Harry Blalock's Food for Thought

Is It Time For All of Us To Have A Talk At Oleai?

2007-07-27T10:13:00.000+10:00

Food For Thought 7-27-07

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.

Misunderstandings are usually at the heart of many arguments and heated discussions. When you don’t have all the facts or all the information that someone else may be basing their decisions on, it makes it difficult to understand how they may have come to their conclusions and why they are taking the stands they are. Most of us tend to rush to judgment and are willing to draw our own conclusions based on the first few facts we encounter. Wisdom would dictate that you hold your tongue and comments until you find out a little more about the situation, but unfortunately wisdom is not always employed. And when we jump to our own conclusions and lash out at those we view as being on the other side of the argument, it is usually the beginning of the escalation of hostilities. When individuals do this sort of thing, it is usually called a fight or an argument, when countries do it, it can easily lead to war. In many of the cases, if someone would just sit the two people down and get to the bottom of what is going on, they might discover that the additional facts they learned had changed their perspective or attitude. And once that happens, they might find that they really aren’t as far apart as they had initially thought. Unfortunately, there isn’t usually that unbiased 3rd party around to mediate these situations when they occur.

Now I’m not saying that misunderstandings are always the problem. Sometimes it’s perfectly clear, and you just can’t agree on basic principles because you’re philosophically and diametrically opposed. Even in those situations, there is usually a mature and socially acceptable way to handle the disagreement where you agree to disagree after thoughtfully discussing the situation. And then there is the way that most us choose, lashing back at the other side, making accusations and trying to deflect the heat. It is always nice when both parties can discuss the situation, both arguing what they feel are the points of merit for their side, and listen attentively as the other person explains where they are coming from. A good debater knows that the key to their success is paying careful attention to the opponent’s arguments and using their weaknesses against them. Some of their points may actually strengthen your argument, but if you’re not really listening to them, you will never be able to avail of that strength. I’m usually not worried about the ones who are the first to speak, who monopolize the conversation cutting other people off and always have to have the last word. There usually isn’t a lot of point in trying to make a point to them or convince them of anything, because their minds are usually made up, and they make it perfectly clear they really don’t care what you have to say by cutting you off and interrupting you. You know where they are coming from, and you also know there is likely nothing you are going to say or do that will change their mind. So honestly, why bother? Why go to the time and effort of trying to convince them, when you probably have a better chance of building a snowman in hell.

The people that I enjoy having a discussion or dialogue with are those who are willing to thoughtfully listen and ponder what you are saying, carefully weighing it before giving their opinion or defense of their point. I find that I usually learn quite a bit from this type of person, because they are a thinker. They don’t simply rely on the knowledge or facts already contained in their brain, but they are always observing and gaining new facts and perspectives. This kind of person is always learning and always adapting based on the new facts and knowledge they come across, in other words they are always growing.

Have you ever met someone who thinks exactly the same way about everything that they did 20 years ago? Their attitudes and opinions haven’t changed a bit, they believed they were right then, and they are still completely convinced of it. This person has no need of learning anything new, because in their mind, they already know it all. Chances are good they won’t listen to anything you have to say, unless you happen to agree with them about everything.

There is no shame in admitting that you once felt a certain way about an issue, but now because of new information and new facts you have come across, have changed your attitude and opinion. Most people who do any amount of thinking, reading and listening will have their attitudes change and shift on different things many times throughout their life. It’s all a part of the learning process. Can you imagine where we’d be if we adamantly stuck to everything that was known about science 100 years ago? What about 50 years ago? What about even 10 years ago? If there is one thing that a good scientist will tell you, it’s that they are always learning new things and changing their feelings and attitudes toward certain things based on the new information and facts available.

I was recently involved in a situation regarding something I wrote about in my blog. I’m not going to rehash it, but there were some who disagreed with what I did. One person chose to write in their blog about why what I did was so bad, and give me a good public whipping for it. Another person, who also didn’t really agree with me, but for different reasons, chose to call me up and discuss the situation over a drink at Oleai, first getting to know me, and then explaining what their concerns were and letting me draw my own conclusions. Needless to say I reacted very differently to the two different approaches. I decided to go after the one who I felt had attacked me, and attack back. I know I didn’t handle it the way I should have, and frankly the whole thing got much uglier than it ever should have been. But after listening to all the concerns of the other person over a drink at Oleai, I completely understood where they were coming from and pulled my blog that he felt could possibly set a poor example. I learned a lot from that couple hour conversation, and it will have an impact on how I look at things from that point forward.

The only reason I bring that example up is because I see the potential for some very serious problems starting to surface right now in the CNMI. We are a community in transition and because we all have various ways we want to see those transitions happen and some of us are outspoken about them, it gives the potential for some pretty severe divisions. We have already seen some racially charged statements and attitudes aired. This group doesn’t like these people because of this, and this group of people is striking back by doing this. Sadly in the middle of this mix we have a newspaper that likes to fan the flames of controversy and pit different groups of people against each other. They’ve been doing it for a very long time, and they’re good at it. They like going back and forth from one group to the other trying to get comments about the other. Then they use those comments to go to the other group and try to get them to say something back against the first group in retaliation for their comments. This particular newspaper isn’t try to bring the community together or to create understanding, they are trying to fan the flames of controversy, and where they can’t find any, they’ll create some.

Honestly, our community is faced with some overwhelming challenges at the moment. We’re being battered on every side and we’re losing many businesses and residents as a result. We really can’t afford to be divided right now and to be fighting each other, each only looking out for their own self-interests and ignoring all other points of view. For all of our survival we need to stop sniping at one another. We need to start listening to the other side, consider what they are saying, learn from it and move on from there. We all need to go to Oleai, pull up a table that sits right on the beach, order your favorite beverage, listen to the sounds of waves lapping at the beach, and watch the sun as it sinks down at the edge of the ocean. Then we need to first listen, seriously listen with our ears and minds open, letting the other person have their say. We need to show each other proper respect, showing that we not only respect their opinion, but also respect them as a person, and see what they have to say that we can use to broaden our knowledge base.

We just really can’t afford to be tearing each other down right now, attacking just because they have an opinion that differs from yours. And there is nothing wrong with telling a newspaper that is looking to stir up controversy that you have no comment. So they may sell a few less newspapers that day because they don’t have any inflammatory accusations to report on, oh well.

I think we can all agree that we haven’t always handled things here the best we could have. That’s ok, the U.S. has to make the same concession, remember slavery and segregation used to be legal there. We have all made mistakes and hopefully have learned from them. The point is you need to take your newfound knowledge and go forward, not dwelling in the past and trying to defend who you were back then or what you did.

Have I made mistakes in the past, absolutely, and I will undoubtedly make a few more before I’m done with this earth. The point is that you admit them, learn from them, and then move forward. It is also important to remember as we try bringing out community together, that most people will respond much better to a friendly talk than they will to being publicly attacked. So I’ll see you all at Oleai tonight?

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

Economic Realities

2007-07-27T10:12:00.001+10:00

Food For Thought 7-20-07

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.

This past week has been a tough one for me, for a lot of reasons. The biggest one is that I had to let half of my staff go last week. I knew it was going to be coming, the call from the owner saying that we had to further cut our expenses. When your revenues continue to plummet and yet your costs (electricity) continue to skyrocket, you have to do something. At that point if you have a huge bank account, you can subsidize the cost of doing business by pumping in money to keep the operation afloat. Or you can look into taking out loans to continue operating at your current level, hoping that things will turn around soon and you’ll recoup the money you kept pumping in when it couldn’t be justified. Or there’s option #3, not a very popular one among most politicians and government workers. That’s when you cut your expenses so that you live within your means. In other words, if you’re only taking in $20,000 a month, you don’t keep spending $30,000 a month. You cut everywhere you can, and get rid of all the things that aren’t an absolute necessity.

We’ve already done all that, we’ve cut out extra phone lines, cancelled newspaper subscriptions, turned off one of the stations, and about the only thing left to cut was staff. I got the call late last week that we needed to cut all the part time announcers we had on staff, that meant my staff shrank from 8 to 4 overnight. We had previously already cut our staff size from 12 down to 8, but now more was required. It’s quite a challenge to try running and operating a radio station with 4 people, when that includes you as the General Manager. Needless to say, you are in a fight for survival, and you do whatever it takes.

Of course we still wanted to keep both of our main stations on the air, 103.9 FM – KZMI, and 101.1 FM – KCNM. We also wanted to keep a live presence on both stations without having to totally automate either one. That meant that I had to start doing an air shift again, so now I’m doing 6-10 am on KZMI, while Lewie Tenorio shifted over and is doing the morning shift on KCNM. It broke my heart that we had to let some great long term employees go, but there was simply no other option; everything else had already been done.

I realize the rumor mill is in overdrive right now, and I’m sure our competitors are helping to fuel those fires, but no, we are not going off the air and closing our doors at this point in time. We are struggling, yes, as is every other business that I know of on island. Our economy is in total shambles, the politicians have no clue how to improve the situation, and in their infinite wisdom may actually make things much worse very soon. And most other businesses that are looking at investing in the CNMI are afraid to do so right now for a number of reasons. Many are looking at the federal immigration take-over legislation that has been introduced in both the U.S. House and Senate now, they want to know what it will mean for our workforce and our tourism markets. And until those answers are cleared up and we know what the new rules are going to be, many people are afraid to move. I believe that our economy desperately needs these issues to be finally ironed out once and for all, we need answers not impending question marks and uncertainty.

Can the U.S. take over our immigration system and confer permanent residency status to our long-term contract workers? Yes, they have that right. We can fight, argue, complain, drag our heels, and anything else we can think of, but I believe the truth of the matter is, it’s not really going to make any difference in the end. I think the politicians in Washington pretty much have their minds made up, I think some of them had their minds made up 15 years ago, and are just now getting the chance to get their way.

If the U.S. does take over our immigration, will it be good or bad for us? You can find some very well meaning people on both sides of this debate. A lot of people have some very real concerns about the impact this could possibly have on our tourism markets and on our ability to get the workers we need. They don’t exactly trust the U.S. government to work out all the details later and make sure that they take our interests and concerns into account. Then there are those who would say that this is long overdue, and the U.S. should have done this years ago. They believe that our system hasn’t operated properly for a long time, and that it has been riddled with corruption. There have certainly been examples in the past that would justify that view, but are they still the same today? And will the federal government necessarily do any better a job at protecting our borders and making sure we don’t have a problem with illegal aliens staying here? A very good case could be made that they haven’t exactly done a very good job with their own situation, so what is to make us believe they will do any better here? But again, the bottom line here is that the U.S. does have every right to take over control of our immigration, and they will most likely do as they please, regardless of what we say or think.

Then there is also the whole issue of the U.S. granting the long-term contract workers permanent residency, or F.A.S. status. Does the U.S. have the right to do that? Yes, they absolutely do. Was it in the Covenant, or was it ever part of the discussions between the islands and the U.S. government when the Commonwealth was being formed? No it wasn’t, but again, that doesn’t mean that the U.S. can’t do as they please now. And all indications are they will do as they please, and again, I don’t really think it makes much difference what any of us say or feel about the issue.

I do believe there are a few issues that are worth considering if they go ahead with this. The first would be that this means these workers would no longer be considered contract workers, but would now be considered local workers. That means they are no longer entitled to the same benefits as a contract worker. The employer would no longer be required to cover all their medical expenses, or to give them any medical coverage at all for that matter. Is the U.S. prepared to give us “impact” money for the additional costs at C.H.C.? You have to believe that having that many more “local” workers without adequate insurance or medical coverage would mean that there will be a lot more unpaid bills at C.H.C.
Then you also have to consider the influx of students in the schools if these new “local” workers are allowed to start bringing their families from their country of origin. Our schools are already overcrowded and under funded, what will that kind of influx of students mean to the quality of education for all students? Is the U.S. prepared to give us money to help out with the additional cost of education for the influx of new students as a result of these workers they have now given permanent resident status? If the U.S. doesn’t plan on giving us any money to help offset these additional costs, it means we will have no choice but to either cut the rebates or raise taxes substantially. Cutting the rebates is raising taxes just for the record.

These are all factors that need to be considered and planned for. If we just allow them to happen to us and we don’t have a plan of what we are going to do, or how we are going to deal with it, things will continue the downward spiral economically. I personally am not opposed to the U.S. granting permanent residency, citizenship or anything else they think is appropriate to the long-term contract workers. But there will be economic consequences that need to be planned for and taken into account if that happens. Right now I don’t hear either the U.S. government or our government talking about how to deal with those issues, or what they will do about them. Failure to plan in this case means you are planning to fail.

Now we have a multitude of contract workers and others who have joined their cause threatening to boycott businesses affiliated with the Chamber because of the Chamber’s testimony in front of the U.S. Senate. That is certainly their right, but there are a couple things they need to keep in mind before they take this too far. Just because you belong to the Chamber doesn’t necessarily mean you agree with all stands taken by the Chamber. The Chamber is made up of many different businesses, all with their own opinions and points of view. Its diversity is one of its greatest strengths. But on a small island like this, when you boycott one business you affect all other businesses. When one business sneezes, a dozen others catch a cold. When one has to make cuts as a result of a loss of sales or a downturn in the economy, it means that other businesses that do business with them will also have to make cuts, or raise prices as a result. It’s extremely difficult to raise prices too much in this economy to make up for your losses or increased cost of doing business, so what many businesses will wind up doing is cutting their expenses and their staff. Boycotting one business or a few different businesses will not just affect them, but will have a domino effect that will affect many other businesses as well. This will most likely result in lost jobs, with some of the contract workers who were hoping for permanent residency actually finding themselves without a job, and on their way back to the Philippines with the only permanent residency in their future back in the P.I. For every action, there is always a reaction. Yes, you may have the power, but are you prepared to pay the costs for the reactions when they come?

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

Take Care prices themselves out of the market

2007-07-18T08:44:00.000+10:00

Food For Thought 7-13-07

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.

The economic realities of just how bad things really are are being brought home to us in almost daily doses lately. Every time I see another example of the economic hardships and cutbacks taking place, I want to just grab former Governor Babauta by the scruff of the neck, and ask him, is this your idea of pretty darn good? I’ve already heard that he’s testing the waters and seeing what his chances would be of running for either Washington Representative or Governor again. I also understand that he’s blaming the entire mess we’re in right now on the current administration. Is he really that stupid and delusional? Is he that out of touch with reality that he can’t accept responsibility for what he did to these islands? I’m still hoping that maybe this new white-collar division within the Attorney General’s office will bring him up on charges and put him behind bars. It was his arrogance and blatant ignoring of spending caps and limits, and ignoring of what was happening at C.U.C. that has put us in the situation we currently find ourselves in. I’ve had a few people ask me if our current situation doesn’t make me wish for the good old days of Babauta. I honestly don’t believe our current situation would be anywhere near as bad as it is if it weren’t for him. And to those who ask that, I ask what you’re hoping to get out of the situation if he actually makes it back into office, because that’s the only reason I could see anyone possibly thinking such a thing.

But then there are those businesses out there that just seem to want to kick us while we’re down as well. We were notified about the renewal of our health insurance this past week. Last year, Take Care, which had previously been bought out by a group of the employees and shareholders, raised our premiums by over 100% at our renewal time. This year, on the heels of a staggering huge increase last year, they have notified us that they are again raising our premiums by 110%. They now want over $500 per month for each employee, and they are asking over $1,900 a month for coverage for a family. Now I realize there may be a few people on island who can afford those kinds of premiums, however they are few and far between. And especially during times like this when we are all having to tighten our belts and cut back everywhere we possibly can, an increase like that is just obscene, especially in light of the fact that they are posting their highest profits and shares for shareholders. So I was not really very impressed with them just from that standpoint alone.

But as my favorite broadcaster, Paul Harvey would say, here is the rest of the story. When I asked what they gave as the reason for that second drastic increase in a row, I was told that one of the reasons they listed was for claims made that year. In other words they were financially penalizing us because I actually had to use my insurance last year and get a heart catheterization. Now I don’t recall them ever offering a discount or giving us any money back when we didn’t have to use the insurance, but then when you actually need it and use it, they crucify you by raising your entire companies premiums to over $6,000 a year per person. So they expect you to pay your premiums like a good client every month, but then when you actually need the services you’ve been paying for all along, they try to make you pay it all back over the next couple years through exorbitant rate increases. Now this is enough to make your blood boil and definitely push you to the edge of a coronary episode, but believe it or not that’s still not all.

The doctors I saw who told me I had a heart problem also happened to work for the FHP clinic. Now I really liked my doctor at FHP, and I’m not saying that he would have given me bad medical advice at all. But when you have a situation where the same company owns both the insurance company and the medical clinic you have to go to, and the insurance company can raise their rates based on your medical needs or diagnosis, it makes you wonder whether you can truly trust your physician. Can the insurance company tell the doctors that work for them what kind of diagnosis are acceptable or not acceptable based on the cost of treatment? After all, it is the same company that is taking your premiums and insuring you that is paying the doctors salaries. Are you truly getting the best health care possible, or are you only getting the most cost effective health care possible so that the insurance company can minimize their financial exposure and maximize their profits and dividends to share holders. And can the doctor really give you their best advice and tell you what they would do if money were no object, when they have the same company paying their salaries that is paying for your health care? To me there is an obvious conflict of interest here, and in my mind a breach of ethics as well. My concerns are really not targeted at the doctors, but at the company who runs both a health insurance company and the medical clinic that you have to use if you have their insurance. And the proof of impropriety in my mind is in the pudding. When they raise your rates by 110% and then claim it’s because of your medical claim the previous year that was based on their doctor’s diagnosis and recommendation, you really have to question whether it’s your health they’re concerned with, or their own financial health.

So the question of what we will be doing insurance wise this year just got easier for us. Take Care priced themselves out of the market, and put themselves in a position in which we don’t really feel we can trust them any longer or afford them. We have done some looking for other insurance options online, and have found some international companies, or American companies specializing in international insurance situations like ours who are offering premiums that are 1/3rd the cost of what we were quoted locally. If you find yourself or your company in a similar situation this year and simply can’t afford the outrageous increases, I’d like to encourage you to look at other options. They may not be as convenient, and you may have to pay for your medical care up front and then get reimbursed by your insurance company for it, but the amount of money you’ll be saving will more than make up for any inconvenience. I don’t know of many companies that have money to burn in this economy. Most of the businesses I know are looking for every possible area to cut and are doing whatever they have to in order to makes ends meet. This is the absolute worst time for an insurance company to be getting greedy and to try going for record profits. I believe they will find that most people will find they can live without them, and will begin looking for the alternatives. If you have a hard time finding the international insurance options online, I’d be more than happy to point you in the right direction.
I wish I had been wrong all these years about what was coming here economically and what it would mean to the island. But so far, everything is pretty much on the mark of where I said we were heading. And the scariest part of it is that we’re still not at bottom yet. The Governor said something at a PTI function the other day about us experiencing “better times” now because of the new service the phone company was offering. This is the wrong time to be insinuating that we are experiencing better times. Businesses have cut and cut and cut some more. Some of us have had to lay off up to half of our staff recently because of the economic realities and exorbitant power rates we’re faced with. Others are cutting salaries, any expenses possible and are still wondering when it will finally be enough, or how much more they can cut before there is simply no use trying to do business here anymore.

Last Wednesday the Saipan Chamber of Commerce had a meeting in which they outlined the effects to business if House Bill 15-38 actually passes with it’s present amendments. They had done their homework and had facts and figures all prepared. The Chamber invited all the lawmakers to attend so they would see the effects and realize what this bill would do to business and the impact it would have. And yet only 5 of the 28 lawmakers actually bothered to show up to hear the presentation. Does this mean that our lawmakers don’t really care about the effects their bill will have on business? Does it mean that they don’t want to hear what business thinks would make this bill palatable for them? Does it mean that they didn’t think they could actually understand the presentation anyway, so there was no point sitting through it? The lawmakers who did bother showing up were Senator Maria “Frica” Pangelinan, Speaker Oscar Babauta, and Representatives Manny Tenorio, Ray Yumul and Absalon Waki.

Wouldn’t you think that the rest of the lawmakers would have been at least a little curious to find out what the business community thought the impacts of this bill would be? Wouldn’t you have thought it would have at least shown some sort of interest or competence on their part? And this bill hasn’t even been through the Senate yet. That means the Senators still have to debate on this bill and then vote on it. But yet 8 of the 9 senators didn’t even bother to show up to hear about the business communities concerns with the bill. These lawmakers aren’t responsive, and the only people they are representing are themselves. Voting as a business person, I can guarantee that I won’t vote for a single one of them that didn’t bother showing up for that meeting, I’m looking for 23 replacements automatically this coming election.

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

Taotao Tano shows their true colors

2007-07-06T14:47:00.000+10:00

Food For Thought 7-6-07

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.

About a month ago I had Greg Cruz, the founder of the Taotao Tano group on my morning talk show talking about what they were trying to accomplish as a group. While I didn’t agree with everything he had to say, I felt for the most part he was on target with what they were trying to accomplish as a group. They were fed up with the corruption and incompetence of elected officials. They wanted to see more accountability and results from their leaders. They wanted a power company that was operated properly, efficiently and effectively. I can go along with all of that, I want the same things.

But recently the have crossed a line which I cannot tolerate in any way. They went from being political activists to now being social and ethnic activists. They were out picketing against the Dekada movement with signs telling all contract workers to go home that we don’t need them here and they don’t belong here. All the sudden they went from being a group trying to invoke political change to a group of hate mongering racists. Some of them may not have even realized what happened and how quickly it changed who they were and how they were perceived.

Now I’m not a fan of the Dekada movement either, but not for the same reasons. I feel that the Dekada movement is off base, and is demanding things they really have no right to demand. Just because these workers have been here for 5 years does not automatically entitle them to citizenship or voting rights. They were never told they would get those things when they signed on to work jobs here. They were told they would be paid to do a job here, and that’s what they got. And for many years, the contract workers were content to work their jobs, get their pay, and they never had expectations of getting anything else out of it.

Then along comes a lawyer who isn’t exactly busy with cases, and he links up with some of the contract workers, and tells them that if they form an organization, and start recruiting all of their fellow contract workers, and all pay him $100 each, that he will represent them and work to get them all U.S. citizenship. All the sudden many of these contract workers, who were previously happy just to have their jobs here, now all the sudden believe that this lawyer may actually be able to do something to get them either permanent residency or U.S. citizenship. They realize that the political climate has changed in the U.S., the Democrats are now in control of the House and Senate, and they are much more likely to be convinced to grant the contract workers some kind of permanent status. They are now thinking they are entitled to permanent residency, voting rights, or maybe even the Holy Grail itself, U.S. citizenship.

The first reason I am not a fan of this movement is because I believe it really is a way for an allegedly ethically challenged lawyer to rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars. He is praying on people’s desperation and desire to improve their standing in life. If they can get permanent residency or U.S. citizenship, it means they would never have to live in the Philippines again, and that they could sponsor their other family members and get them out of the Philippines as well. As someone who has been to Manila several times, I can totally understand why this would be so attractive and appealing to these contract workers. But I just really don’t appreciate this attorney using these people and their desperation as a get rich quick scheme. Because frankly, if their status changes and they get some kind of new permanent resident status, it won’t be because of his lobbying efforts or anything else he did, it will probably be due to Allen Stayman and his agenda for these islands.

If we were to go to almost any other country as a contract worker, they would not consider giving us permanent residency or citizenship just because we fulfilled the terms of our contract. There are a few countries that do consider giving citizenship to those who have decided to relocate there, but they are few and far between. Our contract workers have provided a very valuable service to us while they’ve been here, but the terms of their contracts have been honored, and they’ve been paid and given the benefits promised. This new thinking that they are entitled to citizenship or permanent residency is a bit presumptuous of them.

If the U.S. government decides that they should get permanent residency or F.A.S. status, I guess that is within their rights to grant to them. I am a little curious as to why they would decide to treat the contract workers here differently than the way treat their own contract workers, but that’s an argument for another day. However, if the U.S. does grant this time of residency, then I believe they should also have a plan laid out for how they plan to compensate the CNMI for the added burden of these new permanent residents. Now that they will be permanent residents, they will no longer be treated as contract workers here, which means their employers will no longer be responsible for their medical care. Now all the sudden instead of the employer being responsible for the hospital costs associated with every baby born to a contract worker, they would then be responsible for those costs themselves. What if they don’t have insurance? Will they really pay for all the bills incurred at C.H.C.? We already have a huge problem of people not paying for their medical bills; can you imagine how much worse it would be under that system?

If they are permanent residents, it means they can start bringing all their family over to live with them as well. They will no longer be tied to only bringing family members along if they make a wage high enough to guarantee they can support them. This means additional bills at C.H.C. and it also means that our already overcrowded schools will have a huge influx of students. We don’t have property taxes or anything else that is earmarked to pay for public education. It all just comes out of the general government coffers. Is the U.S. ready to take responsibility for all the additional costs to the CNMI government if they give these contract workers permanent resident status? So far I have heard nothing that would indicate they would be willing to give us anymore money to offset those costs at all, if anything I’ve heard just the opposite.

It’s all good and fine if the U.S. wants to exercise their right to grant permanent residency, but with that right comes a fairly sizable responsibility and financial obligation as well. So I am definitely against the granting of the permanent residency if the U.S. has no intention of helping to take care of the costs associated with it. That would be like me inviting all of you to join me for dinner at a certain restaurant tonight, but then when the check comes, I would look at the restaurant expecting them to pay for it all. Not very realistic, and I don’t think it’s very realistic for the U.S. government to expect us to all the sudden absorb all these extra permanent residents without offsetting the cost of it for us, especially since it would be their decision to grant them permanent residency in the first place.

Now if the U.S. has a plan for that, and they actually start making good on their compact impact payments to us, then that would be a different story. But so far I haven’t heard anything even remotely like that.

But back to where this started in the first place, for the Taotao Tano group to be picketing contract workers telling them all to go home and that we don’t want them here, I think shows an extremely prejudiced and racist side that I find appalling. I have noticed that some of the people who initially joined with this group have now distanced themselves from it as a result of their racist views. And I’m guessing that even the groups legitimate points will now be lost in the shuffle as a result of their taking things too far, and allowing racism and bigotry to enter into their agenda. They have completely eroded their credibility by not sticking to their original message and intent. When you are so focused on yourself that you don’t care what happens to those around you, you will find there are fewer and fewer people that actually want anything to do with you. Because they know that sooner or later they will find something about you that could make them picket you too.

I’m guessing that the U.S. politicians are also watching the Taotao Tano group, and that it only adds fuel to their fire as to why they should completely federalize the CNMI Immigration system. One of the things that doesn’t get the airplay it should is that this group is nowhere near as big as they claim, especially now. They have claimed to have thousands of members, and yet when they hold a meeting or a rally, they are lucky to get 50 people to show up. And I don’t believe their argument that most of their supporters are government workers who are afraid to be seen with them for fear of retaliation. If they really had that many supporters in the government, then you would figure there would still be a fair amount in the private sector and unemployed who would show up to support them. But when that’s all you can get to show up, it is indicative that you simply don’t have broad spread appeal or support. And when you show that you’re a racist, it should come as no surprise that you have no support or followers.

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

A troubling exodus of people, and a few bright spots worth mentioning.

2007-06-29T15:38:00.000+10:00

Food For Thought 6-29-07

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.

It would seem that we need added seat capacity on the airlines servicing Saipan lately. Unfortunately it seems that most of the seats are for one-way trips away from Saipan. In the past week, I have come across about a dozen people all leaving Saipan for one reason or another. Some of them are leaving to go back and be close to the family they left behind to come out here, which is completely understandable. Others are leaving because the cost of living here has just climbed to the point of no longer being competitive with other similar destinations, also totally understandable. They can live in other places in the Pacific Rim for a fraction of the cost to live here. Our soaring utility costs are a big factor in many of the people’s decisions to leave. I have talked to some people who used to have a $300 per month utility bill; their bills have now skyrocketed to $700 or $800 a month. How do you handle that when your hours and wages are being cut at the same time? You are being asked to live on less, when your costs are skyrocketing out of control. It’s simple economics, and it just doesn’t work.

Then there are those that trouble me the most. They are the ones who were born here, who call this island home, and for the most part, whose family is still right here in the islands. The reasons I have heard for many of them leaving is that they just have no confidence that things will ever improve here. They have witnessed their relatives who are in power rape and pillage these islands financially. They have watched them use and abuse their positions for their own profit. They hear the campaign rhetoric and the public spin their relatives give, but they see them behind the scenes and know the truth. They realize that without some serious, sweeping reforms, our islands will not recover from this current disaster we are facing, but will just continue the downward spiral. They want something better for their families and their children. They realize that they may have to take pay cuts, and find lower level jobs if they go to the states, but they don’t care, they look at it as a step in the right direction because they have totally lost faith in their relatives in power and the system currently in place here. In the past couple months; I have talked to no less than 20 local families all expressing such sentiments. These families are expressing their frustration by casting a no confidence vote in the way things are being handled. No, they’re not going to the election booth and casting the vote, they are casting it by walking away from their home and all they have ever known and moving to the states. And when someone is to the point of casting their vote that way, you know you have some very serious problems that won’t be cured by simply promising better times and offering several other hollow campaign promises.

In many respects, I believe we are a community in crisis at the moment. Most of our problems seem to be bigger than life, the exit of the garment industry, dwindling government resources, escalating fuel prices and electricity rates as a result, a legislature that seems incapable of handling anything, fewer and fewer airline seats coming in to the CNMI and the list goes on and on. If you only concentrate on all the negative things swirling around you, it is easy to become discouraged and think there is no hope. And when you only concentrate on all the negative things, it tends to shape your thinking processes and limit your potential as well. But I have been getting glimmers of some very positive things happening and taking place in our islands. I think we need to search these positive things out and give them the proper recognition they deserve as well.

One of the biggest gripes of most people is the lack of enforcement in almost everything. We have laws coming out our ears, but the problem is that most of them aren’t worth the paper they are written on because nobody is making any effort to enforce them. I was sitting in Capricciosa eating dinner last Friday night when I looked out the window and saw that someone had moved 4 rusted out containers onto that vacant lot on the corner. Yes, it is the same one they had set up the yellow tents on previously and used to sell Tinian hot pepper products and I’m not sure what all else. There were workers with torches who were cutting holes into the containers, I’m assuming to turn them into some kind of a makeshift building for a store. I shook my head that this was actually being allowed. As if we don’t already have enough image problems on Saipan, now we were allowing someone to use nasty looking containers for a business right in the heart of our tourism district, and right on Beach Road. I was thinking to myself, this is exactly why we need zoning. Hold on, I haven’t forgotten about getting to the positives, I just had to pave the way first.

Then this morning when I checked my e-mail, there was one from Steve Tilley, the Zoning Administrator. It was a press release saying that he had cited Empress Inc. with a Notice of Violation for having the cut up containers on that lot by Capricciosa and Tony Roma’s. The company was cited for failing to apply for a zoning permit for installing a container storage structure in the middle of Saipan’s premier shopping district, warning that penalties could be in the thousands of dollars and include jail time. This company also failed to get a building permit. The notice of violation was issued on June 28th, but Tilley’s calls to the company have gone unanswered as of the time of issuing the press release. The company can be fined $1,000 per violation, per day and has one month to respond to the notice. So just pretending they don’t know what’s going on won’t work, the fines could be enough to bankrupt them in no time if they don’t get their affairs in order. I can’t ever remember being so happy in reading a press release from a government agency. The system is actually working!

If we allowed businesses to just throw up any kind of structure they wanted, no matter how hideous it looked, this would be turned into a shantytown island in no time. We have been criticized as being a low-end tourist destination in the past, and things like those containers on that corner lot would only add fuel to that accusation. I’m glad to see we have Steve Tilley standing guard trying to make sure that we don’t let our image continue to deteriorate. The implementation of enforcement actually stopped that project dead in it’s tracks, can you just imagine what would happen if we got serious about enforcing some of our other laws? Great job Steve, and awesome way to set an example of taking your job seriously!

Then I also wanted to spend a little time talking about a group of bright young students Angelo Villagomez and Bree Reynolds brought in to my studio Thursday morning. They are part of the Beautify CNMI Marianas Challenge Summer Camp, being put on by Angelo and Bree. These students really are learning about our environment, and what they can do to help protect it. I made sure they’ve learned something by grilling them with questions on Island Issues. Sami and Zoe totally impressed me with what they’ve learned and their passion about it. The only thing that caused me any concern at all was that Sami was just way too relaxed and good on the radio. I’m afraid she could replace me in a heartbeat if she wanted to, my only consolation is that she’s just going in to the 9th grade this coming year, so my job is probably safe for a couple years anyway.

Part of what they did in this camp was to write public service announcements from what they have learned to air on the radio stations. Some of them even wrote an original song about beautifying the CNMI, they wrote the words and music. They came in with their ukelele and recorded the song in my production studio. I’ve got to say, I absolutely love it! You’ll be hearing a lot of that song and those psa’s in the coming months on both of our radio stations. What a talented group of students, and something tells me these are our leaders of tomorrow. If you’d like to see some of the pictures from their summer camp, and learn what it was all about, you can go to the www.greencnmi.blogspot.com website and read all about it. Tasi Tours deserves a big thank you for donating a van and driver to help transport the campers all week to their various places. And after hearing from the students on the air, Ed Salas of Tan Holdings Corporation called up donating Shirleys lunch for all the campers that day. They had talked about how the camp was being run on a shoestring budget and they were just making do with whatever they had, so Ed called up on behalf of Tan Holdings to give them a break from peanut butter or bologna for lunch. Many thanks go out to all the various people in the community who chip in to make amazing events like this happen. And while you could technically say this was job related for Angelo, Bree is a science teacher at Hopwood Junior High School, and is supposed to be on summer vacation right now. But she loves what she’s doing so much, and loves the students so much, that she donated her time to help put on this summer camp.

So in spite of the fact that we are in the middle of some very challenging times right now, there are still some amazing things happening right in the middle of it all. We all have a choice, whether we’re going to be a part of the problem, or a part of the solution. These students have made the choice to be part of the solution. Steve Tilley has chosen to be part of the solution by taking his job seriously, and not letting the image of Saipan continue to deteriorate. Great job all of you! Now as for the rest of you, how can we get you plugged in to be part of the solution, any ideas?

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

More on the Labor Reform bill, & why hasn't the mandatory drivers training law been implemented yet?

2007-06-22T15:32:00.001+10:00

Food For Thought 6-22-07

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 did take a little bit of heat over my comments last week about the local Labor Reform bill. And I understand that the lawmakers have finally taken domestic workers off of the exemption list of contract workers who have to leave the CNMI for 6 months every 3-½ years. I guess they might have thought that looked a little too self-serving. I am still not thrilled with the bill though. To me one of the biggest sticking points is that they have done away with voluntary transfers for the contract workers, and they don’t give them the chance to look for another job or to transfer to another employer at the end of their contract or if they are let go for any reason. The lawmakers will try to tell you that this is to give locals a better chance of getting these jobs. I don’t know whom they are trying to fool though, the problem is not that there aren’t enough jobs for the locals; the problem is that there aren’t enough locals willing to do the jobs that are available.

This particular provision will make it very difficult for some businesses to remain properly staffed. If you can’t find enough workers for your business, you have a problem. I haven’t noticed that locals are fighting for the right to be waitresses, clean hotel rooms, or any number of other jobs that they might not view as suitable or acceptable. By stopping all consensual transfers it means that businesses will now have a tougher time finding workers for some of their positions. And as long as the moratorium is still in place, it means that businesses will have to get exemptions for doing any hiring off island.

But one of the biggest problems with this provision is that it will add more fuel to the federal governments argument that we are discriminatory and should not be in charge of our own immigration. Our government leaders seem to have forgotten that it was the federal government that put pressure on us to let contract workers get secondary employment and to transfer to another employer if it was consensual. Taking away all transfers once again will make it look like we are taking a couple steps backward to the federal government. And if they don’t agree with what we are doing in our local legislation, then how can we possibly expect them to stand up for us when it comes to this new immigration takeover bill that has now been introduced in the U.S. Senate.

Of course all of this comes on the heels of the new minimum wage bill, which applies to the CNMI as well. I had Terence Trotter, the Assistant District Director for the United States Department of Labor, Wage & Hour Division in the studio the other day, along with Dorothy Hill, legal counsel for the CNMI Department of Labor. They were talking about the applicability of the new minimum wage in the CNMI, and whom it will affect. One of aspects I was most interested in, because I believe there are a lot of people looking for answers on it, was how this would apply to domestic workers, which includes maids, housekeepers, household farmers or gardeners, and household maintenance workers. Dorothy said that the Department of Labor will be allowing some people out of their contracts for these workers based on economic hardship, but it will be examined on a case-by-case basis. According to the CNMI Department of Labor, if these domestic workers were let go, they would then be entitled to 45 days to look for another job before having to return to their country of origin. She pointed out that the previous employer is still responsible for their medical care and costs during that 45 days, and they are still responsible for their repatriation costs if they are not successful in finding another job.

Well that got me to wondering, so who is responsible for their housing and food for that 45 days that they are looking for another employer? You need to remember that most domestic workers here are live-in workers, meaning that they live in their employers’ house. I asked Dorothy if the current employer was required to keep providing them housing and food during that 45 days while they are not really working for them any longer and looking for another job. She said that no, they are not required to, but that the Department of Labor was hoping that the previous employer would “do the right thing”. That means they are hoping that the employer won’t kick them out on the street for that 45 days while they are looking for another job, but they are not mandating them to continue housing and feeding them.

Am I the only one that thinks this is going to turn into a huge fiasco? I don’t think it is reasonable to expect the previous employer to really want to continue housing and feeding these workers for 45 days when they are getting nothing out of it. Even though a lot of the local families may think of their housekeepers as family because they have been with them so long, I have reason to doubt that the feelings are always mutual, especially if you’ve been working them for 72 hours a week for only $300 a month. Then when the contract comes to an end, or is terminated because of economic hardship, I can see where there could be some real hard feelings on the domestic workers part, and I just think you’re asking for trouble by expecting the employer to continue housing and feeding them for the next 45 days.

But then again, maybe I’ve got it all wrong. Maybe the employers will be happy to continue housing and feeding these ex-employees for 45 days, and maybe the ex-employees will be nothing but grateful that they were given the chance to work 72 hours a week for $300 a month. And maybe everyone will live happily ever after and this new local Labor Reform Bill will be signed into law, and businesses will all the sudden love it, and the federal government won’t care that we’ve taken away the ability of contract workers to transfer jobs, and we’ll all have all the money we need to keep up with the new minimum wage increases, and businesses will want to flock here because it is such a business friendly place. Yeah, that’s all within the realm of possibility. Well, in some universe it might be.

Then it was recently brought to my attention that even though the legislature passed the mandatory drivers training bill last year, and even though the Governor signed it into law, it is still not being implemented. The Department of Public Safety had 9 months to promulgate rules and regulations governing the driver’s training schools, but that deadline was up last month, and there are still no rules and regulations. There is one brave soul who decided to step out on a limb and go ahead and open a drivers training school, believing that the government would follow their own laws and mandate that all new drivers and everyone coming from another country would have to take a drivers training course. But because D.P.S. has not come up with the rules and regulations, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles is still not requiring new drivers to take a drivers training course before getting their drivers license. Why is this? What is the use of passing a law if we have no intention of following through on it? And what kind of a message is this sending to other prospective investors? Go ahead and start a business based on our laws, but good luck if you actually expect us to implement them and enforce them. And we wonder why our economy is in the shape it’s in. The legislators should be asking why this law they passed is being ignored, and the Governor should be asking why one of his cabinet members hasn’t taken the needed measures to make sure that this law is implemented and enforced. After all, isn’t a driver’s training school in the interest of public safety after all? Yes, I’m a little confused here and can’t quite figure out why this situation is being allowed to continue as it is.

On a different note, the We Love Saipan network is continuing to climb in the Google search rankings. It is solidly #8 now if you type in a search of Saipan, and it even sneaks up to #7 occasionally, which puts it right below Saipan Sucks. I’m thinking it’s only a matter of time now before the We Love Saipan website bumps the Saipan Sucks website down in the Google search rankings. One thing that would probably help is if we got a few more Saipan people blogging and linking their blogs to the http://www.welovesaipan.com/ website. If you’d like to find out more about blogging, the We Love Saipan website, or just hang out with an interesting bunch of people, they will be meeting next Wednesday, June 27th at 7 pm at Java Joes in Dan Dan. If this is a way that you can positively help Saipan at no cost to you whatsoever, what do you have to lose by looking into it? You never know, you just might wind up loving it and getting hooked on it too!

And if this isn’t enough for you, and you actually want to hear some of my thoughts on a variety of other issues as well, feel free to check out my online blog anytime at http://www.saipandiver.blogspot.com/. If you get bored reading, there are at least some cool pictures to look at.

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.

Labor reform that benefits who?

2007-06-15T14:09:00.000+10:00

Food For Thought 6-15-07

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’m still a bit stuck on this latest Labor Reform legislation that is trying to make it’s way through the legislature at the moment. I understand that a lot of time and effort has gone into it so far, and that a lot of the politicians are quite proud of it, thinking they are really fixing things this time around. I have heard some of them say that it is important to get this passed quickly, so that it will prove to the U.S. politicians that we can fix our own problems, and we don’t need them to step in and intervene. I’m guessing they are under the impression that the U.S. politicians will be impressed with this document, and will be convinced that we’re finally serious about dealing with all the issues surrounding contract workers, local job preference, and all the various facets of those topics.

I believe that some of them are also hoping they can get this passed before the election in November so they can show the voters they actually accomplished something with their 2 years in office, because frankly, they don’t have much else to show for their 2 years. I guess I question just who is really going to be impressed with this document, and whether it will actually accomplish anything when it’s all said and done.

Honestly, I have not been impressed with what I have seen of it so far at all. Now I will admit, that I probably haven’t seen the very latest version, because it seems it’s being updated on a daily basis, if not more often. That is a good thing actually, because there were a lot of glaring problems with this bill the way it was first put forth. The fact that it’s being changed so often means that the drafters are taking all the comments and concerns seriously, and trying to incorporate some of them into the bill itself. But to me, it seems we’re taking a broken down ox cart that hasn’t worked in years, slapping a little paint on it, and now expecting it to be fully functional.

One of the biggest problems with our labor laws in the past is that they were too complex, too burdensome, and not really workable. For example, we supposedly fixed the problem with locals making less than contract workers several years ago. Our legislators came up with something that was supposed to be a Fair Labor Act, giving local workers the equivalent of what contract workers were making when you factored in all their mandated benefits. But how do you do that, and is it the same for every business? The legislature never came up with any kind of formula to figure out how the difference in pay should be calculated. They left that up to the businesses to figure out. The businesses said they didn’t know how to come up with that number, and most of them just never tried. Since the legislature never really came up with an answer as to how to figure it out, the Labor Department had nothing to go on, and couldn’t really mandate that the employers pay the local workers the equivalent to what the contract workers were being paid when benefits were factored in. The legislature never really did anything about it, until now that is. This is supposed to take care of that problem. They say they will have a formula in this one that shows how employers are to figure out the difference. But I still haven’t seen that formula, so I don’t know if they’ve truly made any progress or not.

The one part of this bill that bothers me the most though has to do with the 6-month exit requirement every 3-½ years for all contract workers, unless they are a business executive or a domestic helper, or a maid. I know I’ve touched on this topic a couple weeks ago, but some of the things I’m hearing continue to astound me, meaning it obviously still needs to be talked about. One of the statements I find the most ridiculous is, “now that the minimum wage increase has taken effect, there probably won’t be that many maids left anyway, so it really doesn’t matter”. Well if that’s really the case, then why not just remove “domestic workers” or maids from the exemption list? When you push that topic and try to get them to commit to removing it or to explaining why they should be kept in, they just smile with no explanation. The truth of the matter is, that a fair number of the legislators probably plan on keeping their maids, and they don’t want to be inconvenienced for 6 months every 3-½ years. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve heard all the explanations of how the maid is like a member of the family, and how they are like a mother to the children. The sad truth in many of the cases is that the maid is probably more of a mother to the children than the real mother is. But to the parents that are employing the maid, she is not family, she is merely someone that can be hired for $300 a month to do all the jobs they don’t want to do, to pick up after them, to clean for them, to cook for them, to do the laundry, and the list goes on and on. If they really valued her like family, they would pay her a living wage, not $300 a month.

And now I understand that there are those who have figured out that if the maid is a live in maid, then she may be exempt from overtime pay under the new minimum wage law. So even though they will have to start paying their maid $3.55 an hour starting on July 25th, they figure that they can still make them work as many hours as they feel like, as long as they live under the same roof, and only pay them for 40 hours a week. If you’re banking on that, you’re playing a risky game of Russian roulette that has a very good chance of blowing up in your face. Yes, there are a few legitimate exceptions in the law, but for the most part, if you have a maid, you’d better plan on bumping her pay to $3.55 an hour on July 25th, and paying her time and a half for anything over 40 hours a week. Anything else is risky, and will most likely be challenged at some point or another.

But back to the whole exemption for maids from the 6-month exit requirement, I’m afraid we’re sending a blaring message back to U.S. politicians. And the message is this, “Fine, we’re willing to force businesses to hurt and send back their contract workers periodically, but don’t ask us to inconvenience ourselves for any reason. We should be entitled to keeping our workers, even though we don’t think businesses should. We are still looking out for ourselves and our own comforts, and really don’t care how that looks. And if you don’t like it, well too bad, we make our own laws. We’ve gotten away with it so far, and until you prove to us we can’t get away with it any longer, we’re going to keep pushing it as far as we can”.

So do we honestly believe that by passing this legislation it will do anything whatsoever to appease the U.S. legislators and make them leave us alone? Do we really think we can treat business one way, and ourselves another and honestly expect any new businesses to want to come here?

Some of the current politicians seem to be waking up in certain areas, but they all seem to be asleep at the switch on others. Some of them seem to realize that running under a party banner will probably be the kiss of death in this upcoming election, and many of them have opted to run as independents instead. This will save them the money of having to kick in for beer and food for all the pocket meetings, and will help them distance themselves from the voter backlash and anger at what’s happened the last few years. But the smart voters will pay attention to who has been in office anyway, and what they have accomplished while they’ve been there. If you were elected under the Covenant banner last election, you are not going to escape any association with them and their policies this time around just because you’re running as an independent now. You’d better hope you have done something worth while to give the voters a reason to want you back, or it doesn’t matter what color your spots are, you’re still a leopard.

But I still haven’t heard a single politician stand up and say that the exemptions for maids to go back for 6 months every 3-½ years is ridiculous. Is it because they are afraid of angering voters that have maids, or is it because they are protecting their own self-interests yet again? Technically, any lawmaker who employs a domestic worker or a maid should excuse himself or herself from voting on this bill, because it is a conflict of interest for them. But then again, avoiding conflict of interest is not something most of them are eager to do anyway.

I agree with our lawmakers that they will be sending a message to the U.S. congress by passing the Labor Reform Act, but I would strongly disagree with them on what the message is.
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.

Blogging as a way to promote Saipan, and the Saipan Chamber of Commerce scholarship program.

2007-06-08T11:12:00.000+10:00

Food For Thought 6-8-07

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.

Has it really been a week already since we last did this? I did have a cold this week, and that could have had something to do with it, but I swear this past week was pretty much just a blur. But that is not to say that it hasn’t been an eventful week, actually I’m kind of amazed when I look back at all the things that were packed into this past week.

I had Walt Goodridge come on my morning talk show, Island Issues a week ago, and we had a good discussion about where Saipan is heading, and what role each of us may play in it’s future. In case you’re not familiar with him, Walt is an author with quite a few books under his belt at this point, he also write a column each Wednesday in the Saipan Tribune called the Saipanpreneur Project, and he is the founder of the We Love Saipan internet network. I swear Walt’s brain is clicking away about 28 hours a day with all kinds of plans and ideas. I have invited him to be a regular guest on Island Issues to discuss his ideas and to hopefully inspire you listeners about some of your hidden potential as well. I believe he’s going to take me up on it, and I’m genuinely looking forward to seeing what comes out of it.

If you haven’t checked out the We Love Saipan web page, let me encourage you to do so, it’s at www.welovesaipan.com. And if you’d like to write a little testimonial about why you love Saipan and have it included on the page, they are always looking for more people to be included. Especially if you have a web page or a blog, it is a great place to link to, and help build exposure for the network and for your web page as well.

As I read through some of the people’s blogs, I was finally pushed off my lazy backside to start my own blog. I have had people suggesting it for a long time, but I always thought it was too much work setting up a website and everything. That’s because I had never really checked out www.blogspot.com, it’s basically blogs for dummies. It takes all the work out of it, and you just click on the options for how you want your page to look, and it does the rest of it for you. Oh yeah, and the best part is, it’s absolutely free! So then you can upload pictures to your blog, it makes it very easy, you really don’t have to have any html knowledge at all. Then you just write whatever you want to say in your blog, just like you’d type it out in a regular Word document, and push the Publish button, and then you have it, your own blog.

This is truly a great way to get free exposure for Saipan, and to let other people see Saipan from your eyes. They can see the pictures you choose to put online, and hear what you think about things. This is a great way of countering that website, which shall remain nameless, that has nothing but bad things to say about Saipan. When Walt started the We Love Saipan website on December 6th of last year, it was ranked 155th in the Google search for Saipan. As of this morning, when I just checked it, it came up in the 10th position. The more people that connect to the network, and the more hits it gets, the higher it will climb in the Google search. Wouldn’t it be great to have a website promoting Saipan in a positive light be the first thing that comes up in a Google search? While this may not fix all the problems currently facing Saipan, it is certainly a step in the right direction, and it allows you to become a part of the solution.

And I have to admit, I’m enjoying blogging, it’s a way to put down your thoughts and observations and have them recorded before you forget them. It’s basically a modern day journal, only one that you let the world read. You can talk about anything you feel like, and make it as personal or impersonal as you wish. For me, it’s a way to talk about more things than I can cover in my weekly Food For Thought. So some of my blogs will be my thoughts about various issues or events, while others will be talking about my 27th wedding anniversary with Kelli, which we just celebrated on June the 7th. So just in case you don’t get enough of me each morning, and once a week with Food For Thought, now you can read my ramblings on my blog as well. I can’t guarantee that it will always be something you’ll be interested in, but then again you don’t have to read it if the title doesn’t interest you. I’m telling you, if I can do a blog, anybody can do a blog, it really is that easy. Mine is at www.saipandiver.blogspot.com.

In my blog I’ve talked about having some of my underwater pictures published in an upcoming book, the Saipan Chamber of Commerce scholarship program, the meeting with Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, my sons new ferrets, and Kelli’s and my 27th wedding anniversary. Like I said, you can talk about anything you feel like. In my case, I usually don’t have nearly enough time in Food For Thought to talk about all the things I’d like to, so I find this is a good supplement. It allows me to go into other topics that might not make the cut for Food For Thought, and it allows me to talk about things that our family and friends in other locations might be interested in.

I had a couple topics I wanted to discuss today; one was the visit by Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne and the other was the Saipan Chamber of Commerce scholarship program. I’m not going to say a whole lot about Secretary Kempthorne’s visit, but I did want to point out that I was very impressed with him as a person. He seems genuinely concerned about and interested in the CNMI, and said that he wants to make a difference. I believe him, and I expect that he will do whatever he can for us back in Washington, but we need to keep in mind we are only one very tiny part of his responsibilities. If you want to know more on my thoughts about his visit, you’re welcome to check out the comments about it on my blog.

I did want to spend a little bit of time today talking about the Saipan Chamber of Commerce scholarship program. The Chamber has fundraisers throughout the year in which we raise money to give to select graduating high school seniors in the form of a college scholarship. That’s where the funds from the Corporate Challenge go, some of our mixers and socials are also fundraising tools for the scholarship fund. We also do raffles during the regular membership meetings to raise extra money for the scholarship fund. And we host debates of gubernatorial and senatorial candidates for the community, the proceeds of which go toward the scholarship program as well. We try to give out about $10,000 in scholarships each year, some years it’s a little more and others it might be a little less, but that’s our goal each year.

We announce the program each year to graduating high school seniors encouraging them to apply for the scholarships if they are headed for college. This year we had 19 students apply, each and every one of them very impressive in their own right. The problem is we only had 6 - $1,500 scholarships to give out. So members of the Education Committee interviewed all 19 students, trying to narrow down the list and figure out which ones we felt were the most deserving students. It’s not all just about academics, but of course that is a big part of it. We are also looking for students who understand what community service is all about and who have already started giving back to the community they live in.

If these students represent our future, then things are really looking up, they were a most impressive bunch. The only thing that bothers me about the whole process is that we have to turn any of the students down; they have all worked hard for their accomplishments. So the next time you see the Chamber of Commerce doing a fundraiser, please be generous and help us help this next generation of business leaders and professionals. Even though the scholarships were only for $1,500 each this year, every little bit helps when it comes to funding a college education, and every student was most appreciative.

This years Saipan Chamber of Commerce scholarship winners were Tikla Brown – who was home schooled this past year, Raneeza Cano from Grace Christian Academy, Henry Chan from Saipan International School, Emily Jang from Marianas High School, Bernadeth Piamonte from Marianas High School and Chellette San Nicolas from Northern Marianas Academy. Each and every one of them students who made their schools and parents very proud. Congratulations to each one of you and we all wish you the best of luck as you embark on this next phase of your life heading off to college.

And to those of you still in high school, keep those grades up and get involved in your community so that we can be interviewing you for the Saipan Chamber of Commerce scholarship when you’re a graduating senior.

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.

We finally have the answer to the minimum wage question, but what does that mean to us locally?

2007-06-05T13:04:00.000+10:00

Food For Thought 6-1-07

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.

We finally have the answer to one of the questions that has been looming over our heads for months now. We knew that the U.S. politicians, primarily the Democrats, have been pushing very hard for a federalization of our minimum wage, and a takeover of our immigration. As of last weekend, we now have an answer to the minimum wage question. Both the U.S. House and Senate passed an Iraq war-funding bill that included an increase in the minimum wage, and the President signed it into law last Friday, or our Saturday. The CNMI is now to be under the federal minimum wage, which is on the way up to $7.25 an hour.

We didn’t get the deal we were hoping for, which would have given us a .35-cent an hour increase, and then had a special wage board determine when and if further increases could be implemented without serious damage to the economy. But we did get a better deal than the one that many of us had feared. The minimum wage will go up .50-cents an hour, 60 days after being signed by the President, or on July 25th. Then it will go up .50-cents a year starting one year from the date of signing, or May 25, 2008. We were afraid that it would be going up .50-cents an hour every six months, which would have been pretty difficult for many businesses to swallow, especially in this depressed economy we’re currently experiencing. So our minimum wage will be $3.55 an hour on July 25th, then jumps to $4.05 an hour on May 25, 2008. From that point it goes up .50-cents an hour every year until we reach $7.25 an hour, which won’t be until May 25, 2014. That gives us a little breathing room, and time for us to hit bottom and hopefully start the recovery that will follow.

There is no doubt about the fact that this is very bad news for the remaining garment industry on Saipan. Several of them may be closing down immediately as they feel they cannot shoulder any increase whatsoever at this point and remain competitive. Others have said that $4 an hour is their break-even point, and anything beyond that means they will no longer be profitable. So with that being said, it is very realistic to assume that the complete end of the garment industry will happen no later than May 25, 2008. That means substantially less tax revenues coming in for the government, and a big reduction in the number of contract workers on Saipan. Of course that will also be affecting many other businesses as well, all the small mom and pop stores around the garment factories, and any other business that does business with the garment factories. It also means that we will no longer be shipping any product out of the CNMI, so the cost of incoming freight will be going up drastically as well.

One of the aspects of the minimum wage increase that has a lot of people worried is the effect it will have on house workers or maids, farmers, and fishermen, as these are all job categories that have their own separate minimum wage, which is much lower than our regular minimum wage. According to the Lt. Governor and Attorney General, who were both on my talk show, Island Issues, last week, fishermen will be exempt from this new minimum wage increase so it should not affect their salaries. Farmers may also be exempt, if they are employed in a business that offers the produce or product for sale, and the business has over 500 man hours in a pay period, in other words they would have to have at least 7 farmers employed, working full time.

The bad news comes for those who employ house workers, maids, gardeners and maintenance workers for their households. These categories will be affected by the new minimum wage increase, and it will take effect on July 25th, not on the renewal date of their contract. They will also be converted at that time for a salaried worker to an hourly worker, who will be paid a minimum of $3.55 an hour, and they will also be entitled to time and a half for everything worked over 40 hours a week. Right now many of the contracts for house workers are for $300 a month, and require them to work from 6 am to 6 pm. So if you cut your house workers down to 40 hours a week, you will have to start paying them $142 per week beginning July 25th, or in effect nearly doubling their salary. According to the Lt. Governor, there are some deductions that are allowed if you’re providing their housing and their meals. But the Attorney General, Matt Gregory cautions that you may be getting into legal trouble if there is a dispute as to the real value of the housing and food you’re providing. You also need to be warned that if you are asking your house workers to work in excess of 40 hours per week, you must pay them time and a half. Even if they offer to extra hours for you at no cost, you would be foolish to let them do it without properly compensating them for it. If they file a labor case against you when they leave alleging that you didn’t properly pay them for all overtime worked, you could be on the hook for thousands and thousands of dollars.

Just another word to the wise where house workers are concerned, you should start having them fill out timesheets, giving an accurate record of the hours they actually worked, and have them sign it at the end of each pay period. Then you should keep those records as long as the employee is still on island so you have proof of their hours worked.

Yes, it’s going to be more work and definitely more expensive to have maids or house workers from this point forward, but frankly, the house workers have been underpaid and taken advantage of for years and years here. They have been made to work very long hours for very little pay, and it’s time that situation was made right. Our lawmakers made this separate class of workers that was paid far below the minimum wage so they could have their own servants and workers and pay them as little as possible. It’s my belief that this is one of the biggest reasons that the critics of the CNMI have fought so hard to take over our minimum wage and have it incorporated with the rest of the country. They saw this as a travesty that we were bringing in contract workers to be our maids and house workers and paying them as so ridiculously low a wage. It was self-serving of the lawmakers to create such a class of working poor just for their own benefit, and they still have this same greedy, self-serving attitude.

There is a Labor Reform bill that is currently being debated in both houses. The lawmakers have been working on this bill for a year now, and it is supposed to fix many of the problems currently in our system. They were trying to get this bill out before the U.S. congress took any action, hoping that it would convince the U.S. that we were finally serious about cleaning up our own house. But the lawmakers couldn’t help but keeping their own self-serving interests included in this bill. In section 4952 of this bill, entitled, “Exit from the Commonwealth”, it says that a foreign national worker shall exit the Commonwealth within 15 days after the date of termination of the approved employment contract or renewal, except as provided for in this chapter. The very next section talks about exceptions for the periodic exit requirement. It says that a foreign national worker shall exit and remain absent from the Commonwealth for at least 6 months during every 42-month period. It goes on to say that this limitation does not apply to foreign national workers who are employed in professional or executive positions, or domestic workers. In the copy of the draft bill that I have, it describes an executive as someone making over $30,000 a year, and then goes on to clarify it even further.

So seriously, the only exemptions from the 6 month exit requirement are executives making over $30,000 a year and domestic workers, or maids? How do they come to the conclusion that executives and maids deserve to be in the same class and both be given exemptions to this law? I’m assuming that they figure it would be very difficult for a business to function without their key executives for 6 months every 3 ½ years, therefore it wouldn’t be a good idea to force businesses to do without their key people like that. But frankly, it’s going to be very difficult for many businesses to do without some of their key employees making less than $30,000 a year for 6 months too. Are they going to have to keep paying for that employee for those 6 months just to make sure they don’t take another job? And is the business going to have to try and hire someone to fill in for that employee for those 6 months? The lawmakers don’t really seem to care the impact this will have on businesses, yet look how they continue to take care of themselves. They made sure to exempt domestic workers from the 6-month exit requirement. God forbid that they should have to pick up after themselves, do their own laundry or cook their own meals for 6 months. So in other words, they see what a disruption it would be in their lives to not have their maids for 6 months, but they don’t seem to care about the disruption to businesses to have to do without employees for 6 months. Now if you ask the legislators, they will tell you it’s because the maids have become like family to them, and their children think of them as second mothers, therefore it would be very disrupting to the family unit to have to send the maids back for 6 months. But how many of you would work your family members like a dog, requiring them to work 12-15 hours a day, 6 days a week, sometimes 7, and only give them $300 a month for it? I suppose there are some legislators up there that would consider doing that to their own family members, but honestly I find it deplorable. And we wonder why the U.S. doesn’t trust us to get our own orders in affair, and to fix our problems. This is a classic example of even when the legislators try to fix a problem, as in the Labor Reform Act, they still can’t get it right and still try to exempt themselves from any pain or inconvenience. Until we show the U.S. that we really mean business, and are going to fix things properly, we should expect no less from them, we asked for this. Thanks legislators, evidently your counterparts in the U.S. Congress and Senate are paying attention, and they have heard you loudly and clearly. Again, do I really need to remind anyone why it’s time to clean house in the legislature in this coming election? This is the same kind of self-serving, garbage legislation they’ve been producing for years, and they still don’t get it. They are not in a class above the rest of us, but it seems that they have come to believe they are. Again, I believe there are a few exceptions up there, but I can count them all on one hand, with a finger or two left over. That’s pretty bad when you consider we have 27 legislators.

Yes, a minimum wage increase was long over due, it should have happened years ago when we promised the U.S. that we would raise our minimum wage. But since we couldn’t be bothered to keep our own promises, the U.S. is helping us to keep it now, and frankly, it could be a lot worse than it is. We should be counting our blessings that we have 7 years to catch up to the national minimum wage. Again, our own lawmakers could have, and should have done something about this long ago, but no, they were too busy trying to figure out how to get away with paying their own domestic workers next to nothing. They succeeded for years, but now the party’s over, and it’s time to start paying people accordingly. Now you need to decide if you really need maids, gardeners and maintenance workers around your house at the new rates. If you do, that’s fine, just pay them accordingly and don’t try cutting any corners, or making them work overtime without paying for it. If you do, I have a hunch it will come back to bite you in the butt when that worker leaves to go home. If you don’t need them or can’t afford them, you need to go down to the Department of Labor and see if you can get out of the contract early. But don’t think you can just keep paying them $300 a month after July 25th and get away with it. I believe that all contract workers will know their rights very soon, and even if they let you get away with paying them a lower amount for now, they will file a complaint against you before leaving, they would be foolish not to. If you have questions about any of this, I recommend you contact the Department of Labor immediately and get the facts. You simply can’t afford to not understand what is happening or how it will affect you.

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.

Goodbye Vinae, you will be remembered and missed!

2007-06-05T13:03:00.000+10:00

Food For Thought 5-25-07

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.

This is one of those weeks when I knew what I wanted to talk about the week before. There are some very pressing issues just begging for attention and comment, that all changed though last Sunday afternoon. One of the friends that I was supposed to go diving with was late because of an accident on middle road. He told me it was a bad accident, but I didn’t really think much more about it until the next morning. Then I read the story about this beautiful young lady who had just recently turned 17 who was tragically killed in the accident. I sat there for a while feeling very bad for the family, wondering how they were handling this horrible event.

But then the story was brought even closer home as one of my announcers came in and told me who this young lady was, and that I knew her. Her father Ben used to work for me as a salesman, and I still count him as a good friend. I have talked with her mother Nadine many times in the past, and have always enjoyed her company as well. But I have also spent time talking with Vinae, and was always so impressed with her. Now that I knew who it was that we lost in this horrible accident my heart was literally breaking and the pain in my chest was palpable.

It has been a couple years since I have seen Vinae. She always used to come in to wait for her dad when he was working here. I remember the first time Ben introduced me to her, he told me she was a regular listener to my Food For Thought and a fan. I believe she was 12 at that time, and I wondered why a 12 year old would be interested in the things I was talking about, and how much of it she truly understood. But as I talked to her and listened to her, it was obvious this was no ordinary 12 year old. Vinae seemed to have an intelligence and intellect that went far beyond her years. Here was a girl who did understand the issues, and was trying to learn more about them all the time. She obviously truly loved this island she called home, and was concerned about it, and what was happening to it. Whenever I would see her sitting out front waiting for her dad, I would invite her to come in and sit on my couch, since it was more comfortable and to talk about things. She usually declined saying she didn’t want to be a bother, so I would chat with her out there for a few minutes.

As much as I hated losing Ben as a salesman when he left, I think I hated losing those opportunities to chat for a few minutes with Vinae just as much. She was everything that’s right about these islands, she was indeed what we need for the future, a beautiful, intelligent young woman who is concerned about the issues facing us all and has spent plenty of time thinking about them.

Even back when I knew her, it was obvious that she was the kind of big sister that the rest of her siblings loved and looked up to. She was beautiful, poised and confident, just the sort of older sister that every younger sister wants to be like. She had a smile that seemed to just take over a room when she graced you with it. So it came to no surprise to me when I read about her accomplishments in the Miss Teen pageant. I wasn’t the least bit surprised that she walked away with the bulk of the awards. And I smiled to myself as I read that she was truly impressive as she answered the judge’s questions. I bet they were as amazed and impressed with her as I was. I’m sorry I missed out on seeing her in that pageant, and I’m sorry I’ve missed the opportunity of having those little chats with her the last couple of years.

Right now is our time to grieve, to remember all the wonderful things about Vinae, and how she managed to touch each of us in a very personal way. It’s a time to share our stories of her, to laugh and cry with each other, and to be there for her family and let them know we’re there for them. No, this is not the first death that most of us have had to deal with, but somehow that doesn’t seem to make it any easier. She was taken away from us much, much too early. She still had so much to offer and give, she was really just getting to the point where she was going to start living her life.

I talked about losing my good friend and fellow Rotarian Elias Okamura a couple years ago, and how hard that was. But Elias had lived a long and full life; it’s just that most of us didn’t want to let him go, we were used to having Elias there all the time. I do still think of Elias every week, and still miss him all the time, and yes, I still shed tears when I think of him and remember him occasionally. Elias left a real imprint on my life, and I will always be grateful for it. Elias was someone I respected immensely and always looked up to, he was the kind of person I was proud to claim was my friend. To me, Vinae is in the same class as Elias. No, she hasn’t lived as many years or accomplished as many things, but the people she has touched she has affected just as deeply. And from the people I have talked to this past week who knew Vinae, I know that she had that same effect on people.

Depending on your religious views, most of us believe that after death there is a new and glorious life waiting for you. And we try to console ourselves by telling each other that they are better off now and in a much better place. But the truth of the matter is, that death just stinks for those of us that are left behind. Our hearts are breaking and the tears just don’t seem to ever quit. And it’s ok to grieve, to cry over the pain of losing a loved one. I don’t agree with those who tell you that you have to be tough at times like this, and not let your emotions show. Robots don’t have emotions, humans do, and it’s only natural to feel and experience them.

When I lost my father shortly before moving out here, there was one incident that meant the world to me, and still sticks with me to this day. There was an older gentleman, Jim, who had a quarrel with my father years before, and neither of them ever got along after that. I had moved back to my hometown and had become friends with this older gentleman - we were golfing buddies. My father had ended his own life and left me pretty much totally devastated. On the first night of visitation at the funeral home, Jim was the first person to arrive. He was a retired state trooper, a bear of a man who had a reputation of being tough as steel. He had this tough, calloused exterior that most people never saw through, but for whatever reason, he let me get to know the real Jim. He walked in with tears in his eyes; he came straight to me and just wrapped me up in a big bear hug. We both just openly sobbed together. He didn’t have any magic words to make everything better or to make the pain go away, but he was willing to be there and to share the pain with me. That gesture meant more to me than anything else, and he knew it, which is why he was there and was willing to show his tender side, something which most people, even some of his family members never knew existed. The last time I was in the states, Jim was dying of cancer, and didn’t have much time left. He was refusing all visitors, as he didn’t want anyone to see him in that condition. I called his wife and told her I was back for a short time and asked if there was any way that Jim might agree to see me. When he found out it was me, he told me of course I could come. It was hard seeing my old golfing buddy withering away and in that condition, and I didn’t have any words of wisdom or magic cures. But Jim knew why I was there, and that visit meant the world to both of us. Words didn’t really need to be spoken; it was the hearts that were communicating.

I share all this to let you know that it’s ok if you don’t have any magic words to say to the family or loved ones when you go to Vinae’s funeral, just being there to share a hug and the tears will mean more than any words ever could. This is a time when the family needs all the love and support they can get. It is appropriate that the funeral is on Memorial Day. The public viewing for Vinae starts at 9 am Monday morning at the Mount Carmel Cathedral, the Mass of Christian Burial will be at 11 am and Internment services will be at noon. I would encourage you to go to the funeral for Vinae if you knew her or the family and to be there for them, just showing them that you love them and care.
And for those who didn’t know Vinae, or the family, I would like to encourage you to go to the new Veteran’s Cemetery in Marpi for the Memorial Day Service honoring our fallen soldiers. We all owe these fallen soldiers a debt of gratitude we can never repay, and at the very least we owe the families of the soldiers that are left behind our support. This is such a small way to show our support and appreciation, but it is one that truly makes a difference to the families left behind. Too many times Memorial Day is just another day off, and another excuse to go the beach for a party. This year let’s remember what Memorial Day is really all about and pay our proper respects to our heroes and show our support to their families. You will still have all afternoon for your parties and get togethers, but let’s pack out our new Veteran’s Cemetery and show the families of our fallen soldiers that we truly appreciate their sacrifice and service. The service starts at 9 am Monday morning at the Veteran’s Cemetery, which is located on the road going to Bonzai Cliff.

Vinae you will be remembered and missed, and to all of our fallen soldiers, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

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.

A little follow up from last week, and the situation brewing at D.P.S.

2007-06-05T13:02:00.001+10:00

Food For Thought 5-18-07

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.

This week I have several issues that I want to touch on, and am having a hard time trying to decide where to start. I guess the most logical is to deal with a little bit of clean up from last week. I got an unusually large amount of feedback on the topic of getting some new people to run for office as independent candidates. Everyone but one person thought the topic was great and very enlightening; they had no idea just how easy it was to run for office and what the qualifications were. The vast majority of them commented that they were sick of the political parties, and the kind of candidates they tend to endorse and support. They were also tired of the traditional style of campaigning that happens here, and agree that they would be much more likely to vote for a candidate who is independent and doesn’t do the typical pocket meetings and signs. It is important to mention here that well over half of the people who made these comments were indigenous locals. One person told me they disagreed with me on the importance of parties, that she believes we have to follow the parties and let them select the candidates for us. But then in the next breath, she said that our system has failed us miserably and we need to get some new candidates in who will actually try to fix things.

I believe that this election will be an election of change; I honestly can’t see people retaining the politicians who have let them down and failed them miserably. Honestly are you really willing to put people back in just because of family ties, even though they have shown repeatedly they don’t have the communities best interests at heart? Are you really willing to vote for legislators who reduced your pay by 10%, but weren’t willing to take the cuts themselves even though they gave themselves the Austerity Friday’s off as well? If I were a government employee, I would be especially outraged at that kind of arrogance and insensitivity. They outrage me anyway, even though I’m not a government employee, and can promise you that not a single one of them will get my vote. The real key here to change in the coming election is getting some good, viable independent candidates willing to put their names on the ballot. You won’t have to campaign to get my vote, just clearly tell me what you plan on doing that will be different. I believe that’s what the majority of voters will be looking for in this coming election.

Next topic, let’s talk about the petition circulating among the police officers to remove the Commissioner of the Department of Public Safety, Rebecca Warfield. I need to start by saying I have not seen the petition, and honestly I have no interest in seeing it. This is not the first time the police officers have tried such a stunt, they did it with Mark Williams as well. And because their efforts resulted in the Governor’s firing of Williams, they have decided to try it again. It is my understanding that the police officers are claiming that there is an organizational breakdown and procedural breakdown. Now it was true that Williams didn’t have a police department background, he was a career military man. Some of the police officers claimed he was too militaristic, used too much bad language, and I’m guessing hurt their feelings by requiring them to get off their backsides and do their jobs. For example, some of them preferred to sit in their air-conditioned cars watching the chaos at stoplights during the power outages. They didn’t seem to want to get out and actually have to direct traffic, even though that would have made it much safer. Williams wouldn’t stand for such a thing and actually demanded that they get out of their air conditioned cars, stand in the heat for a couple hours, and direct traffic, thus avoiding potential accidents during power outages. How dare he demand they actually do their job and promote traffic safety? Of all the nerve, no wonder they demanded he had to go. By the way, in case the sarcasm has gone over your head, those last couple sentences were dripping with it.

And now we have Rebecca Warfield, an attorney with no police department experience either heading up the Department of Public Safety. She also seems to expect them to do their jobs, but she has taken it a step further even, she is demanding they get it done with no overtime. Instead of letting the officers double their salary through excessive and abusive overtime, Commissioner Warfield is trying to put through another class of cadets who will be able to help fill some of the holes in a staff short department. She has been given orders from her boss, the Governor, to cut the department’s budget, and one of the quickest ways to do that is to cut out all the overtime. It’s no secret that DPS has been extremely abusive in the amount of overtime that was claimed in the past. I remember a couple of the examples I looked at, the officer would have had to work 20 hours a day, 7 days a week to justify the amount of overtime he was being paid. Obviously there were some problems there, and the fact that it was being allowed by those in charge was also a huge problem that the last administration never wanted to address. I will be the first to point out that the $17,000 salary for a police officer is ridiculous, it is a disgrace really. It’s no wonder that the officers tried to get as much overtime as they possibly could when they were being paid such a ridiculously low salary. Again, this is something that should have been addressed by the legislature a long time ago, but no, that bunch was too busy trying to figure out how to keep their own salary and avoid the cuts they were inflicting on everybody else. But I can definitely understand why the police officers would be unhappy at only making $17,000 a year and not getting any overtime now. But again, let’s lay the blame where it truly belongs, and that is on the legislature, not on Commissioner Warfield.

I have no doubt that Commissioner Warfield does things differently than her predecessors had, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing considering the way the department had been run for years. In years past people had been promoted and given positions based on their political party affiliation and family ties, in many cases even though they had no training or qualifications to do the job. Honestly, I can’t see Commissioner Warfield operating that way, and I would expect that she would attempt to rectify as many of those situations as she could. But that doesn’t make the officers in those positions very happy, and I can see where they might want to get rid of her and try to get one of the gold old boys back in that position.

The real question here is how the Governor will handle this latest coup attempt. The last time he gave in to the officer’s demands and removed Mark Williams from the position. Did the officers have legitimate concerns that the Governor felt compelled him to remove Williams? Possibly, but the Governor never really make the reasons behind his decision public, so it is purely speculation at this point. I did make it a point to ask the Governor at the time what he would do the next time the officers decided they didn’t like their boss and tried circulating a petition again. He responded that they had better never try it again, or the next time there would be a number of police officers looking for a new job, and he would never tolerate that kind of behavior on the force again. So here we are again, with a petition signed by over 80 police officers seeking to have the Governor remove Rebecca Warfield from her position. So will the Governor cave in to the pressure from the officers once again, or will he clean house in the department like he said he would do if they ever tried this again? I believe that Rebecca Warfield is doing the best she can in that position with the limited resources at her disposal, and I would hope that she would be backed up and given the support she deserves.

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.

It's time to fix one of our problems at the source, we need a fresh crop of lawmakers this November.

2007-06-05T11:55:00.000+10:00

Food For Thought 5-11-07

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.

Before I launch into my topic today, I feel it’s only fair that this commentary should come with a warning, kind of like the movies that say, “Warning, this movie contains scenes that may not be suitable for all viewers”. So here is mine, “Warning, this commentary contains thoughts and ideas that politicians will find extremely objectionable. It will most likely cause a severe case of nausea for above-mentioned individuals, and it also has a very good probability of costing them their jobs and their power and influence. All career politicians may want to do everything within their power to make sure that as few people hear or read this commentary as possible”. Now that we have that little detail covered, I feel that I can launch into a topic I’ve wanted to talk about for a very long time.

I have been carefully watching everything that has been happening in government and politics in the CNMI for the last 10 years and I have come to a few conclusions. #1 – I don’t believe that the political parties that have been operating in the CNMI serve the interests or the needs of the people. They have been full of cronyism, dirty deals, lies, manipulation, and they have actively been trying to get people elected for all the wrong reasons. Elections in the past have been determined by how many jobs you promised to various families, who could spend the most in advertising leading up to the election, and by who provides the most beer and food at the pocket meetings. And let’s be honest here for a minute about “pocket meetings”, they are nothing but a chance for the politicians to try buying your votes with food and alcohol. Politicians for years have been making empty promises at these pocket meetings and saying the same old things. So if nothing new is ever really said at them, and you can’t really believe anything that’s said anyway, why continue to have them? The answer is simple; it’s a way to bribe the voters with beer and food! We can pretend they have a deeper meaning that that if you wish, but it would have to be pretending, because we all know better. Vote buying has a long and colorful history here. Although it’s not usually giving cash in exchange for a promise of a vote, that has happened as well. Our candidates have done everything from paying for voter’s utility bills, buying caskets for voters when a loved one passes away, making car payments and the list goes on and on. It has been a very corrupt system, one that encourages dishonesty, and yet for many years people have had their hands out seeing what they could get from the various candidates. When we elect our leaders through a corrupt system, and encourage them to play by those rules, why should we be surprised when the politicians turn out to be corrupt and incompetent, what other kind of leaders would you expect?

Some of the politicians will try fooling us by telling us that politics is only something they engage in before the election, that once they are elected they put politics behind them and then their loyalty is to the voters. Can I be perfectly blunt for a minute? That is a complete load of crap in almost all of the cases. I remember right after Juan Babauta was elected as Governor; he had a hissy fit because someone dared used the color green for something in the Executive Office. Green was the official color for the Covenant Party, and of course Babauta was a Republican. Politics dead – yeah right, and if you eat enough beans you will have all the gas you need to power your new environmentally friendly methane powered car! And if politics is dead after the election in the legislature, then why do we have such things as the majority and minority? That’s all about who has the numbers for control of the respective Houses. The party that has the most members and can persuade the most people to defect and join them in return for powerful chairmanships and additional funding becomes the majority, and the rest of the unlucky saps then become the minority. They get the offices on the outer fringes, they don’t get any chairmanships, and they certainly don’t get much additional funding. Politics and party loyalty are always alive and well in our current system, it thrives on it, and it gives the party leaders the influence they need to control their party members votes on critical legislation. After all, if you don’t vote the way I want you to, you may find yourself without a party in the upcoming election.

I have come to the conclusion that in order for us to fix anything in our broken down and messed up government; the change needs to start in the legislature. It is after all the law making body, and the body that is supposed to have oversight of the budget and number of employees. The Governor can only do so much unless he has control of both Houses of the legislature. If he does, he can push his own agenda and accomplish almost anything he wants, but if he doesn’t it becomes a stalemate, unless the legislature comes up with the votes to override any potential vetoes from the Governor. But I have not seen our legislature work properly the entire time I’ve been on island. It seems to be a bunch that wants a nice cushy job that they can build toward a government retirement. I have seen a few that I believe were there for the right reasons, but they are in the vast minority.

So if the place that the change needs to start is in the legislature, do you really think we can count on the same ones that have been there for years to implement the needed changes? If you do, you might want to start stocking up on beans and shopping for that new methane powered automobile. And if you think that the political parties are going to embrace candidates who want real change and who will rock the boat, you’re sadly mistaken as well. We need a clean sweep in the legislature, with a couple possible exceptions. Honestly, I can only think of two people up there that I think deserve another term based on their performance thus far. We know that our political parties won’t do what needs to be done, so what do we do, start another party? The Covenant Party did that a few years ago, and now look at them, they are the same as the other parties, and a part of the problem, not a part of the solution. Honestly I believe that running under any party banner will be the kiss of death in this coming election. Educated voters are sick of all the junk they’ve been seeing from the parties the last several years, and they will be looking for alternatives in this coming election. I believe what we really need is a good crop of independent candidates, not recycled political hacks. Candidates who will vote based on their conscience and voter input and feedback, not who are more concerned about party loyalties and deals. And if they don’t have any political experience, is that really a bad thing? Honestly, do we have to take a look at where voting on political experience has gotten us? Isn’t this supposed to be a government of the people and for the people? I can’t think of a better way to make that happen than to get some people running for office that truly love this place and want to see it improve, no matter what it takes. Forget the party loyalties, and forget the old way of campaigning. How bad do you want change? How much worse do things have to get before we realize we need to change the way we do things?

Do you realize that you don’t necessarily have to give up your day job right now to be in the legislature? There are some exceptions, such as if you work for the government, however there is nothing that says you have to give up your private sector job if you are a congressman or a senator. And the truth of the matter is, being a congressman or a senator is not a full time job, even though they have turned it into one for themselves. I have talked to quite a few people recently about running for office, and it seems that everybody has some misconceptions about the qualifications and the costs involved in running for office. Some people told me they thought you had to pay a $10,000, $25,000 or $50,000 fee just in order to run. Now it is possible that the parties themselves have some kind of financial requirement if you want to run under their banner.

But let me tell you all that is required if you want to run as an independent candidate. If you want to run for the House of Representatives you must be at least 21 years of age, have lived in the Commonwealth for 5 years, be a U.S. citizen and be registered to vote in the precinct you are running for, and have no felony convictions. That’s it, not very tough is it? Then you must gather the signatures of 5% of the voters in your precinct or 50 signatures, whichever is less, and pay a $100 filing fee to the Board of Elections. That’s all there is to and your name will appear on the ballot in the coming election. If you want to run for the senate, you must be at least 25 years of age, have lived in the Commonwealth for 5 years, be a U.S. citizen and be registered to vote in your senatorial district, and have no felony convictions. Again you must gather signatures of 5% of the voters in your senatorial district or 100 signatures, whichever is less, and pay a $250 filing fee to the Board of Elections. It’s really not that difficult to run for office, and if you decide to skip the whole political party circus, it is even easier.

I would like to see a new crop of candidates in this upcoming election, who are ready to overhaul a broken system and show us that things can be done differently. I’d like to see them run independent, and forget about trying to buy the election through signs and advertising. Take the opportunities for interviews in the newspaper, radio and TV, and tell us why you are running for office and what some of your ideas are. I don’t expect to see you or hear you at pocket meetings in my neighborhood, and typically I refuse to vote for anyone who does that kind of campaigning anyway. If you approach it this way, you won’t have to worry about having fundraisers or taking out loans. I truly believe the voting public is looking for something different this election, are you going to be a part of the new solution? If you’re elected, it won’t be easy, and there will be many difficult decisions awaiting you, but wouldn’t it be exciting to be a part of the solution instead?

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.

A few comments on the Governor's State of the Commonwealth Address, and customer service, or the lack thereof at C.U.C.

2007-06-05T11:53:00.000+10:00

Food For Thought 5-4-07

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.

Last week Governor Fitial gave his State of the Commonwealth Address, and I didn’t say a word about it last week in Food For Thought because I had an interview with Ricky Delgado Jr. all set to air instead. Frankly, I thought Ricky had some good things to say, and certainly gave us some of his own food for thought. But this week I’ve had several people come up to me asking why I didn’t have any comments on the Governor’s State of the Commonwealth speech. Most of the people who approached me on the matter seemed to think that I should be getting after the Governor for all his massive cuts.

As a matter of fact, I do have a few comments on the whole thing, but it may not be quite what some people were hoping for. The Governor started off by saying that he announced the government was broke last year, and we are still broke this year. He seemed to be fairly candid about our financial situation saying that further cuts will most likely be needed. At least he wasn’t ignoring what was so painfully obvious to the rest of us like his predecessor seemed to like to do. But why would I criticize the Governor for making cuts that I have been saying needed to be made for the past 5-½ years? I have been routinely saying that if this government didn’t start living within its means we would be completely bankrupt in no time.

There were a couple things I took issue with though, one of which was the big announcement. I don’t know if I dozed off at that particular moment, or if the Governor’s speechwriters just forgot to put it in his speech, but I certainly didn’t hear any big surprise or announcement. I heard the Governor talking about several proposed investments into the CNMI, which he claimed would all be breaking ground by the end of the year. Was that the big announcement? Because to be honest we have heard such things from the Governor before and we’re still waiting. Now most of us are taking a “we’ll believe it when we see it” attitude toward such announcements.

We heard him tell us when he was campaigning for Governor that he had various businesses lined up to come to Saipan, all they were waiting for was him to be elected governor. So whatever happened to the shoe factory or the peanut butter factory? Whatever happened to the floating hotel that was going to be located across from Kristo Rai church? Remember, that’s why the Governor refused to give that land for the farmers market, he said he had an investor ready to build there. The Governor claimed to have very close ties to all these major investors and businessmen that would flock to the CNMI if only he were governor. We were also supposed to see the return of the airlines if we elected him as governor, and we’re still waiting on that too. We were told that as soon as he was elected governor, he would do away with the fuel surcharge on our C.U.C. utility bills. But nothing happened for nearly 8 months, and then instead of eliminating it and cutting down on our bills, they increased it even further making our bills skyrocket past anything we’d ever seen before. Now I’m not saying that there shouldn’t have been an increase in our utility rates to cover the costs, I’m just saying that the Governor shouldn’t have promised something while campaigning that he knew he could never deliver on. I even have the Governor on tape telling me that not only would he eliminate the fuel surcharge, but also that he would even further lower the rates. Was he really just that out of touch with reality about the situation at the utility, or was he just saying whatever he thought we wanted to hear to get votes? It erodes his credibility and makes all of us that much more skeptical the next time he tells us something is going to happen. The bottom line here is don’t be promising things you can’t deliver on, or try to encourage us by telling us about developments that may or may not ever happen. So if the big announcement was all these “supposed” new developments, I think you can understand why we might be a bit skeptical, and would have wondered if we missed the announcement all together.

I also didn’t buy his assessment of meeting a balanced budget last year, and even having a small surplus. That was only accomplished because the government stopped making it’s contribution to the retirement fund, and because they suspended the payout of tax rebates and refunds for that year. That would be like me claiming I have managed to put thousands of dollars into savings this year, even though I had to stop making my regular payments to do it. So did I really save money, or am I just fooling myself by putting off other debts? The administration can try spinning it any way they want, but the truth of the matter is they did not meet all their financial obligations last year, they didn’t even come close to it. Yes, I believe the Governor deserves some credit for the cuts that were made, and trying to cut down on the ridiculous government spending, but let’s not fool ourselves, we didn’t live within our means, and we didn’t really achieve a balanced budget, we just put off paying our bills.

One of the things I was hoping would really make a difference was a government wide jobs audit the Governor said they were going to do last year, to determine if some jobs were duplicating functions, and see if government employees were really earning their pay or not. The private sector has been saying for years that this government is hugely bloated, and that government jobs need to be cut. Many of us have also been saying that there are many government employees who are simply horrible in their jobs and don’t even try because they know they have civil service protection.

I found a perfect example of why our government needs a healthy dose of customer service training this past week. I had just moved, and wanted to have power turned off at my former apartment. My wife tried calling C.U.C. to notify them and have them turn off the power, but she was told that I had to come down there and do it in person, since the account was in my name. Ok, I guess that makes some kind of sense, since you don’t want people just calling up C.U.C. and disconnecting someone else’s power, so I went to their office in the Joeten Dan Dan building, expecting I would just have to go sign a form and be done with it. I was greeted at the door with a long line of customers all waiting their turn to talk to a customer service representative, so I went, took a number and then took a seat. For the first 15 minutes it doesn’t really hit you, you’re expecting to be called any minute. Then you hear them call the number, it’s number 13, and you’re number 23, now it starts to sink in. You realize you’ve been there over 15 minutes and they just called their first number, so you start doing the math and you realize you’re in for at least a couple hour wait.

Yes, it’s true that there were 2 or 3 customer service representatives, but they weren’t all there all the time, one of them seemed to disappear for long periods at a time. I’m not talking 5 or 10 minutes, I’m talking 30 minutes to an hour at a time, and this is in the middle of the afternoon. After you’ve been there for an hour, you realize they are taking an average of 30 minutes with each customer. How is that possible? What could they possibly have to talk about that could take up that much time? I believe that many of the customers were there to try and get some kind of payment plan worked out so their power wasn’t shut off. And from my observation, it wasn’t the customers that were taking up all the time by talking, they seemed to be sitting there waiting while the customer service representative took off to parts unknown, only to return 15-30 minutes later.

The one that really got my blood boiling though was a customer service representative who had her customer go get in line at the payment window. She just sat there while he went to make his payment, she didn’t call the next number or wait on anyone else, she just sat there, sitting, waiting, and waiting, and waiting. He finally got through the payment line about 25 minutes later, he came back to her window, showed her his receipt, and then he left. She took his receipt, made a note of it, and let him go. She didn’t seem to have any further business with him other than to see that he indeed made his payment. But rather than start waiting on the next customer, since there were at least 15 people waiting at that point, she just sat there wasting 25 minutes waiting for him to bring back his receipt. She obviously didn’t care that there was a long line of people waiting to be helped; she was going to take her sweet time, and not do another thing until he brought back his receipt. If that lady had worked for me, I would have fired her on the spot. The private sector can’t tolerate that kind of sloppy work ethic and horrible customer service; we wouldn’t have any customers if we did. The government is the only one who can get away with such terrible service, you have to do business with them, they have a monopoly and you don’t have any choice in the matter. The employees know they don’t have to worry about performance evaluations or competition; they are civil service employees and are protected. And the government wonders why we have been pushing so hard for privatization of certain government services. With government employees like that, you’re wasting all of your customers time and money, and you are a huge part of the problem. I have had certain elected officials ask me where I would start to clean up the mess in government and what I would do about it. Since I spent over 4 hours sitting in lines at C.U.C. and the Department of Finance that day, that seems like as good a spot to start as any. If you have employees there that are too slow or don’t care about good customer service, get rid of them, reassign them or do whatever you have to, but put people in there who can move the customers through at a reasonable pace. When was the last time you did an assessment of your customer service and took a look at whether you were meeting your customers needs or not? If you need a place to start, those two are it!

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.

The Virginia Tech murders should shake all of us up, but maybe not for the reasons you're thinking.

2007-06-05T11:52:00.000+10:00

Food For Thought 4-20-07

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.

The entire world is in shock over what happened at Virginia Tech this past week when a psychotic student went on a rampage killing 32 other people on the campus before finally killing himself. The magnitude of what he did and the horror of it leave you in a state of disbelief at first, until you start to see some of the video footage of the body bags and blood. But even when you see it, it seems almost surreal, as if you’re watching a movie, something that can’t possibly be real. After all, you have to ask yourself how someone could be filled with so much hate that he could intentionally kill that many people. But it wasn’t just about hate, and I don’t believe you can just blame it on him being crazy. All evidence would seem to be to the contrary. He went to the campus that day with every intention of killing a lot of people; he went prepared with weapons, extra ammo clips, and chains to secure the doors so people couldn’t escape before he could kill them. That takes careful thought and preparation, not something you just do on a whim.

To me the most alarming part of this is that it seems to happening more and more frequently. After the Columbine killings, we heard all kinds of speeches about making sure that nothing like this could ever happen again, but we knew those were empty words. Unless you take away every gun in the country, which we all know is not possible, there will still be shootings. We have passed laws making it tougher to buy a gun, that’s what the Brady Bill was all about. But to someone who wants a gun to wreak havoc, it’s really not that difficult to get one, even legally. Laws like that one may cut down on spur of the moment violence, the kind that is triggered by emotion, but it won’t do anything to deter these types of crimes. In both the Columbine and Virginia Tech massacres, the killers had planned it out and set out to kill as many as they could. Passing gun control laws, or trying to outlaw them all together won’t work, because criminals will always be able to get guns one way or another. We have very strict gun control laws here in the CNMI, and yet we continue to see armed robberies and have seen several shootings over the years, so obviously outlawing guns isn’t going to stop anything.

50-75 years ago we didn’t see these types of random and senseless violence. Yes, of course there were problems with violence, we had Al Capone, mobsters and the carnage that went along with them, but it was different. They didn’t go into schools or grocery stores just shooting up people because they were mad at the world, their violence was usually directed at rival gangs, it was usually contained to those they had a quarrel with. Yes, there were those who seemed to think they had the right to inflict harm and death on those around them; some of their names were Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin, and they were the reason that we had a world war. We have seen some of the same sort more recently with names like Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden. It has been said that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and I believe we have more than enough examples to give credence to that theory. It seems that once these madmen gained the power, then they could live out all their horrific fantasies and live by their own rules.

But what is going on with the random violence we are seeing in America the last 10-15 years? It’s not like these kids have absolute power so that they can do whatever they feel like, or do they? What has changed, why do they all the sudden feel they don’t have to live by everyone else’s rules? Could it be that they have been desensitized to violence to the point that they think it’s an acceptable way to deal with your anger and frustrations? And if so, how did that happen? If you really don’t know the answer to that question, you’re badly out of touch with what has been passed off as entertainment for the last 30 years. Our movies have gotten bloodier and gorier over the years, and have shown over and over that killing those who stand in your way is an acceptable way of dealing with your problems. If you think I’m overreacting, maybe you should go back and watch the Rambo, Terminator and Matrix movies and see if I’m not right. We have been sending out very dangerous messages in the form of entertainment for years. And we have a whole generation of who has been raised on these messages, and can quote most of the movies back to you line for line. Now that doesn’t mean that everyone who watches those movies will turn out to be a mass murderer, but I do believe it means that those who may not be wired the same as the rest of us may be encouraged to express their anger and frustrations in a very violent manner.

And when you couple that with some of the trash that’s being passed off as music these days, you can see how it could definitely warp a person’s thinking after years of prolonged exposure to it. I don’t know how closely you’ve ever listened to the lyrics of some of the rap music lately, but it’s just plain despicable. If you don’t believe me, tune it in for an hour or so and listen closely to what’s being said, I think you’ll be shocked if you’re not used to listening to it. Women are routinely referred to as Ho’s, and I don’t think there’s any way you can spin that to turn it into something positive. When you listen to that for hours and hours every day, and it tells you over and over that women are only good for one thing, it begins to shape your thinking and your attitudes.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that these mass murders are all the fault of the movie and music industry, however, I do believe they are significant contributing factors. I believe it is important what you allow your children to be exposed to when they are very young, those are their formative years, and so much of how they will think and feel about things is determined in those early years. Back in the early days of computers I remember a sign I saw that was attached to the computer, it said “Garbage in – Garbage out”. In other words the computer is basically a blank slate, and is only as good as what you put into it. If you put in bad information, or garbage, you can only expect to get garbage back out of the computer, after all, that is what you filled it with. But if you put in good information, you will get good information back out of it. Young children are much like computers in that respect, whatever you fill them with is what you can expect to get back out of them. That is a concept that should scare some parents to death when they think back on all the things they’ve let their kids see and listen to. Many parents don’t seem to think it makes any difference what your kids are exposed to, but I believe that is a naïve and mistaken approach, one that society will ultimately pay for.
I think our justice system has also failed us miserably. We have made it so that the criminals have more rights than the victims, and that’s just wrong. We let criminals loose on technicalities even though we know they are guilty. We slap them on the wrists and put them in counseling fooling ourselves into thinking we have rehabilitated them. I can remember a situation we had here not too many years ago when a rapist was let out of prison for the weekend to go to a rosary. Punishment doesn’t really mean much, and thus it holds no deterrent effect. We have lawyers who have become filthy rich finding technicalities to get murderers and rapists off scott free, letting them go back out to find their next victim. These lawyers and judges then become partners in the criminal’s future crimes, since they made it possible for them to happen. If only we could hold them responsible for their role in it. I realize this view won’t be looked upon favorably by the lawyers and judges among us, but the truth is the truth, and sometimes it hurts when it hits a little too close to home. How many of you have enriched yourselves on money that you know is tainted and dirty? How many of you have had to put your conscience on the shelf so that you can effectively do your jobs? When is the last time you turned down a case because it turned your stomach, even though the client could afford to pay big bucks?

We have a problem as a society, and it’s not going to be getting better the way things are going, it will only get worse. We will see more Columbines and more Virginia Tech’s, and we will continue to ask what went wrong, why didn’t anyone catch them before it was too late. And yet we will keep making movies that glamorize killing and crime, we will keep recording songs that talk about popping a cap on your enemies and sexy Ho’s, and we’ll let our young children listen to it thinking that those attitudes are perfectly fine. And the lawyers aren’t about to give up defending criminals, murderers and rapists, trying everything they can to get them off on technicalities or by confusing juries, there is simply way too much money in it. And after all, it takes a lot of money to maintain the standard of living that many of them have become accustomed to. So they can’t afford to go letting their conscience get in the way of a good case or a big payday, it’s all about the money.

And we will continue to lose brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers and friends to senseless violence that will leave us all puzzled and confused. And yet, it’s really not as puzzling or confusing as we make it out to be, we just really don’t want to find the answers because they might infringe on our personal rights or tastes. After all, we all loved Rocky, he was the underdog who made good, and we’d all like to believe that could be us. We identified with Rocky and wanted to believe it was possible. So then when Rocky turned into Rambo, we all flocked to see him again because he was after all our underdog hero. And he was still in character as an underdog, but now he had to kill people in his role, and he did so with flair, making it look sexy and macho. Fortunately all of us haven’t turned out to be killers, but to those of us who aren’t wired the same, I don’t think it’s a real stretch to see how these things could have had a detrimental impact on them and made them believe that they too could be a hero just like Neo or Rambo.

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.

Is the government playing by the rules when it comes to issuing tax refunds?

2007-06-05T11:51:00.000+10:00

Food For Thought 4-13-07

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’ve got a few different things on my mind this week, and with any luck we’ll be able to cover them all before we run out of time. Since this is the weekend that the tax deadline falls on, I feel it’s a good time to discuss the budding class action lawsuit against the government for not giving tax refunds to taxpayers in a timely manner. The main problem here is that the government, and I’m referring to the CNMI government, requires you to pay your taxes or to file them by April 15th each year, this year it will be the 17th because the 15th falls on a weekend. Now it’s true that they have every right to do that, but the problem comes in when it comes to the other deadline, the deadline for the government to pay back tax refunds to taxpayers who overpaid their taxes the year before. It’s surprising how many people I talked to who should have known this information, but none of them had any clue.

The first thing I found out was that the Commonwealth Code does deal with the situation. 4 CMC 1809 states that “If it shall be shown, upon application of an employee, that there has been withheld from wages or salaries any tax not due, or more than the amount of tax due thereon, or that the employee has paid from his wages and salaries any tax not due or more than the amount of tax, or if it is shown upon application of the business that it has paid an amount not due as tax under this division or greater than the tax levied under this division, then the director shall refund the amount found to have been overpaid or otherwise not due and shall pay such refund out of current collections of the tax. Prior to granting any refund, the director shall determine within 90 days after an application for refund has been submitted that:
(1) The amount so overpaid or otherwise not due has been paid to the Commonwealth.
(2) The amount of refund claimed has not been used as a credit or deduction against any tax or taxes due and payable to the Commonwealth from such employee; and…
(3) Application for such refund was filed within one year after the end of the calendar year in which the amount to be refunded was withheld or paid.”

Let’s see if we can get rid of some of the legal speak written in the Commonwealth Code and get to the essence of what is being said here. Basically if you have had more taxes withheld than what you owe, then the Director of Finance shall refund the amount that was overpaid. It doesn’t say he may refund the amount, it says he shall, therefore creating a legal obligation of the government to give back the money that you have overpaid. The Code also gives the director 90 days to make sure that the overpayment has actually been made to the Commonwealth, to make sure the amount to be refunded has not been used as a credit or deduction against any other taxes, and to make sure the application for refund was filed within one year after the end of the calendar year the taxes were paid. That all seems pretty straightforward, and it even gives the director of finance some pretty clear-cut time deadlines. He has 90 days from the time of filing of the application to make sure that you are really entitled to the refund, and after that he shall refund the amount that was overpaid, and he shall pay it out of the current collections of the tax. There is no mention made in this part of the Commonwealth Code of a special trust account that is to be maintained for the express purpose of paying back tax refunds. It says specifically that the refunds are to be paid out of the current collections of the tax.

Then tax refunds are again mentioned in the CNMI Regulations 2206-12D. It states that tax refunds are to be paid out as soon as is practical, but no later than 6 months from the due date of the return, or from the date of filing, whichever is later. That means that as long as you filed your taxes by the April 15th deadline, the government has until October 15th, or 6 months later to pay back your tax refund. If you filed your taxes later because of an extension or other circumstances, then the government would have 6 months from the date of your filing to refund the amount of overpayment.

It is my understanding that the government last year passed some kind of regulation allowing them to suspend the payment of the 2005 tax refunds due to their financially cash strapped position. I have determined that this wasn’t through a law that went through the legislature, but I really haven’t been able to get a straight answer out of anybody else as to just how this was accomplished. However, it is my understanding that this suspension only applied to tax refunds for tax year 2005, therefore the government still owes and is still paying tax refunds for years 2002, 2003 and 2004, and would owe them now for tax year 2006.

So my question would be, and I’m guessing this is also the impetus behind this class action lawsuit, why has the government been allowed to go beyond their 6-month deadline for 2002, 2003 and 2004? After all if you didn’t pay your taxes on time in any of those years the government wouldn’t have been nearly as easy on you as it’s being on itself. At the very least you would have had to pay interest and penalties. I don’t believe the government is paying any interest on their long overdue refunds. That means they’ve taken and used your money, they blown off the deadlines to refund it, and they aren’t giving you anything for it. If you had done that, they would call it criminal and charge you for it. The government is clearly living by a double standard, and not living up to it’s end of the bargain.

The fault is not all on this administration, although I don’t believe they can get off as easy as they are trying to tell you either. What the Babauta administration did was absolutely criminal, and they should be held responsible for it. So why haven’t they been? Why have we seen no prosecutions of any of the officials of that administration for their misdeeds while in office? I’ve been told they are coming, just be patient. But just how patient do we need to be; it’s been nearly a year and a half now and still nothing. That is why we continue to have politicians who lie, cheat and steal, because they know they can get away with it and no one will ever hold them accountable for it. It’s just like our former Secretary of Finance, Fermin Atalig, who misused his government credit card to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars, and then he defaulted on his repayment agreement. And Governor Babauta punished him by appointing him to be Secretary of Finance in his administration. During the time that Fermin was the Secretary of Finance, his debt to the Commonwealth only grew, because his payments weren’t even enough to cover the interest payments. The point here is our government doesn’t really seem to care if our government officials abuse their positions and steal from all of us, in fact in many cases they seem to be rewarded for it, as Fermin was. And at best, they are usually only required to do some kind of a token repayment plan that never even comes close to paying off the actual debt.

If this administration were really as serious about cleaning things up as it claims, we would be seeing prosecutions and serious attempts to collect amounts owed to the government But so far, I’m not seeing it from this administration, I’m only hearing lip service and watching them blame everybody else. Let’s keep in mind that Ben Fitial is no newcomer to politics, he can’t say he wasn’t involved in what happened before because he has been in the legislature for many years, nearly all of them as Speaker of the House.

I have heard this administration blame the previous administration for raiding the trust account that is supposed to be used to pay tax refunds. But according to the Commonwealth Code we mentioned earlier, which is currently on the books by the way, the Director of Finance is to pay refunds out of current tax collections, not out of some special account. And because of that wording, it completely takes away the excuse that the account was empty when you took office, since you’re supposed to be paying the refunds as you go out of the current tax collections.

I think this class action lawsuit that is being formed against the government has a very good chance of succeeding, as the governments position seems to be extremely weak. I’ll be attempting to get the attorneys behind it on the talk show in the coming weeks to explain what is going on with it, and who is eligible to sign up for it.

And in light of what is going on with tax refunds being issued by the government, a word to the wise. If you are supposed to be getting a big refund this year because you have paid too much in to the government, you will be waiting for it for years and years, if you ever see it at all. So with that in mind, you need to change the withholding on your W-4 form with your employer. You need to start claiming more exemptions so that they don’t hold so much money out of your check. The key is to get it as close to having a zero refund as possible. It might be better to have to pay a little bit in when you file your taxes then have to wait for a big refund that may never come. Otherwise you are just letting the government use your money for free, and if and when they ever get around to paying it back, it certainly won’t be with any interest. But if you don’t mind letting the government use your money, never knowing if or when you’ll get it back, then carry on my wayward friend.

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.

Fact finding trips or dog & pony shows?

2007-06-05T11:50:00.000+10:00

Food For Thought 4-6-07

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’m getting a very bad feeling in the pit of my stomach about the recent visits we’ve received from U.S. Congressional staffers. First it was Allen Stayman and Josh Johnson, two senate staffers sent out here on a “fact finding” trip. Some of those who have known Mr. Stayman for years said that they felt he really understood our situation this time and was looking at us with a different outlook. From his answers to some of my questions, I was less than convinced. It seemed to me that he came out with a definite agenda and wasn’t really willing to budge too far from it. His reasons for the actions being considered were vague and there really wasn’t any substance to them. He went so far as to say he was one of our biggest supporters and that nobody would care about our concerns as much as he would. There were even a few people out here who believed him, I was not one of them.

Then on Thursday of this past week, some U.S. Congressional staffers paid us a visit. Again it was supposed to be an information-gathering trip to help them in drafting bills that will be dealing with the implementation of federal control of our immigration and minimum wage. The one thing I do have to give credit to Mr. Stayman and Johnson for is that they actually spent enough time out here to hear from many different segments of the community. They allotted enough time that they could actually sit and listen to the various groups and gather their thoughts and concerns. This last bunch came in Thursday morning and left the same afternoon. I understand they met with the Governor in the morning, had lunch with the legislators, and then they met with the Chamber of Commerce board and some HANMI members after lunch. But because they spent too much time with the legislators, they had less than a half hour to give to the private sector leaders. And let’s be honest, how much can you honestly hope to accomplish in a half hour? By the time they were done shaking hands and introducing themselves a good chunk of our time was already gone. By all appearances this was a staged trip to make it look like some members of the U.S. Congress were trying to justify what they are about to do by having some of their staffers come out here on a “fact finding” trip. They weren’t here long enough to find anything out. And if you listened to what they had to say, they were just spouting the same old lines that we heard from Stayman and Johnson, almost verbatim. Their trip here was not to honor us, but to humor us. If you truly care about the impact your proposed legislation may have on a territory or a Commonwealth, you spend enough time there to truly find out what all the impacts might be. When you zip in and out in less than half a day, you are sending a very strong message that you really don’t care what the impacts are, you’re just trying to cover your backside by putting on a dog and pony show. All indications are that the powers that be in Washington have already made up their minds about what they intend to do, and all of these visits are nothing more than a formality really.

Some of our politicians may realize just how serious the situation is for businesses here right now. But I have a feeling they are probably outnumbered by the politicians who are only looking for a bail out from Uncle Sam. They would gladly sell out our right to control our own immigration and minimum wage in exchange for a big cash handout from the U.S. government every year. The main problem with that scenario is that it takes away the major tools that businesses have to remain profitable and stay in business, and would in effect turn us into a welfare state.

Yes it’s probably true that there have been some businesses that have charged far more than they needed to in the past and have gouged their clients and customers. But we need to keep in mind that most business owners are in business for one reason, and that is to make money. If they didn’t care about profit margins and making money, they would most likely be working with a non-profit organization. If businesses can no longer make what they consider to be a reasonable profit, they will relocate to somewhere else that they can. If we lose control of our immigration and are no longer allowed to bring in Chinese and Russian tourists, the effects will be felt through almost every segment of the business community. The hotels will have less guests, meaning that they won’t need as many staff, and may have to cut wages or hours of the staff they can keep. Restaurants will have fewer customers, meaning that some of them will probably have to close, and others may have to raise prices and cut back on staff as well. Tour operators won’t need as many staff, and will have to cut back. This also means the hotels and restaurants will have less money to spend on things like advertising. So the newspapers, and radio stations will also be taking further cuts. Which by the way, we’ve already seen some very drastic cuts, and can only imagine how much worse it will be if we lose more tourists. Because of what has been happening here economically, we are also cutting back on our staff, we have cut 2 positions in the last couple of months, and that is just to try to survive.

The trickle down effect is hitting us all very hard right now, but as bad as it is, it could be much worse. The main problem is that is directly where we are heading according to the various political staffers we have had visiting us lately. On the one hand they will say something like they understand our situation and really don’t want to do anything that will adversely affect our economy. But then the next minute they will give some line about how much money the U.S. government is pumping into Guam with the military build up, and how homeland security is such a concern, and that outweighs any adverse effect taking over our immigration may have on our economy. If you listen to them carefully, you will walk away with a severe headache, and will swear their tongues begin to look like they’re forked after a while.

So what will these islands be like if we continue losing businesses the way we have for the past 5 years? Take a look back to what the islands were like 30 years ago that will give you a pretty good idea of where we could be heading. The main problem with a welfare state is that you are totally dependent on handouts from someone else; you have lost the ability to generate your own wealth and to create business opportunities. You take how much they decide to give you and when they decide to give it to you. You really have no bargaining chips left, you have been reduced to beggar status, and begging becomes your way of life to survive. Yes there will be a few businesses left, after all someone will always be willing to take the money you have been given for basic commodities. But the problem with the lack of competition is that they can also hold you hostage and charge whatever they feel like. You can either pay it or go without. And yes, there were those who got rich in the old days because they happened to be in the right place at the right time, and yes, they did charge whatever they felt like.

I realize that I’m painting a pretty gloomy picture of where we could easily be heading, but all the indications are that’s a definite possibility. I hope our politicians are wise enough to realize we need to have a sustainable economy here, and that living on handouts is really no way to live. Something tells me there will be great temptation to sell us all out for a quick fix or a cash infusion, but that would only kill us in the long run. As bad as things are right now, they are continuing to get worse as we lose more and more of the garment factories. James Lin, who at one time had the second largest garment factory on island, has now announced that he will also be closing his factory in the next couple of months. I told you a while ago that unless there was some kind of major concession for the factories, like an amendment to Headnote 3a, that we would lose all the factories by the middle of 2008 at the very latest. It looks like that may have been a generous estimate and they may all be gone by the end of this year. With the absence of all the garment factories tax contributions to the government coffers, there will be more temptation than ever for the politicians to sell us out for a quick bail out.

Right now the people really need to hear from their leaders about what is going on, and to hear that our leaders are on top of things. I realize they don’t have all the answers, but they need to at least tell us what they are thinking and what their plans are. Otherwise people have no reason to have any hope or confidence that things will ever change or get any better. Again, my microphone on Island Issues is always open to the Governor, and I’m hoping that he will again soon see fit to come in and discuss the issues of the day and to let you know what is going on. If we have ever needed strong leadership, it is right now.

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.

Are we doing enough to make sure some of our most scenic spots are safe for tourists and residents alike?

2007-06-05T11:48:00.000+10:00

Food For Thought 3-30-07

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.

Saipan is once again grieving, this time over the loss of the 4 students who drowned at Forbidden Island last week. The pain from such a tragedy is almost indescribable for the families, the friends and the fellow classmates. After the initial shock wears off, then people begin asking questions about how something like this could happen, and what could have and should have been done to prevent the senseless loss of life.

I have talked about this situation with my family and many friends. One of the recurrent themes I have heard is that Forbidden Island is just too dangerous and we have lost too many people there over the years, so maybe it is time to stop all access and indeed make it a Forbidden Island. Yes, it is true that Forbidden Island can be a very dangerous place to visit; the currents there can be extremely swift and dangerous, sucking you out to sea before you know what happened. Walking on the shelf rock where the waves wash up is also extremely risky, because you just never know when a rogue wave will wash up and sweep you off your feet and suck you out into the ocean. There are also many sharp rocks and steep areas that you could easily fall and either break bones or die from the impact.

But are those inherent risks enough to determine that no one else should ever be allowed to hike down to this beautiful natural wonder? Is it enough to say that because we have lost a certain amount of people down there that we should now make it off limits and never allow anyone to relax in the cool cave pool at the bottom, or allow them to cross over and climb to the top of Forbidden Island and enjoy one of the spots that offers the most solitude on Saipan? Should we also stop people from going to the Forbidden Island lookout? After all, it is a very steep cliff that falls several hundred feet straight down, and people have been known to climb over the fence and go out on the rocks on the very edge of the cliff to have a better view of the shallow waters below. You can often see turtles down playing in the surf if you look closely. But it could be very dangerous if you lose your footing or aren’t paying attention.

If we are to seriously consider closing access to Forbidden Island because of the safety factor, then where do we stop? Should we also stop letting divers go down into the Grotto since we have lost over a dozen people in the last 10 years or so down there? Yes, the Grotto can also be a dangerous place, especially if you’re down there without someone who is very familiar with it and can help you safely navigate the hazards. We have lost several divers who went outside the Grotto into the open ocean and couldn’t find their way back in to the Grotto. The holes look very different on the outside than they do when you’re exiting the Grotto through them, and it’s easy to get turned around and confused. Yes, the simple answer would seem to be to require all divers to go with experienced divers so that you minimize the risks. But many of the divers we have lost at the Grotto were with experienced dive guides, so that’s not always a guarantee either.

Should we also stop letting fishermen take their boats out into the open ocean, since we have lost many fishermen over the years in tragic boating accidents. We all know that the ocean has very dangerous waves and strong currents, and boat motors have a bad habit of breaking down. So should we stop the fishermen from going out for their own good and safety?

Should we also make Suicide and Bonzai cliff off limits, since they are both areas that have a very high cliff line, and if you fall off either one, it will most likely be a fatal mistake?

Maybe we should also forbid people from walking next to a road, or from walking to cross a road, since there have also been many deaths from that over the years.

I think you can see that most of these examples are ridiculous, and we would never, ever consider limiting access because of the risks or because there have been deaths associated with them in the past. And I’m certainly not trying to be insensitive during this time of grieving for the families and friends of the students who were lost. But I believe we need to take a look at the situation reasonably, and see if there are any lessons that need to be learned from it, and if there is anything we could, or should be doing to try to avoid a tragedy such as this in the future.

For many years I told everyone that would sit still long enough that there weren’t adequate warnings posted at the Grotto. I saw people going down there every week who didn’t realize how dangerous the waves could be in the washing machine, and how easily they could sweep you into the rocks. And over the years I have pulled more than my fair share of them out, usually bloody and scared to death. Only after years of talking and pestering people about it, and many, many deaths, was a sign finally erected at the top of the Grotto trying to warn of the dangers in different languages. Sadly, most people seem to think the sign misses the mark, and doesn’t properly communicate where the dangers are or tell how to avoid them. And many people fought having a sign installed at the bottom of the Grotto warning that you shouldn’t go beyond that point unless you were with an experienced guide. They have claimed it would ruin the natural beauty of the Grotto and it wouldn’t be nearly as photogenic. There are also those that have fought having a bridge installed at the bottom of the Grotto crossing over to the rock for many of the same reasons.

Some people would say that if you start putting up signs warning of danger, then you’d have to put them everywhere as well, and they would become an eyesore, and require regular upkeep. I would argue that some places the danger is obvious and common sense is all that is required to avoid danger. I would put Suicide and Bonzai cliff in that category, as well as fishermen going out onto the open ocean and people walking across roads. We should all be very familiar with the dangers these areas pose and behave accordingly. Warning signs there would seem to be somewhat unnecessary and excessive.

But I believe that because some of the dangers at Grotto and Forbidden Island are not so obvious unless you’re very familiar with the area, and because of the fairly high numbers of lost lives there over the years, that warning signs in the different languages would be a very good idea. Placement of the signs is very important, they need to be in areas that you will have to see them before getting to the danger spots. The wording and pictures or diagrams also need to be very clear and easily understandable. I don’t believe we have done all we could have in the past to take care of our tourists and residents, and that is a mistake I believe we should rectify as soon as possible. I know there have been turf wars in the past over such issues, the different agencies arguing over whose responsibility it was, and who got to determine what would be said on the sign. Frankly, we can no longer afford to waste time over these kinds of petty arguments, we are needlessly losing lives all because we haven’t done a good job of warning of the dangers present in these areas.

I also came across a situation last weekend that I was quite shocked to see. There was a Japanese dive guide feeding sharks inside the Grotto and putting on quite the show for a couple of his tourist divers. He had a black bag, which contained what looked like raw meat with plenty of blood. He was wearing a chain mail glove to protect his hand as he fed the sharks. He would pull a piece of meat out of the bag and hold it for the sharks to come and grab. Then when the sharks would bite the meat, he wouldn’t let go, but would grab the shark and wrestle with him for a few moments before finally releasing him. I was doing my decompression stop on the rope when I noticed the sharks in the Grotto were behaving very aggressively. They were swimming around the Grotto much faster than usual, and were going right up to the divers, evidently looking to see if any of them were going to feed them as well. I also noticed 2 very large barracuda swimming around inside the Grotto, and this is the first time I can recall them being inside the Grotto. Several divers appeared to be a bit spooked at having sharks flying all around them inside the Grotto, and of course the swimmers who were almost directly above the shark feeding frenzy had no clue what was happening below them. And all of this was taking place only about 50 feet from the safety stop rope inside the Grotto.

Other locations that have shark feeding dives typically have them several miles out in the open ocean, so that you minimize the risk of the sharks becoming desensitized in an area where you have regular swimmers who are unaware of the situation. But this dive guide evidently thought that would be too much hassle, and he decided to take advantage of the fact that the Grotto does have several resident white tip reef sharks these days, and decided to put on his little show right there, with swimmers and other divers who had no clue what was going on. This is exceedingly dangerous and foolish, and will eventually wind up in some kind of an accident as a result. Fortunately the local authorities don’t seem anymore impressed with the whole situation than I was, and vow to stop it.

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.

Are C.U.C.'s deposit requirements realistic and legal?

2007-06-05T11:47:00.000+10:00

Food For Thought 3-23-07

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.

Commonwealth Utilities Corporation seems to be creating quite a stir with their new deposit requirement. I have had several people contact me now about what they view as the outrageous demands placed upon customers who have been disconnected. It seems that in addition to a $75 reconnect fee, they are now also requiring a 2-month deposit, and they determine that by taking the 2 highest months billing for the previous year and coming up with an average.

Now of course there will be the occasional customer who just forgot to pay their bill on time and that’s why they got disconnected, but I’m guessing that the vast majority of disconnections are because people are having such a hard time paying the new higher electricity rates. Some people seem to think there shouldn’t be any reconnection fee charged because the utility doesn’t have to do very much to reconnect them. But you need to realize that every time there is a disconnection it starts a whole process requiring new paperwork and computer entries. That means someone is going to have to spend time working on your case instead of working on something else. And in order to be reconnected someone will have to make a trip back out to your house to reconnect your power. That means more man-hours and gas for the vehicle. Now the real question is whether $75 is a fair charge for the costs the utility is actually incurring, or are they gouging you just because they can?

Obviously the utility company would rather not have to deal with disconnections as it means more work for them, but if they don’t do something, there are those who will never pay their bills even close to on time, and will see just how much they can get away with. So a disconnection policy is needed, and some kind of charge is warranted since it makes extra work for the utility company. But is C.U.C. taking advantage of the situation and charging burdensome amounts that can’t be substantiated, that’s the real question here.

And then there is the question of why they have started requiring a 2-month security deposit? It is my understanding that they are also requiring any customer who signs up for electricity in a new location to also pay a 2-month deposit that is the average of the 2 highest months of use for the previous year by the previous tenant. So now the costs of moving have escalated as well as C.U.C. is requiring a 2 month security deposit. But I have a couple questions about this; does C.U.C. actually let you accumulate 2 months of unpaid bills before disconnecting you? Because if they disconnect you before you are 2 months delinquent, then it would seem that this new deposit is unreasonable and unjustified. If you are given a full two months before being disconnected, then it makes sense, as this way they are only covering their liabilities. But if not, then this comes across as being punitive and one has to wonder why they are charging so much for the deposit and what they are doing with the money collected.

Legally, the utility is supposed to keep all the money collected for deposits in a separate account, so they have the money on hand to immediately refund to anyone who is leaving and stopping their service. The money collected for deposits is not supposed to be used to fund general operations, or to pay for fuel or maintenance. It is supposed to be kept in reserve, because technically it doesn’t belong to C.U.C., it belongs to the customers that have paid it. C.U.C. is only holding it for the customers, and the money is only supposed to be used if and when the customer defaults on their bill, then C.U.C. is supposed to apply the deposit to the amount not paid and refund any balance to the customer. But because of the fact that C.U.C. has not been keeping the deposits in a separate account, one has to question whether the utility is using this new deposit requirement as a way to raise some fast cash? This is one area that I believe the utility could be getting themselves into some legal trouble, if they are charging more than can be substantiated for deposits and reconnection fees, and then they are not setting that money aside as they are supposed to do. And I have also been told that people have moved over a month ago, and are still waiting for the return of their deposit from C.U.C. You can’t have it both ways C.U.C., if you’re going to be putting burdensome requirements on your customers that cause hardships, then you have to be responsible enough to refund the deposits immediately and give the customers back their own money. You are taking advantage of your position as the islands only power supplier, and seem to be making your own rules as you go along. Not only are your new policies not very customer friendly, but they are extremely un-business like, and business unfriendly as well.

It is for reasons such as these that people have been saying it’s time to completely privatize everything about C.U.C. They are tired of the utility taking advantage of their position and not having any accountability. Yes, there is currently a Request For Proposal for private companies to bid on taking over the power company, but there are some serious questions as to just how legitimate the whole process is. Is it really transparent, or does it favor certain companies who have an inside track with the current administration? I have a bad feeling that at the end of this current process, we will be once again shaking our heads wondering how they managed to completely mess it up once again, in spite of the fact that they have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in consultant’s fees.

I think it happens to be good timing that Saturday, March 24th is Covenant Day, and that Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior, David Cohen is on island to talk with various community groups, and to have 902 talks with our government representatives about the immigration status issue. After all, it is our Covenant with the U.S. that gave us control over our own immigration, which is now something being hotly debated both here and in the U.S. Congress and Senate. I was relieved to see that the U.S. Senate has requested the Department of the Interior to draft the legislation that will extend U.S. control over our immigration, but taking our special needs and circumstances into consideration. I believe that we are in the best possible hands if David Cohen is given the task of coming up with that legislation. He not only seems to completely understand our unique and challenging circumstances, but he seems to genuinely want what is best for the CNMI as well.

Since that seems to be the bulk of what’s on my mind today, and since this is a holiday I’m actually supposed to be getting off as well, I guess I’ll wrap things up and go for a dive to celebrate Covenant Day! Happy Covenant Day everybody!

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.

Thinking outside of the box and seizing the opportunities in front of you.

2007-06-05T11:46:00.000+10:00

Food For Thought 3-16-07

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.

As many of you know, I’m a bit of a stickler for accountability of our elected officials. After all, I believe if they are supposed to be representing us and we are paying them to do it, then they need to tell us what they are doing with the money we give them and how they spend their time. Let’s strip away all the pretense and the titles here and take a sensible look at the situation. They are our employees, plain and simple. We have elected them, and hired them to represent us. Therefore they are answerable to each and every one of us. If you have a question as to how they spend their time, or what they did on their last trip they took on official business, then they owe you an explanation. After all, it’s your money that’s paying their salary, and it was your votes that put them in office. If they now think they don’t have to answer to anyone because they are a mighty congressman or senator, they are sadly mistaken, and will most likely lose their job in the upcoming election as a result. Yet if you’ve ever tried contacting one of them or finding them in their office, you might realize they’re not very easy to get in touch with at all.

I understand that a certain congressman was speaking to Sam McPhetres current issues class recently, and told them that he was disappointed in many of his colleagues and that the students should actually follow some of the congressmen around all day to see just what they really did. Well, I guess some of the students took him up on his challenge and tried putting in phone calls to some of the various congressmen, and went to the legislature parking lot to see just what time the congressmen actually showed up for work, and how much time they put in on the job. I understand that their findings are very interesting, and I’d love to have them come on Island Issues and tell us what they discovered about some of the politicians. And if you’re a congressman who didn’t bother returning some phone calls that were placed to your office, you might want to start worrying whether you were the target of these investigations or not.

I’ve always said that an informed educated vote is the best vote, and I am making my microphone available to these students to come in and share the results of their little experiment. Something tells me that there are going to be a bunch of politicians out of work after this coming election. So any rate, be listening for those interviews, hopefully coming soon to Island Issues.

The next thing I want to talk about today is thinking outside the box and looking at things differently. I had the opportunity to be one of the judges for the Saipan Community School Science Fair earlier this week. Some of the projects were the typical ones you think of when you think of a school science fair, moldy bread, homemade fire extinguishers and volcanos. But then there were some that you could tell put some real thought into their projects, and the projects were the result of an inquisitive and curious mind. For example one girl noticed that she couldn’t taste food when she was sick and her nose was plugged. So she started wondering how much of our ability to taste is connected to sight and smell. And she decided to take away sight and smell and see if people could tell the difference between different flavors of Skittles. Do you think you could? You might be surprised at the results. But the thing that impressed me the most about this student was that this project was the result of her own inquisitiveness and creativity. She didn’t just go looking for a science experiment online or in some science book. She took her own experiences and used them as the basis for her project.

Another project that impressed me was a steam-powered boat. The student wanted to find out how much energy can be produced by something like a simple candle. So he built the boat and he built a heating chamber which when heated by the candle produced steam which traveled down and out the tubes that protruded out the end of the boat, providing the power to push the boat around in a basin full of water. There were a couple things that really impressed me about this student. The first time he tried the experiment it wasn’t successful, the glue melted, the boat sank and a few other problems surfaced. But rather than call the experiment a failure, he was determined to figure out what he did wrong and improve on his design so it would work the next time. And with a few modifications, the experiment worked and the steam engine did indeed power the boat. In his conclusion about his report, he talked about the importance of investigating alternative energy sources and how important things like this would be for the future. This boy got it. He understood that science really does connect to real life, and that there is a real importance in understanding science and how it can improve our lives. And by the way, did I mention that these were 5th grade students?

It’s that kind of thinking we need more of. We need people who see opportunities instead of obstacles, and who are willing to take the road less traveled. There are unique opportunities all around us, but do you have your eyes open? Are you paying attention, or are you too focused on your own misery and circumstances? I was speaking to some students at Kagman High School Thursday morning about the Chamber of Commerce scholarships and one of the students asked me what Food For Thought was going to be about this week. I told him I really had no clue that I was still looking for a topic. Then later that evening I was judging the Saipan Community School Science Fair and there was my topic right in front of me. Again, the topic wasn’t all written out for me and wasn’t blatantly obvious, but it was there just the same, it just took some time to think about it and pull it together. Many of the opportunities around us are the same way, they don’t have flashing neon signs on them saying “Opportunity Knocking”. You need to take some time to study them, to think them over, and to realize the potential that is there. Many people don’t exercise their brains enough, and have dulled their senses to the point that they wouldn’t recognize an opportunity if it came up and bit them in the butt.

Another shining example of recognizing opportunities that are all around us is Mike Tripp. Mike was out here working as a pharmacist to support his diving habit. I have a radio gig to support mine. Mike had his camera in tow on nearly all of his dives, and was taking some pretty amazing video footage. He finally got the idea to put it all together, and make a DVD of the dives available on Saipan. His concept was great, and to my knowledge hadn’t been done yet. Why not? Was Mike the first person who ever went diving here with a video camera? Hardly, but Mike was the one who took the initiative to do something with his video footage and then package it and market it. You can now find The Underwater World of Saipan for sale in many stores around the island. It’s good for Mike, since he has found a way to make some money off his passion and hobby, instead of just having to earn money to fund his passion and his hobby. And it’s good for Saipan, because now we have a very valuable marketing tool for Saipan as a dive destination. Who knows where these DVD’s will wind up and how many new divers they may wind up attracting to dive here. Mike saw an opportunity and seized on it. He might not wind up getting rich off his idea, but then again he might, you just never know. The one thing for sure is he would never know if he didn’t try. And since he is diving and taking video anyway, why not use it for something productive and see if you can’t make some money from it. It’s called an untapped opportunity that was sitting right in front of Mike, and all the rest of us that dive as well.

I had gotten a digital camera and underwater housing shortly before I met Mike and saw his DVD, and had started playing with it underwater myself. I started showing some people some of the pictures I had been taking, and they commented that they looked like professional shots. I take my share of bad pictures too, but I do have some that have turned out pretty well. So was this an opportunity for me as well? Well, I’m diving every weekend anyway, and I always have my camera with me now, and it doesn’t cost me anything to develop the digital pictures, so why not give it a shot? For the fairly reasonable cost of $150 a year I signed up for a website that gives you unlimited storage for all your pictures and video and it even let’s you set your own pricing for them and market them. So for a very minimal investment, I am using something I already had anyway, and seeing if I can make any money with it or not. If I never tried, I would guarantee that I wouldn’t be wasting that $150, but then again I wouldn’t have the opportunity to market my own pictures and turn it into a business of my own. If you’d like to see some of my pictures and what I’m talking about, you’re welcome to take a look at my website, it’s www.saipandiver.smugmug.com.

Most opportunities are going to have a certain amount of time and money required to take advantage of them. But like the old saying goes, nothing ventured – nothing gained! Are there opportunities right in front of your face? Do you have an idea for something in the back of your mind? Are you ready to take a chance and see what happens? You might want to start off small, but be ready, because small ideas have this habit of turning into big opportunities.

Yes, things are very tough here economically right now, and many people are having a very difficult time making ends meet. But that may be just what you need to push you to try something you never would have tried before. If you’re afraid to take the plunge yourself, then talk to someone else who has already done it, they will probably be more than happy to share their experiences with you and steer you in the right direction. Good luck, keep your eyes open, and don’t be afraid of opportunity when it comes knocking.

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.

Yes, I am in favor of a minimum wage increase, but with conditions.

2007-06-05T11:44:00.000+10:00

Food For Thought 3-9-07

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.

After a couple e-mail exchanges with a gentleman earlier this week, I guess that once again I need to state my personal stand, and what I believe is the Chamber of Commerce’s stand on the minimum wage issue once again. It seems that some people don’t get it, aren’t really paying attention, or just choose to ignore the facts and slander people and organizations because it happens to suit their own purposes. I have seen letters or comments from several people now blaming the Chamber of Commerce because there hasn’t been a minimum wage increase in so long here in the Commonwealth. The problem is that in some of these cases, most of what the people have to say is on the mark and is true, but then they go dragging the Chamber of Commerce into their accusations and bad mouthing them just because they think it will make their message more popular. And this gentleman who wrote me said that I have always been against a minimum wage increase and that I am in bed with the fat cats and that I sicken him and should be ashamed of myself. He made it all sound quite dramatic in his e-mail, the problem was he wasn’t stating facts or acknowledging what I have always said about the topic. So because of him, and others who believe that ignorance is bliss, I will once again state my position on the issue for the record.

I am now, and always have been in favor of raising the minimum wage, and totally revamping the entire system. We have an outdated and ineffective minimum wage system here that actually favors contract workers over local hires. Our contract workers get full medical coverage with no deductions or co-pays, everything is 100% paid for. They are also given free housing or a housing allowance, free meals or a meal allowance and free transportation. Our local workers, U.S. citizens get the same pay as the contract workers in most cases, $3.05 at the bottom of the rung but yet with none of the benefits that the contract worker right next to them gets.

This is a discriminatory system that favors non-residents over residents. We have our politicians to thank for that, and that they haven’t been able to fix it in all these years at least giving our local workers as much as the non-residents are getting is a complete travesty. Our politicians simply haven’t had the will to take care of their own people, and yet we have continually voted them back into office. Why, I simply can’t figure out. They have failed all of us miserably, and have catered to the contract workers who can’t even vote for them. Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense at all really. And frankly this setup doesn’t really do much for the businesses either, as taking care of 100% of all medical bills whether work related or not can be very expensive. And the cost of pregnancies and deliveries for contract workers babies has had a huge impact on the profit and loss statements of many island companies.

It is my personal opinion that the minimum wage should come up to somewhere around $5 an hour right now and that all the burdensome benefits given to contract workers should be pulled off. Make it an even playing field and let local residents and contract workers all fight for the same wages and benefit packages. Yes, there are those businesses out there that have continued to pay local workers just slightly above the minimum wage while paying all those extra benefits to contract workers, and frankly I am, and have always been, appalled by them. That is deplorable that they would take advantage of local workers that way, even though our ridiculous laws allowed it. Have I made myself perfectly clear? I think our minimum wage is a travesty, and that we have not fixed this discriminatory system is horrible, but it is an indictment on the politicians, not on the Chamber or the business community. They are the ones responsible for passing the laws and fixing this problem, and so far they haven’t done it.

I do not speak officially for the Chamber, but yes I have been on the board of directors for the past 2 years, and therefore have a pretty good idea of what their mindset is on the issue as well. In all the meetings I have attended, I have never once heard anyone say they are opposed to a minimum wage increase. I have heard that they would like a Wage Review board put in place to make sure that the increases are something that can be handled and not drive them out of business. I have also heard them say that as the minimum wage goes up, the benefits afforded to contract workers must be pulled back or eliminated all together. They have given their position to the government and the politicians for years, and yet the politicians still have not moved on the issue.

Is the garment industry opposed to a hike in the minimum wage? Yes I believe they are. Have they lobbied to keep it low? I can’t say for sure, but I would be surprised if they hadn’t, since they claim if it goes up it will be the complete death of their industry. They have their point of view much the same as any other business, but that doesn’t mean you can go lumping all businesses and the garment industry into the same group and making broad sweeping accusations against all of them equally. I do believe there are quite a few businesses out there that want to see some way to keep what remains of the garment industry here for as long as we can though, since they realize how much the industry contributes to the governments tax base, and in spin off business. That is why many in the business sector have advocated for a tiered minimum wage system much like that currently employed in American Samoa. That would allow us to hang onto the garment industry for a while longer possibly while still raising the wage for local workers in all other segments of the business community.

There are several problems with making blanket statements and accusations, especially when they’re not true. First off, you lose credibility with anyone who happens to actually know the truth about the situation, since they realize you don’t bother checking your facts first before talking. Therefore if you actually had any valid points, they will most likely be disregarded now as well since you have no credibility. You may attract a few people by making such accusations and statements, but are they really the sort you want to associate with? Other people just as misinformed as you are, and those who don’t let the truth get in the way of a good, juicy accusation. And you need to keep in mind that you have completely lost the respect of those you have slandered, which can be a pretty big thing on such a small island.

Because my comments are public and are heard on the radio and posted on the Internet, I do get a fair amount of feedback from them, and it’s not always positive. That’s ok; I really don’t expect everyone to agree with me, differences of opinion are usually good and productive as long as it results in a discussion about the issues and some effort put into the thought process about the issues. I have had many people come up to me telling me that they didn’t necessarily agree with my stand on a particular issue, but that they are glad I talked about because it brought the issue out for discussion. That’s what it’s all about, trying to get the people to take ownership of the issues and make them put some thought into what is happening and why it is happening. I’m a big boy, I can handle a difference of opinion, and like I said, I believe it’s healthy. What I have a problem with is when people personalize it and make false accusations. If you want to tell me your opinion, fine, but let’s stick to the facts. And if you’re going to go accusing me of saying something or taking a particular stand on an issue, then at least be competent enough to go through my archives and make sure that what you are saying is true. All my commentaries are posted online at www.chamorro.com and the complete archives are there too. So if you say I have always said something, you might want to check first to see if what you are saying is indeed true. Unlike some of the politicians, I’m not ashamed to stand on my record and let people refer back to it. That is why I keep the archives up there. If I changed my opinion and stand on the issues, then it really wouldn’t be very smart to keep it in public like that as it would be very easy to discredit me. But when you are consistent and your message is always the same, you don’t have to worry about such things.

So let’s say it one more time just for those who are particular dense and may not have picked up on my stand on minimum wage so far. Yes, I am in favor in an increase of the CNMI minimum wage. I’m not sure we can handle a hike to the federal level at this point, especially if they increase it to $7.25 an hour, but I do believe we could handle something in the $5 an hour range, providing that the benefits to contract workers be reduced accordingly. I’ll be very honest here, if the minimum wage goes up that far, it will mean that we will have to cut back on our staff and lay people off. We simply don’t have the profit anymore to absorb that kind of an increase without cutting expenses, and the only expense left to cut is payroll. We are already paying all of our employees at least very close to the federal minimum wage as a starting point, but another $2 increase would be very difficult for us to handle, and we would have to cut accordingly. So be careful what you ask for, because you may not be ready to pay the price for it in the end.

But did you get it - were you listening? One more time just for the record, yes I am in favor of a minimum wage increase. Of course I completely expect another e-mail tomorrow asking why I am so opposed to an increase of the minimum wage and why I continue to side with the fat cats. Such is life in the public eye.

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.

Is the U.S. trying to hold us to a higher standard?

2007-06-05T11:43:00.000+10:00

Food For Thought 3-2-07

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.

It’s been quite the busy week as we just had the visit from Allan Stayman, Josh Johnson and Steve Sander. Allan Stayman is a staffer for Senator Jeff Bingaman who chairs the Senate Energy Committee, which is the committee looking into reviving the U.S. takeover of our immigration system. Josh Johnson is hired by the Republicans and also works for the Senate Energy Committee, and Steve Sander is the legislative liaison for the Interior Department, he works for David Cohen. The 3 of them were out here on a fact-finding mission to see what people had to say about the impending federalization of our immigration system, and I believe to also see if things were really as bad out here as they had been told.

I had the opportunity to meet with them a few different times, and to interview them on my talk show Tuesday morning. I heard what their concerns are, and what they believe are the major concerns by their bosses and members of the Senate. One of the things I kept hearing from them was that we needed to have a consensus from everyone out here as to what our position was regarding immigration and the minimum wage. For them to even believe such a thing is possible makes me question their sincerity and sanity. You have contract workers here who think that since they have worked here for the past 5 years, they should now be entitled to U.S. citizenship. It simply is not realistic to think that you will ever get them on the same page with a politician who realizes that if the contract workers get citizenship and voting rights that they will then become the new voting majority and will replace every single politician we currently have. And by the way, I’m not necessarily saying that’s a bad thing, getting rid of all current politicians I mean. But I’m just saying it’s ridiculous to think that you will ever get everyone who lives here to agree on what the best course of action for the islands is. That is about as realistic as expecting Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. to agree on everything. Or expecting Al Queda to all the sudden agree with President Bush on everything.

I did get the feeling from time to time that they weren’t nearly as interested in hearing what the true impact of such decisions might be as they were in justifying what they had already decided needed to be done. When it was pointed out that the U.S. was considering granting citizenship to all of it’s illegal aliens, and yet they are lumping our contract workers into the same category, they said that such subtle differences are sometimes lost in the U.S. political debate. I had to fight from laughing at him on the air. They are admitting they have done such a terrible job at border control that they now have millions and millions of illegal aliens, and since they can’t figure out what else to do with them or how to round them all up, they are just giving up and giving them all citizenship. That to me sounds like a completely failed system that hasn’t worked in the past, and certainly isn’t working now either. And how is it a subtle difference when one group all entered the country illegally, have not paid taxes and have been a drain on the infrastructure. And the other was brought in legally on contracts, they have all been given everything that was promised to them, and they agreed to the terms of the contract when they first accepted the job. One group is the result of lax border enforcement and illegal entry, and there are so many of them no one knows for sure how many there actually are. The other group we know exactly how many there are, and we know where they are.

For the U.S. politicians to point their fingers at us for allowing too many legal contract workers, when they have allowed millions and millions of illegal aliens to sneak across their borders seems like the epitome of hypocrisy. And let’s be honest, the only reason they are considering giving our contract workers citizenship is because they are now forced to do something about their own illegal alien mess, and this way they can justify it saying they are doing it for the poor contract workers who have given years of their lives for jobs in a U.S. Commonwealth. They are totally ignoring the fact that these contract workers were given everything that was promised to them, and that they chose to come here to work, no one forced them. For those pushing for voting rights and citizenship in groups like Dekada, they may find soon find themselves on the other side of local legislation that will not only limit the amount of time they can stay here on a job, but will force them to return to their place of origin once their contract is up.

One of the issues that the federal government seems to be blatantly ignoring is that not only have our contract workers not been taken advantage of for the most part, but also that they have been given a better deal on the job than most locals. They have been given food allowances, housing, transportation, and had 100% of all their medical bills taken care of. I know of very few locals that have such a generous benefit package. In fact, our politicians have discriminated against our local workers by making them accept the same minimum wage as contract workers, yet without any of the additional benefits included. They will tell you that they have tried to fix this a couple times, but the bottom line is they’ve never done anything that fixed the situation for the local workers.

The cost of all these benefits is not cheap, and now we have David Cohen warning us to be careful of pulling back on the benefits if we all the sudden come under the U.S. minimum wage. Am I missing something here? Does that make any sense in any universe? Why should we have to continue paying all those additional benefits if we all the sudden have to start paying the federal minimum wage? Isn’t that the purpose of paying the federal minimum wage, to balance the playing field? We’re told that if we pull back on those benefits once a minimum wage increase kicks in it “might” be viewed as retaliatory by the U.S. Congress. Why would they think that? Do they really think that we should be held to a higher standard than what they hold themselves? If they honestly believe we should keep paying those benefits in addition to paying the federal minimum wage, I think I can say with authority that it would “definitely” be viewed by all businesses here as discriminatory.

I don’t think you can find many people who would claim that we haven’t made mistakes in the past, and that there aren’t some things that still need to be addressed. With the exception of the garment industry, all business people I know say that an increase in the minimum wage is long overdue and they support it. Most of them would also tell you that over doubling the minimum wage at this point in our economy might not be feasible, so we need some kind of a wage review board, which would periodically study the economy and determine what an acceptable minimum wage really was. Much like what is currently enjoyed by American Samoa.

Once upon a time I believe our Immigration department was nothing more than a hotbed of corruption, and that’s only 10-12 years ago. Back when there was the Ubongen recruiting scam, and he brought in over 190 Bangladeshi’s for security jobs in the U.S. and then just abandoned them here, we had some real problems in our Labor and Immigration departments. But that has been over 10 years ago now, and honestly, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen something like that slip through the cracks at Immigration.

The problem is, and the feds who were just out here will readily admit this, is that many people still view the CNMI the way we were 10-15 years ago with all the problems. That is no longer who we are, we haven’t been that for a very long time, yet someone is going to a lot of time and trouble to make sure that is the only impression of us that gets any press. There is a continuing smear campaign against the CNMI dragging up old charges and stories, and we’re reading about it in Washington newspapers and Ms. Magazine. Why do these publications really care about the CNMI, are we a regular topic for their readers? I believe certain politicians or staffers who have an agenda that includes the takeover of the CNMI’s minimum wage and immigration feed these stories to these publications. It’s the only thing that makes any sense really, especially considering the timing of the stories. They come out right before the issues come up for votes in Congress or the Senate. Somebody is playing dirty politics, and we’re the pawn in their little game. If you are wondering who would stoop to such levels and do such underhanded things, I think there are several names that all come to the forefront, and honestly I don’t have to name them, we all know who they are.

What bothers me is that the U.S. Congress and Senate seem willing to ignore the facts and to try holding us to a different standard than what they even hold themselves to. The fact of the matter is that we are very different from any other U.S. possession or territory. Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands have plenty of American tourists to keep their tourism alive and well. American Samoa is still given control of their minimum wage and immigration so that they don’t lose their tuna industry. Guam has a huge military presence and it’s economy it’s boosted in large part by the military presence and spending. The CNMI has no American tourists; we’re too far away and too expensive to get to, therefore we have to rely on Asian tourists. We don’t have a tuna industry and we’re quickly losing our garment industry. And we have no military presence or spending like Guam has. So since we have none of these other things going for us, the U.S. now wants to take away the only things that allow us to try and help ourselves? God help us because it sure doesn’t seem like Uncle Sam is willing to.

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.

Here's a surprise, our lawmakers still don't get it and are trying to raise taxes instead of cutting expenses.

2007-06-05T11:42:00.000+10:00

Food For Thought 2-23-07

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 guess it’s about that time once again to remind you that there is an election coming up in November, and that has a tendency to bring up all kinds of ridiculous legislation and political shenanigans. Lawmakers have a long history of trying all kinds of things to hang on to their positions and their power. This current crop realizes that most people out there have been far less than impressed with their performance so far, so now they are trying whatever they have to in order to buy some political goodwill, and hopefully get enough votes to keep their jobs.

You’ll recall they were all worried about keeping their jobs back when a 10% pay cut for all government employees was first suggested last year. Enough government employees came out at the public hearings complaining about the pay cut, that the legislators were afraid to do what needed to be done for fear of being voted out of office at the next election. So instead of keeping government services intact and keeping the government operating on a full time basis, they buckled to the pressure of government employees and decided that instead of cutting all government employees salaries by 10%, which would have included theirs, they came up with the Austerity Friday idea. So every other Friday they would shut down all non-essential government services and give the employees a day off without pay. This worked out better for the government employees, since they got extra time off to go along with their pay cut, and it worked out better for the legislators since they didn’t have to take the pay cut, even though they just gave themselves an extra day off every other week. Now if they weren’t going to volunteer to take the pay cut, you would think they would be honorable enough to keep working on the Austerity Fridays, but not this bunch. Now some of the legislators did agree to voluntarily take the 10% pay cut, but they are in the minority, as most of them opted to keep their salary the same, and continue to be a part of the problem rather than be part of the solution. I will be disclosing which legislators did and did not take the 10% pay cut right before the elections, as I feel that is very important information, which you might want to use in deciding who deserves your vote.

The point here is that rather than come up with the best solution to the problem taking everyone’s needs into consideration, the legislators did the thing they thought would buy them the most political goodwill and votes, ignoring the needs of the private sector and the business community. It seems that most of them conveniently forget that taxes are raised and generated from the private sector, and that is what enables government to operate at all. So rather than find out how closing all government offices every other Friday would affect the various businesses, the legislators just blindly pushed ahead, putting their own petty self interests in front of the needs of the business community.

Evidently the message that this was a complete fiasco has been getting back to some of them, so they are coming up with their own methods of how to deal with it. And plus, they are more concerned than ever about what government employees think about them with the election getting closer and closer all the time, so they are trying to give them back some of their pay to keep them happy. The top story in Thursday’s Saipan Tribune said, House OK’s repeal of austerity holiday law. The bill was authored by Representative Manuel Tenorio, although went through several amendments before passing on a vote of 10 to 5. The purpose of the bill was to put an end to government bi-weekly austerity holidays and replace them with unpaid legal holidays, and to reduce tax rebates. This way government employees would start receiving their 80 hours again, and the government wouldn’t be closed every other Friday, but government employees would no longer be paid for legal holidays. The original bill was only to affect legal holidays for the rest of this fiscal year, but an amendment by Representative Joseph Deleon Guerrero extended it to the end of fiscal year 2008.

But what may be more important about this bill is that it is seeking to reduce the tax rebates, which is in reality a tax increase. Now the legislators will probably argue that they are only reducing a current benefit, not adding any new taxes, you say pototo – I say potato. The bottom line is you would wind up paying more in taxes every year, which in effect makes it a tax increase. And that is one of the only things we have left to make us attractive to prospective investors. Do we have another available foot we could collectively shoot ourselves in? As if we don’t already have enough strikes against us in trying to attract investors, we just keep giving them more and more reasons not to come here. Those who voted in favor of this hare brained idea are Representatives Francisco Dela Cruz, Bobby Deleon Guerrero, Joseph Deleon Guerrero, Crispin Ogo, Arnold Palacios, Candido Taman, Ramon Tebuteb, Stanley Torres, Ray Yumul and Manuel Tenorio. Voting against it were House Speaker Oscar Babauta, Vice Speaker Justo Quitugua, Representatives Martin Ada, Cinta Kaipat and Jesus Lizama.

Now it is no secret that the government is experiencing drastic cash shortfalls, but let’s not mince words, we are bankrupt! Our cash outflow is exceeding our cash intake, which means we either have to figure out how to bring more money in, or stop spending so much. You can see the path chosen by some of our lawmakers, they don’t want to have to cut anything, especially their own salaries or budgets, so they come up with a way to take more of your money away from you and make you pay even more to keep this obscenely bloated government afloat. They have obviously not been listening to the people, because you have been pretty clear in saying that you think the government is far too large and needs to be cut down to size. More and more of you have also been saying that you believe the legislature needs to be turned into a part time body and their salaries and budgets slashed accordingly. But that option doesn’t seem to be on any of their desks. Rather than face reality, and realize that our government grew to ridiculous proportions that we can no longer afford, these self serving bureaucrats want to keep the status quo, keep their cushy jobs and generous subsistence allowances, and force you to pay more so they can hold on to their privilege.

We have far too many government employees, and contrary to what the administration may claim, it seems there are still political hiring’s happening and relatives and those owed political favors are still getting jobs. I just heard of two such instances today in fact, one at the Arts Council and another at the Nutritional Assistance Program. I don’t know if everything has been finalized for the hiring’s or not, since it is a government austerity Friday and I can’t get any information from the government, but the fact that these things are continuing to happen is upsetting quite a few people, and rightfully so.

Then I see where another “Johnny come lately” lawmaker has all the sudden come up with a brainstorm to save money, abolish the Municipal Councils. Representative Candido Taman says Municipal Councils have no actual purpose, since their job duplicates the function of the local island delegations. While his arguments and reasoning are sound, there is nothing new about them; I was saying the exact same thing 5 years ago. I brought up the idea of abolishing the Municipal Councils as a way to cut down on unnecessary government expenses way back then, realizing that the only thing they really did was to congratulate various people on their accomplishments and hand out plaques so they could all get their pictures in the paper.

I just find it ironic that some of these lawmakers can sit on their backsides for the past year and not do a single thing, and now all the sudden they are getting all these great ideas. Could it be they are worried that you will hold them accountable and want to see what they have actually done? If they’re not worried about it, they certainly should be. Because I have been watching them all carefully and plan on detailing just what they have done while in office and making it all public right before the elections. I believe that the best vote is an informed vote, and you should have as much information to base your vote on as you possibly can. Honestly I can only find one or two lawmakers who I feel actually deserve our votes in the next election, and that’s very sad, since we have 21 of them coming up for re-election in November. The thing I’m worried about is that we won’t have any good alternatives to vote for; just more of the same old ones we see keep popping up year after year.

Show me a lawmaker who is actually listening to the people, and who is acting accordingly, and that will be a good starting point. However for those who just voted in favor of this new bill to repeal the austerity holidays and reduce the tax rebates, they obviously don’t get it, and haven’t been listening to anyone but themselves. Those are 10 names I can guarantee will never get my vote ever again, and it will be interesting to see who signs on to this bill in the senate. If they really want to do something positive, they will get serious about cutting the size of government drastically and forcing us to start living within our means, not trying to continue funding a sickly bloated dinosaur that is dying. Are you listening lawmakers, because we’re definitely watching and taking notes.

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.

So you don't like me? It's ok!

2007-06-05T11:40:00.000+10:00

Food For Thought 2-16-07

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 find it interesting that I have had a number of people come up to me in the past few months and tell me that my popularity is slipping or that people are saying bad things about me as a result of what I talk about in my commentary. Honestly, that comes as no surprise at all, nor should it. During the Babauta years, many people were thoroughly disgusted with the way the former governor operated the government, but were afraid to publicly speak up about it themselves for fear of retaliation. He was known for being very vindictive and carrying grudges, therefore most people were afraid to voice their opposition or to speak up about their concerns. But because I simply didn’t care whether he liked it or not, and chose to simply talk about the issues as I saw them, a lot of people were behind what I was saying and were very supportive. Nothing wrong with that situation, it simply was what it was.

Ironically, there were also those who had online columns and were very supportive of me and what I was saying as long as I was only talking about Babauta, and pointing out his shortcomings. But the minute that I voiced any concern about their particular candidate they turned on me like a pack of hungry dogs and went on the attack, saying anything they could come up with to try discrediting me and embarrassing me. Fortunately I don’t embarrass very easily. What this pointed out to me though was that popularity, friendship and camaraderie, in some peoples minds was limited to when you only talked negatively about those they considered their enemies. The minute you say anything negative about their candidate they will stop at nothing to discredit you. It has nothing to do with issues in their minds, but is really just about what benefits them and their particular candidate.

When political commentary is driven by loyalty to a certain candidate or party, it becomes nothing more than propaganda, which should be discarded along with last week’s leftovers. It fails to take an objective view of the issues, because everything is tainted with their party or candidates views on the matter. Now there is nothing wrong with people being loyal to a candidate or to a party, but they need to view and label themselves as supporters at that point, and not claim to be unbiased political commentators, for in reality they are spin doctors. That’s what public relations is all about, taking a situation and spinning it as favorably as possible for the candidate or party. Spin-doctors will generally always be very popular with their party or candidates supporters, because they are saying what everyone wants to hear.

Political commentators will some days be in favor with one group of people, but can just as easily be on the outs the next day because of what they had to say about the issues at hand. In other words we can be best friends as long as I am attacking your enemies and not saying anything negative about your candidate or asking any hard questions, but the moment I bring up anything that you view as questionable, then the easiest thing to do is to attack the messenger, and ignore the issues. After all, it’s much easier to call someone names that you don’t agree with, or to make up stories about them to try discrediting them, than it is to deal with the issue at hand, especially if you have no good explanation for your stand on the issue. We saw more examples of that last year than I’d care to recall. And when people choose that method, it not only exposes them for what they really are, but it also takes away credibility from whatever side of the issue they happen to be on.

Now there is a perception that I have changed or gone soft on the Fitial administration. Of course I expect that view is from supporters of former Governor Babauta or by supporters of other candidates who plan on running against Governor Fitial in the next general election. The truth of the matter is, I can’t imagine how Governor Fitial is coping with the mess he was left with. For the record, no, I don’t agree with everything he has done. I feel he has made a few fairly big mistakes in judgment, and I have publicly commented on them every time. For example, appointing his nephew Melvin Faisao as the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Community & Cultural Affairs, reducing the qualifications to serve as the Executive Director of Commonwealth Ports Authority so that Clyde Norita could get the job, and promising the get rid of the fuel surcharge on our power bills as soon as he took office. Governor Fitial is not perfect and has made some mistakes, and will no doubt make some more. However the mess he inherited was unprecedented, and trying to figure out how to cope with it and what the best course of action was is something that no one would have been prepared for. Because of this, I feel we had to give him a certain amount of time to come up with a plan, and see what he would do.

Even though I have taken this approach, I don’t think my comments have been appreciated by the present administration. Before the last election, Ben Fitial was on my Food For Thought e-mail distribution list and would forward on my Food For Thought to literally hundreds, if not thousands of people he knew. That’s because it served his purpose as long as I was attacking Babauta’s policies and pointing out what he was doing. But sometime during this past year, Governor Fitial stopped forwarding my commentary to those on his e-mail list. That’s fine and it’s certainly his prerogative and I don’t take it personally at all, but I have heard from dozens and dozens of people asking me why they don’t receive my commentary anymore. They say they used to get it forwarded to them from Ben Fitial, but haven’t received it in months now. I am always happy to add them on to my e-mail distribution list if they request it, or I refer them to www.chamorro.com where you can find all the archives of my commentaries going back to the very first one. You go to the Community link, and then go to Island Commentaries. I bring this up because I believe it points out the fact that when you deal with issues, and not personalities, you will not be pleasing all the people all the time. In fact, you will most likely have nearly all of the people mad at you at one point or another. That’s what happens when you speak your mind and stick to the issues as opposed to following parties or politicians.

So when I have people come up to me and say they heard so and so saying something about me, or telling me that people aren’t happy about what I’m saying, it really doesn’t bother me. I can pretty much tell you who the people are who aren’t happy by taking a look at the last few topics I have talked about in my commentary. Believe it or not, but this is not a popularity contest, I’m not running for public office or trying to win the title of Miss Teen or Miss CNMI. I’ll be the first to admit I don’t have the legs for it. When you’re in a popularity contest you may want to tell everybody what they want to hear, it’s usually the best way to gain support, which also seems to be the standard operating procedure for our politicians. When you’re in a beauty contest, it doesn’t really seem to matter what you say as long as you’re pretty enough, so we won’t even go there.

The purpose of opinion or editorial columns is supposed to make you think. The writers shouldn’t be as concerned with convincing you that they are right as they should with giving you something that spurs you to think for yourself and come to your own conclusions. Sometimes the facts make it very difficult to come to any other conclusion other than the one presented, but not always. Two people can look at the exact same situation with all the same facts and come to very different conclusions, especially if one will be benefiting from the situation or stands to gain. I have been criticized in the past for asking a lot of questions in my commentaries, and using the questions to make people question just what is really happening. But by asking the questions I feel that it is forcing you to ask yourselves the questions and to come up with your own answers based on the information you have available to you.

If I wanted to be popular, I wouldn’t do a political commentary, that’s the fastest way to make enemies I can think of. It’s also easier to just have all the politicians and politician wannabe’s happy with you, because they are much more likely to spend their money advertising with you before the elections, and you get a lot less death threats that way. That is the easy road, and the most convenient road. But I believe we have more of a responsibility than to just entertain. I think we owe it to ourselves and to you to ask some of the hard questions, and to take a look at the issues we are all facing. If you just want mindless entertainment, and no thought whatsoever, there are radio stations out there that offer that for you. You may never hear anyone talking negatively about anything they had to say about politics or issues, but you’ve probably heard several people complaining that their music or their language is off color and distasteful. My point here is that you’re never going to please all the people all the time, and I’m ok with that. I’m not worried about being popular, being able to run for office, or winning any congeniality contests in any pageants. I think we are all faced with some huge issues at this point in time, and frankly we all need to be thinking about them and discussing them. Whether you agree or not is really not the point, it’s whether you’re aware of the issues, and whether you’re talking about them and thinking about them.

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.

An alarming report from the General Accountancy Office exposes just exactly what happened during the previous administration.

2007-06-05T11:38:00.000+10:00

Food For Thought 2-9-07

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.

We’ve been hearing a lot lately about the imposition of the U.S. minimum wage in the CNMI and the federalization of our Immigration department. It seems there are many people on both sides of the issues, some have very good and well-articulated arguments, and others seem to be just concerned with their own self-interests. One of the things that is very important to keep in mind is that we need to take a look at all the pertinent facts and issues concerning these topics. If we go crying to the U.S. Congress and Senate that we simply can’t afford a wage hike, or that taking away control of our Immigration would have disastrous and long reaching effects without being ready to answer any of the questions or charges they may bring against us, it only makes us look foolish and ill prepared. And to be honest, we do have things we need to answer for, that we shouldn’t try overlooking or avoiding. To follow the example of our previous governor and to keep saying that everything is “pretty darn good” just won’t cut it with anybody anymore.

One of the written submissions to the Senate Energy Committee came from Jeanette Franzel, Director of Financial and Management Assurance for the United States Government Accountability Office. Her report was titled, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Serious Economic, Fiscal and Accountability Challenges. In the report she detailed many of the challenges we are currently facing and talked about what has happened to our economy as a result of the diminishing garment industry and the reductions in tourism. She acknowledged that we are in very bad shape at the moment and that our challenges are huge. But then as any good auditor will do, she started presenting facts and figures. There is really nothing new here, the information has been slowly coming out over the past year, but it is alarming just the same. I am going to give you some of the facts and figures contained in her report, just so we’re all on the same page and have a basic understanding of what has happened and placed us here.

I hope I don’t lose you in the sea of numbers, but I feel it is very important for you to see the trend and realize how badly and criminally our government was managed during the previous administration. For fiscal year 2001, which was the last year of former Governor Pedro P. Tenorio’s administration, the local government had combined local income and federal contributions totaling $277,057,785 with total expenditures of $258,177,431 leaving a surplus of $18,880,334 when comparing income to expenditures. We ended the fiscal year 2001 with net assets of $40,575,181. Available government funds at the end of fiscal year 2001 were $17,219,852. You may recall that when he took over, Governor Babauta blamed the deficits on his predecessor, unfortunately that simply isn’t true as shown by this G.A.O. report.

Once former Governor Babauta took over things started changing drastically and the figures speak for themselves. In fiscal year 2002, we had total revenues of $287,615,613 and total expenditures of $314,985,333, or a deficit of $27,369,720, and our net assets shrunk to $30,760,955. Available government funds at the end of fiscal year 2002 were a negative $4,249,748.

He continued his financially irresponsible spending in fiscal year 2003 as total government revenues were $282,972,842, total expenditures were $303,986,379 for a deficit of $21,013,537 and our net assets continued shrinking to $15,596,170. Available government funds at the end of fiscal year 2003 were a negative $25,263,285.

The downward spiral continued in fiscal year 2004 even as we were told things were pretty darn good. Total government revenues were $298,761,486 while total expenditures were $352,488,419 leaving a deficit for the year at $53,726,933 and our net assets were now a negative $18,656,437. Available government funds at the end of fiscal year 2004 were a negative $49,245,390.

And the final year of the Babauta administration led us to new all time lows. In fiscal year 2005 our total government revenues were $308,530,728, total expenditures were $343,370,293 leaving us with a deficit of $34,839,565. Our net assets were now a negative $38,131,589 and available government funds at the end of fiscal year 2005 were a negative $84,077,330.

Just for the record, it needs to be said that during his entire term as governor, Babauta kept claiming that he was cutting government jobs and spending, and yet the figures prove exactly the opposite. He was working hard to give the impression that things were pretty darn good by spending far more than the government was bringing in and sending it into complete bankruptcy.

The report also tells how the CNMI government increased its debt and failed to make its contributions to the retirement fund. The balance owed the retirement fund grew from $72 million in 2002 to $120 million in 2005 for an increase of 67%. And one of the most telling parts of the report states that the CNMI’s reported debt to assets ratio went from 89.8% in fiscal year 2002 to 113.5% in fiscal year 2005. In other words, at the end of fiscal year 2005, the CNMI owed $1.14 for every $1 in assets that it held.

In other words, Governor Babauta drove us into technical bankruptcy. We are now in serious debt, and don’t have anywhere near enough assets to cover it. When you look at our situation from the federal governments perspective, you can realize why they would be skeptical about anything we have to say.

And then the previous administration also tried covering up the problem by not providing their single audit reports on time. These audits are supposed to show the federal agencies that gave us grants how the money was used and that it was used in accordance with the terms and specifications of the grant. The Babauta administration didn’t seem to want to federal government to really know what was going on in a timely fashion, so they just put off filing the single audit reports, usually by more than a year. The audit report due for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2000 wasn’t due until June 30, 2001, but the Babauta administration didn’t get around to filing it until October 17, 2002, or 16 months late. The single audit report for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2001, which was also due the following June, wasn’t filed until June 6, 2003, a year late. The next one was 13 months late, the one for 2003 was a year late, and they never got around to filing their last one at all, they left that to the incoming Fitial administration to take care of, meaning it was filed 22 months late.

You could say to the federal government that we rejected Babauta for a second term because of those kinds of abuses and mismanagement. But then you would also have to answer as to why you haven’t done anything to hold him, or his Finance Secretary – Fermin Atalig, responsible for violating the Planning & Budgeting Act. The things they did were criminal, and right now it looks like they got away with it scott free. So when you have an agency like the General Accountability Office looking into your affairs and asking why you don’t uphold your own laws or prosecute those who violate them, what can you possibly say in your own defense? You obvious don’t have any accountability and therefore really have no credibility either. You can promise that we will implement our own minimum wage increase at a rate and scale we can handle if they agree not to federalize our minimum wage, but then we promised that before. We even went so far as passing laws that outlined the increases and the timelines, but then we repealed the law just as fast as we passed it as soon as we got past the Congressional hearings into our minimum wage. Let’s face it, our word isn’t worth anything in Washington, and we really haven’t done much to improve that situation.

Yes, this administration may be trying to cut their costs and not recklessly overspend the way Babauta did, but are they doing enough? And why aren’t they holding the previous administration legally liable for what they did while they were in office? Why have no charges been brought against any of the officials of the previous administration, and why don’t we believe that our laws are important enough to uphold? If you were a U.S. Congressman or Senator would you believe us? Or would you trust us to do the right thing? Would you believe that if you gave us money to help bail us out it would actually be used appropriately and not squandered?

Our real problem in Washington is that we have a serious credibility problem, and I don’t really see us doing anything that would convince them we deserve anything else. Until we get serious about holding our elected officials responsible, and show that we take our laws seriously, we can’t expect anyone else to take our laws serious either, especially the U.S. government.

That’s not to say the situation is hopeless and there are no other options, we will be looking at some of these options in coming days. But we need to wake up and realize that our number one problem is one of credibility and accountability, and then actually start doing something about it.
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.

Are the legislators finally listening and getting it? Time will tell!

2007-02-02T10:34:00.000+10:00

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.

Could it be that the legislature is finally starting to wake up and listen to the people who elected them? I realize that the question sounds like something out of a science fiction novel, especially when it comes to our legislature, but there was a story in the paper the other day that made me think they’ve actually been listening and paying attention to you. The House has unanimously passed a legislative initiative that would put the question of having an elected Attorney General on the ballot in November. The initiative now heads to the Senate for their consideration. If the Senate also passes the measure, it automatically goes on the ballot in November for you to decide on. In order for it to pass in the election, the initiative just needs a simple majority of voters to approve of it.

You may recall that Governor Fitial has previously stated that he is not in favor of having an elected Attorney General; in fact none of the gubernatorial candidates that talked to me favored having an elected Attorney General. I’m not sure whether they oppose it because it opens up the possibility of having an Attorney General with higher political ambitions tying up the government in lawsuits and hampering the governor’s ability to effectively govern, or whether they are afraid of being held legally accountable by someone who is only answerable to the people, and doesn’t serve only at the pleasure of the Governor. I believe things would have been drastically different in the previous administration if we had had an elected Attorney General in office. Governor Babauta might have had a much harder time violating the salary cap laws, and violating the Planning & Budgeting Act. An elected Attorney General who was serious about upholding the laws they were sworn to uphold and protect would never have sat still for such things.

Yes it’s true that Guam has had some struggles as a result of having an elected Attorney General, however I believe that the possibility of having some obstacles to work through is preferable to having a governor with no legal accountability. Many of you have also come to this same conclusion and are saying so publicly. In the public forum that happened as a result of Tina Sablan’s letter, that is one of the things that was mentioned that people feel is overdue. This is also something that has been discussed by the many groups that are starting to pop up all over the island.

People are tired of waiting for our politicians to figure out that our system isn’t working and to do something about it, and they’re willing to start taking matters into their own hands. I believe that some of our politicians may be waking up and realizing that some serious change is in the air unless they start responding to their constituents concerns, and that may be why we are finally seeing some movement in the legislature. Could it be that they are finally realizing that they need to deal with issues legislatively when the people are so fed up they’re willing to gather signatures for a popular initiative instead of waiting on their elected leaders to do the job we elected them and pay them to do?

The proof will be in the pudding as the old saying goes. The elected Attorney General issue is really the easiest, and least intrusive as far as the legislature is concerned for them to deal with. It’s not like it will make any difference to any of them whether the Attorney General is elected or appointed by the governor. Now the issues of a part time legislature, reducing the size of the legislature or moving toward a unicameral legislature are another story entirely. These are all issues that are also being widely discussed, and I believe if you did a poll, you’d find the vast majority of people feel these are issues that all need to be considered and addressed. But so far every time a lawmaker has tried to address any of these issues through a legislative initiative it has died in committee and never even made it to the floor for a vote. Now again you need to remember that even if both houses of the legislature pass a legislative initiative, it only means that the issue then goes on to the ballot for you to decide in the next regular election.

So if the legislators know that there are a growing number of people who want to move toward a part time legislature, why wouldn’t they want to put the issue on the ballot and let the people decide it for themselves? Could it be that they are placing their own selfish interests ahead of the will and desires of the people they are supposed to be representing? Are they afraid of losing their jobs and their positions of power? Are they afraid that it would encourage a whole new class of people to run for public office, people who don’t want to give up their day jobs and who aren’t running for office just for the money or the perks? Are the Rota & Tinian senators so addicted to their tax free $5,000 a month subsistence allowance that they wouldn’t even consider letting you vote on the question of a part time legislature?

Who are they really representing in the legislature, themselves or you? At this point I don’t believe any of them can seriously claim they haven’t heard about all the people who are favoring a part time legislature. So if they continue to refuse to pass a legislative initiative that would put the issue on the ballot, there is only one conclusion we can come to, they really care more about themselves and their money and power than they do about representing you. And if that were the case, then why on earth would we ever give any of them the chance to represent us in any office ever again? If they fool us once, shame on them, but if they fool us twice, shame on us!

Now I’m hoping that the elected Attorney General legislative initiative is just the first of such measures that our politicians will give us a chance to vote on in the upcoming election. I’m hoping they are smart enough to put the issue of a part time legislature on the ballot as well; otherwise we need to vote every single one of them that doesn’t support the measure out of office. And I’m also hoping that they realize it’s not wise to have our current system that allows a governor to take office without ever having a majority of voters behind him. We desperately need a run-off election law. So in other words if you have more than two candidates running for governor, and none of them get over 50% of the votes cast, then the top two would have a run off election so that you get a governor elected by a majority of the voters. We currently have a 28% governor, who can’t really claim to have a mandate from the majority of the people for anything.

While it is true that there is more than one way to get these things accomplished, by far the easiest way is for the legislature to do it’s job. It is supposed to be listening to the people who elected them and who they are supposed to be representing, and then acting accordingly. We elect and hire our legislators to deal with legislation, to listen to our concerns and then pass laws accordingly. A legislative initiative is far easier to pass and deal with than a popular initiative. But when our politicians refuse to listen to us and to do the job we’ve elected them to, then a popular initiative becomes a tool we can use to fix the situation ourselves. One thing every politician needs to realize is that if the public has to go to all the trouble of gathering signatures for a popular initiative, it means they feel their politicians have failed them, and there is really no need to keep them after that. For our politicians to refuse to entertain these other issues as legislative initiatives, it is tantamount to political suicide.

So I’m hoping that they will be addressing these other issues as well, and will show us that they do take their jobs seriously, and that they are listening to the people. Because in this political climate, people are sick and tired of the status quo, and I think they are more than willing to gather all the signatures they need to effectuate sweeping changes. The politicians can continue playing their risky little game of Russian roulette if they want to, but you’d better be seriously willing to commit suicide any time you put a loaded gun to your head.

So tell me legislators, have you finally woke up and gotten it? Are there more legislative initiatives to follow, or was the elected Attorney General initiative just a red herring trying to convince us you’re actually doing something? I’d say the ball is squarely in your court right now, and what you do with it will largely determine whether you will have a job after the election in November or not. I’d like to be optimistic and believe that our legislators are capable of change and improvement, but unfortunately I’m also a realist.

You the people need to keep speaking up and letting your voices be heard, people are listening and paying attention. It’s no longer just one of two of us calling for change, but a growing multitude. In order for real change to happen, it’s going to require determination and perseverance. The people truly do have the power; it’s just up to you to exercise it.

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.

Food For Thought

2007-01-26T21:20:00.000+10:00

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 to admit that some of the events of this past week have been particularly gratifying for me, seeing people come together and say enough is enough, we are in a mess and we have to stop counting on our politicians to fix it and get us out of it. I had Tina Sablan come in and read her letter for last week's Food For Thought, then this past Wednesday she held a community forum at Garapan Elementary school where any interested community member could come and share their thoughts and concerns. The issues that came out of this first community forum aren't new; I've been talking about most of them for the past 5 years. The need to have an elected Attorney General, downsizing of the legislature and turning it into a part time body, and drastically cutting the size of our government. And the one thing that tells me that this movement has momentum this time is that it's not being done during an election time. We have learned that our politicians will tell us absolutely anything to get elected; therefore I am always skeptical when I see these types of forums or rallies when they pop up in conjunction with a political party or an election. You might recall that we were promised if a certain candidate were elected, he would do away with the fuel surcharge on our C.U.C. bill as soon as he took office. It didn't happen, and less than a year later our C.U.C. bill over doubled in many cases. Another candidate promised to give us 4 more years of the same if we re-elected him, fortunately we didn't give him that opportunity. The point is that unfortunately we really can't believe anything our politicians tell us; they have proven that time and time again, they will say anything to hang on to power.

The thing that makes these community meetings and forums unique is that politicians or political parties are not organizing them, regular people, just like you and I, are organizing them. If real change is to happen, that is where it needs to start, and where the work needs to take place. If we continue waiting for our politicians to change things and improve anything, there will be nothing left to fix by the time they realize they need to get serious about it. The proof of these statements is recorded in the House and Senate records. Go back as many years as you'd like and see what they really have accomplished. If it is left up to them, they will never downsize the legislature or turn it into a part time body. A large part of the reason is that it is far too lucrative right now for the Tinian and Rota members of the Senate, and they are not about to give up that kind of money or those perks. If true change and real improvements are to take place, time and history have taught us that it will have to come from the grass roots level, our politicians simply don't have the will or integrity to truly fix the problems, since they have become a major part of the problems, and have structured things so that they handsomely benefit as a result.

It seems that people have truly had enough of politics as usual and realize that in order for any of us to survive, we must make some major changes in our government and in our way of doing things. There seem to be many things coming together all at once conspiring to make things very difficult for us in the CNMI, but if true change happens and people wake up and realize they need to play a key role, then this may be a blessing in disguise. It doesn't mean it will be easy by any means, if anything this will be a very hard and painful process for everyone involved, but most things that are worthwhile are worth fighting for. I believe that this will be a year of change in the CNMI unlike any we've ever seen before, but if the change is well thought out and well planned, this may be a year that things actually begin turning around here.

I had some people come to me concerned over a column they saw in the Pacific Times newspaper this past week. The headline to the column said, new car sales down by 50% - good! Now if you're in the automobile business, there is nothing good about that news at all, it means your profit margins are either seriously eroded or gone altogether. And that means that you're going to have to make some very hard decisions on cutting back on expenses and probably even cutting back on jobs. Charles Reyes Jr. who just happens to be the Governor's Press Secretary wrote the column. He was not writing it in his official capacity, and I'm fairly certain it wasn't sanctioned or approved by his boss. But unfortunately when your job is the Governor's Press Secretary, many people automatically assume that anything you say, especially when it's in the press, is in connection with your job or is the Governor's stand on the issue. His whole premise for writing the article was that he believed people are better off never borrowing money for anything, and that if you don't have to pay any interest, you will have more money in the end for yourself. While there may be merit to some of the things he had to say, the last thing that businesses want to hear when they're suffering and struggling is that someone in government is happy they are suffering and struggling. Charles attitude and sentiments probably didn't sit well with anyone in the banking or loan business, or anyone who sells furniture, appliances or anything that might require financing. These businesses are probably all trying to calculate whether it's worthwhile to stay in the CNMI at all right now. They need to know that they have a sympathetic government behind them, one who understands their plight and is doing everything in it's power to improve the situation for them. After all, as businesses prosper, they pay more money in taxes and hire more employees, all of which puts more money into the government tax base. Under Charles premise from the article, one has to wonder if he'd be happier if we were all going back to a subsistence living, fishing, farming and raising coconuts. I bring this up for a couple different reasons, I talked to Charles about this article and he assured me that he was writing it as a private citizen, and it had nothing to do with his professional responsibilities. But I also feel that it is important for government officials or even employees to realize just how important their dependence on business is, for without the private sector, they would all be unemployed and living on food stamps. It seems like some of them forget that they ultimately work for us, the taxpayer and businessperson. In order for any of us to survive this current economic crisis, it is going to require all of us pitching in, doing what we can and helping each other to survive. Being happy that anyone's business is down by 50% isn't an attitude that we really need at the moment.

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.