that potential may be beneficial to the general fund. President J. Mendiola: Okay. There’s a withdrawal of motion on the floor for the passage and a second motion is to refer it to the committee. Any second to that motion? Several members seconded the motion. President J. Mendiola: Okay. Those in favor say, “aye”. Several members voiced, “aye”. Those not in favor say, “nay”. Motion was carried by voice vote. President J. Mendiola: House Bill 15-286 is hereby referred to the committee. Chair recognized Floor Leader Mendiola. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Mr. President, I move for the passage of Senate Bill 15-98. President J. Mendiola: Any second to that motion? Several members seconded the motion. President J. Mendiola: Discussion? Chair recognized Floor Leader Mendiola. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: I believe there was a short discussion prior to the session on the common law issue. Has that been resolved on this particular bill? President J. Mendiola: Yes. This is a sick leave bank. This bill actually, the way it exist right now with civil service regulation, you can only withdraw 160 hours from the sick leave bank, this merely ops that to 640 and then it defines the donation. If I need to donate to you, then that should be distinguished from the sick leave bank.

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Several members voiced, “ready”. President J. Mendiola: Ready. Senate Clerk please roll call. The roll called on the motion for the passage on SB 15-98.


President J. Mendiola: With Eight (8) members voting yes, SB 15-98 is hereby passed. Floor Leader, I think we missed 15-2, HD2. Chair recognized Floor Leader Mendiola. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Mr. President, House Bill 15-22, HD1- To require the Scholarship Office and any other governmental agency issuing scholarship recipient lists to governmental entities; and for other purposes. Motion for override. President J. Mendiola: Motion for override. Seconded? Several members seconded the motion. President J. Mendiola: Discussion? Several members voiced, “ready”. President J. Mendiola: Ready. Senate Clerk please roll call. The roll called on the motion for the passage to override HB 15-22,HD1.


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SJ 15-034 July 26, 2007

President J. Mendiola: With Eight (8) members voting yes, Governor’s veto on HB 15-22, HD1 is hereby officially overrode. Chair recognized Floor leader Mendiola. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Mr. President, an additional bill also vetoed, House Bill 15-259, HD1 - To appropriate $54,000.00 from the Second Senatorial District Solid Waste Management Fund; and for other purposes. Motion to override. Several members seconded the motion. President J. Mendiola: Seconded. Discussion? Several members voiced, “ready”. President J. Mendiola: Ready? Let me state something on the record, because when that veto message came to the office, I called up the Lt. Governor and I spoke to the Legal Counsel of the Lt. Governor. Apparently, they misunderstood the use of this fund. This fund is specifically to address the relocation of the dump in Tinian. Their reasoning is that it’s not enough. We know that it’s not enough, but 54,000 is better than nothing, and they tend to understand what’s the purpose of this fund. Then, they ask us to reintroduce, but an override will help us tremendously in addressing the relocation of the dump in Tinian. Chair recognized Senator Manglona. Senator P. Manglona: Mr. President, so why don’t we reintroduce it. President J. Mendiola: No, let’s override it now. Senator P. Manglona: Okay. President J. Mendiola: Okay. Senate Clerk please roll call. The roll called on the motion for the passage to override HB 15-259, HD1.

Senator Luis M. Crisostomo Yes

Senator L. Crisostimo: For override, “yes”. Senator Paterno S. Hocog Yes Senator Jude U. Hofschneider Absent Senator Paul A. Mangloña Yes

Senator P. Manglona: With reservation, “yes”.

Senator Felix T. Mendiola Yes Senator Maria Frica T. Pangelinan Yes

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Senator Pete P. Reyes Yes

Vice President P. Reyes: With reservation, “yes”. Senator Henry H. San Nicolas Yes President Joseph M. Mendiola Yes

President J. Mendiola: With Eight (8) members voting yes, Governor’s veto on HB 15-259, HD1 is hereby officially overrode. Chair recognized Floor Leader Mendiola. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Mr. President, an equally important bill Senate Bill 15-90, SD1 - To create a Marine Reserve Area on Tinian from Southwest Carolinas Point and to Puntan Diablo; and for other purposes. Several members seconded the motion. President J. Mendiola: Seconded. Discussion? Senator L. Crisostimo: Is this for the shoreline also? Senator H. San Nicolas: Marine area. Senator L. Crisostimo: Ahe’ lao mahalom gi sewer pat it’s a little bit out would the talaya be affected on this? Senator H. San Nicolas: Yes. President J. Mendiola: Yes, seasonal ---. Senator L. Crisostimo: Because I’m planning just to note so that I don’t get introuble when I go down fishing. Thank you. Senator H. San Nicolas: Okay. Several members voiced, “ready” President J. Mendiola: Ready. Senate Clerk please roll call. The roll called on the motion for the passage of SB 15-90, SD1.

Senator Luis M. Crisostomo Yes Senator Paterno S. Hocog Yes Senator Jude U. Hofschneider Absent Senator Paul A. Mangloña Yes Senator Felix T. Mendiola Yes

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SJ 15-034 July 26, 2007

Senator Maria Frica T. Pangelinan Yes Senator Pete P. Reyes Yes Senator Henry H. San Nicolas Yes President Joseph M. Mendiola Yes

President J. Mendiola: With Eight (8) members voting yes, SB 15-90, SD1 is hereby passed. Chair recognized Floor Leader Mendiola. Floor Leader F. Mendiola: Mr. President, I move for a recess subject to your call. President J. Mendiola: Hold on. Senator M. Pangelinan: Mr. President, I just have an announcement. I’ll be off island from August 3rd – August 11th. So, let the rules take over the next person that will be incharge of my duties as Legislative Secretary and Chairperson. President J. Mendiola: I think we will be going back in session after the 11th. So, I’m not sure. It’s depending on how important things approach, but thank you for that notice, Senator Pangelinan. Any other? Several members seconded the motion. President J. Mendiola: If none. Those in favor say, “aye”. Several members voiced, “aye”. Those not in favor say, “nay”. Motion was carried by voice vote. President J. Mendiola: We are hereby on recess.

PETITIONS, MEMORIALS AND MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS: (NONE)

ANNOUNCEMENT: ADJOURNMENT: The Senate adjourned at 5:20 p.m.

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Respectfully submitted, Lauren T. Duenas, Journal Clerk The Senate George N. Camacho Senate Legislative Assistant

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