10-19-07

Hi friends, this is Harry Blalock; General Manager for radio stations KZMI & KCNM. It's that time once again to take a look at the issues of the week, and to offer some Food For Thought.

I have witnessed some things that I thought were outrageous behavior by politicians here many times over the years and you get to a point where you think you've seen it all, and they couldn't possibly be any dumber. And then they come along and do something that not only shocks and disappoints you, but also shows you where they really stand and how they feel. This past week the Saipan Chamber of Commerce was holding candidate forums at Fiesta Resort. All candidates were invited to attend and encouraged to invite their supporters to come out and here them answer questions on various topics. The questions had all been submitted ahead of time and were pulled out randomly and asked of the various candidates. So it's not like the moderator could try putting a candidate on the spot or asking intentionally embarrassing questions. This was a way for voters to find out where the candidates stood on various issues, and for the incumbents to answer as to how they've used the time in office we've already given them.

The Chamber was charging for these forums as they had to pay for the venue, and they also used it as a fundraiser for their scholarship fund, the same way they've been doing for many years now. So the money was going for a great cause, helping our students pay for part of their first year at college. There did seem to be a bit of controversy about whether the Chamber should charge for these forums or not, but again it was used as a fundraiser for the scholarship program just as we have done in the past several times already.

The Chamber board and President came out with a rather strongly worded letter shortly before these forums about what they felt was an irresponsible action by the legislature in overriding the Governor's veto of the rate reduction for residential customers of Commonwealth Utilities Corporation. There were rumors floating around that the incumbents were upset at having the Chamber accuse them of using this override purely for political reasons and trying to use it to garner votes from residential users right before the election. Then the Chamber was notified that several of the incumbents wouldn't be showing up for the forums because of the statements made by the Chamber.

Wednesday night was for Precinct 3, which promises to be a very hotly contested race. Not a single one of the Republican candidates showed up for the forum that night. They are incumbents Arnold Palacios, Ramon Tebuteb, Stanley Torres, and Ray Yumul. Also running for Precinct 3 under the Republican banner is former Speaker Heinz Hofschneider. In Friday's Saipan Tribune there was a story about "Precinct 3 GOP bets forego SCC symposium". According to the story, Minority leader Arnold Palacios told the Tribune that it was a group decision for the entire slate of precinct 3 Republicans to not show up for the forum. According to the newspaper he said the group had already made its decision a week before the event. Palacios also insisted that their decision had nothing to do with the recent letter of Chamber President Juan T. Guerrero, who had criticized the legislature for overriding the Governor's veto on the power rate cut bill. Palacios said that the boycott was just a rumor and wasn't the reason they didn't attend. According to the story in the Tribune, Palacios said the group regretted their failure to avail of the opportunity afforded them by the Chamber.

Now I don't know about you, but those reasons and excuses just don't make any sense to me whatsoever. So they decided as a group a week ago to not attend the forum, but why? What could their reasons have possibly been? I think it is important to point out here that 4 out of the 5 of them are currently serving in the House of Representatives. So are they trying to tell the Chamber of Commerce they don't feel that they owe them any answers or explanations for what they've done with the past 2 years? And the 5th one, Heinz Hofschneider has served many years in the legislature prior to losing the last gubernatorial election to Ben Fitial. Doesn't he feel he owes the people or the Chamber an explanation of what he did with our funds all those years? I find it shocking that a candidate would turn down an opportunity for free exposure and to be able to justify to voters why they deserve 2 more years. Do they not really believe that they deserve another 2 years because their performance has been so dismal, and they just don't want to have to admit that? Are they afraid that they might have to answer as to why they voted to override the Governor's veto of the residential rate cut for C.U.C.? Are they afraid one of the questions might be why the legislature is sitting on the 2008 budget? Are they afraid that one of the questions would be why we should vote for anyone who belongs to a party, because none of them seems to have a brain of their own, everything is done by the party. I guess they pretty much proved that to be a fact by their actions.

The Republican candidates in precinct 3 sent out a very powerful message this week, they said they don't owe you any explanations. They don't care what you think, and they don't care if you want to hear from them personally. They are better than you; they are after all legislators, which makes them gods in their own minds. They made it quite clear that they don't care what the business community thinks about anything. But actually, I can't ever remember any of these candidates ever showing up to any Chamber function or meeting. This is really nothing new; they have never cared what the business sector or the Chamber had to say about anything. If they did they would have made the time to attend the seminars and various presentations the Chamber has had over the years regarding issues relating to business. But this particular bunch has never bothered showing up at anything. I can't think of a single reason that anyone involved in business would want to have anything to do with any of these candidates. How much clearer could they possibly make it? They don't care how their legislation will affect your business. They don't care that C.U.C. might now raise their rates for the business sector because they have lowered the rate for residential customers. They don't care if that means we won't get another single investor, or that we might lose the bulk of the businesses that are currently left. They don't care what their local labor reform bill might to do businesses or the impact that it might have on doing business here. As long as they can get some votes by convincing the local people that they are looking out for them, they don't really care about anything or anyone else.

But if the local people really think they are looking out for them, they are being fooled. Ask yourself if they were really so concerned about the impact of high electricity rates for you, why they waited to right in front of the election to do anything about it? They have after all been in office the last 2 years, and could have done something about it a year ago if they had wanted to, so why didn't they? I guess that's another one of those questions they could have answered in the forum the other night, if they had bothered to show up that is. And what about the fair labor compensation act? Why is it that the contract workers have gotten a better deal than local workers all these years? The legislature has made some lame attempts to give local workers the cash equivalent of the benefits, but I haven't seen it actually happen yet. Why is that? If these lawmakers really cared about local workers as much as they claim they do, why didn't they fix this problem years ago? Why do we only hear about these types of things right before an election? And why do they seem to forget about all the promises they made us right after the election? Aren't you getting a little tired of this cycle? Have you seen it enough times now to convince you that nothing will change if you decide to re-elect them again?

Obviously there are more problems in the legislature than just the Precinct 3 Republicans, but nobody else has gone out of their way the way these guys have to show us just how they really feel. It wouldn't have been any more effective if they had taken out a giant billboard saying we don't care what you think, we don't want to listen to you, and we certainly don't have to answer any of your questions. Instead of answering questions and dealing with the issues, one of the members of this illustrious group decided to write a letter to the editor a few weeks ago using my name over and over, at least 10 times that I counted. Why would he do that? Shouldn't he be talking about the issues and telling us why he wants to waste more government money on another of his hair brained schemes? Has he realized that no one bothers to read anything he has to say if it only has his name attached to it? Did he think that he would get more people reading his drivel if he laced my name through his article over and over and over? Pretty pathetic when that's the type of campaigning you have to resort to.

Let's be honest for just a minute here, a vote for any of the Precinct 3 Republicans means you think they've done a good job so far. It means that like former Governor Babauta, you still think things are pretty darn good. It means that you don't care that your elected officials don't want to listen to you. It means you don't expect them to have to answer for anything they've done, and you won't hold them accountable for it. And it means that you don't want anything better than this for your children or the next generation, because you are voting to keep the architects of this insanity firmly in place. So you could go ahead and vote Republican in Precinct 3 in the upcoming election, but wouldn't it be easier and make more sense to just go up and jump off of Suicide Cliff?

I'm Harry Blalock, thanking you once again for giving me a generous slice of your valuable time, and allowing me to share my Food For Thought.

For more thoughts, pictures and observations, feel free to visit my personal blog at www.saipandiver.blogspot.com

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