By Jacob Nakamura
(View the Legislature's livestream of the oversight hearing above)
(Tumon, Guam) Sen. Kelly Marsh Taitano and her husband, Bureau of Statistics and Plans director Tyrone Taitano, are attempting to discredit a professional planning and program management firm in order to replace them with the couple's friends.
The senator is conducting a second oversight hearing of the Hagatna Restoration and Redevelopment Authority as of the writing of this story. Her hearing, which comes on the heels of public outrage over her appropriation of public money to FestPac at a time of dire fiscal constraints in the government. She has publicly blasted HRRA's executive director, Lasia Casil, over fabricated uses of public funds for the rebuilding of the island's capital.
In the first hearing held last Tuesday, Ms. Taitano painted the picture of poor fiscal decisions by the HRRA board and Ms. Casil. She also called into question Ms. Casil's procurement authority over a $196,000 payment she made in March.
The payment, as it turns out, was authorized, and within the scope of Ms. Casil's authority.
HRRA is a diamond in the rough in the government of Guam. It is one of the few agencies that has been able to achieve its mission by guided timelines. HRRA is responsible for the redevelopment of Hagatna into a cultural center and incorporated city.
The conceptual design of the city was created during the Calvo administration by an independent contractor, Matrix Design Group, which has decades of experience in urban planning. The design phase of this process is in a zoning code documents subphase, with the HRRA moving along its mission timelines thanks to the work by Matrix.
Matrix was contracted through a proposals procurement process with Guam Economic Development Authority, which entered into a memorandum of understanding with HRRA to help the agency facilitate its mission.
One of the results of their deliverables was a conceptual design overview, which you can view below:
"I want to acknowledge all the work Matrix has done," HRRA board chairwoman Maria Eugenia Leon Guerrero said at the hearing.
Ms. Taitano, since the early part of her term last year, has been attacking Ms. Casil and the HRRA in an effort to replace Matrix with a company of people whom she and her husband, Mr. Taitano, are friends with. Mr. Taitano managed to wrestle some control over HRRA from Ms. Casil, when those attacks began last year.
Kandit news, I have a question. Who is the women in the left bottom photo? Is it the same women who claims to be black but was born white? If not, she could pass as a twin. See article URL for photo and story.
Woman who posed as black makes plea deal in fraud case
https://apnews.com/8dd4919de8004b9a8c81e5f87ee11209
In this March 20, 2017, file photo, Nkechi Diallo, then known as Rachel Dolezal, poses for a photo in Spokane, Wash. The former NAACP leader in Washington state whose life unraveled in 2015 after she was exposed as a white woman pretending to be black has reached an agreement to avoid trial on charges of welfare fraud. Dolezal, who changed her name to N…
Yeah, make sure your reporting gives credit to who actually has done all the work for HRRA and that's been Joseph C. Santos. It's not incorrect that rumors have been made about Taitano & his wife, but Ms. Casil nor any other appointee wasn't the one who has given years for this dream.