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Senator Randy Cunliffe (D), Vice-Speaker Frank Aguon, Jr. (D)
Ken Wetmore (KUAM): Good evening and thank you for joining us this evening for at
issue, I have in studio with me this evening incumbent democrat Randy Cunliffe and
incumbent Frank Aguon Jr. welcome. It's nice to have both of you here. Senator Cunliffe,
a very controversial part of your term in office has been your representation of criminal
defendants while at the same time overseeing the Guam Attorney General's Office, that
has changed with Senator John Quinata having oversight of the office, but do you think
it was improper for you having oversight over the AG's office?
Senator Randy Cunliffe: No.
KW: Why not?
RC: There's nothing been improper from the beginning, the situation is such that the
Legislature divides up its agencies and the various divisions and the AG happen to
be at that time in the courts, which I didn't think that it should be because it's
really law enforcement, but it was there when it was divided up, and the issue of
having oversight over an agency has nothing to do with oversight over individuals
and the fact that the Attorney General and I might not see eye to eye on things, has
nothing to do with the ability to do your job. The Attorney General often thought
that I did not like, and therefore I wasn't doing "what he wanted me to do for him"
but that not the job of an oversight chairperson.
KW: So it was never personal for you in any of the decisions that you made?
RC: No, In 27 years as a lawyer, you have people that like and then you have people
that don't like you and that's just what happens to lawyers. There's always someone
on the other side of a case and you learn very quickly not to take it personally.
KW: Alright, Vice Speaker Aguon, just before the FY05 budget process began you admonished
the Camacho Administration to stay within a $410 million budget, in fact, in May of
this year, I have you quoted as saying, in this case there's not a recognition at
this point that going in to FY05 that there will be budgetary constraints and that's
the difficulty I have in being able to entertain this I want to see that in fact there
is fiscal constraint applied in any budgetary consideration, I want to see that the
cumulative number remains within Fiscal Year '04 limitation of $410 million. How is
it then that almost immediately after you devised a $447 million budget and in spit
of a veto have persisted on staying with the $447 million budget?
Vice-Speaker Frank Aguon, Jr.: Well first of all, if you take a look at the overall
revenue projections what is the variance between the $447 million verses the $410
million, you have a major variance of $31 million dollars of outstanding prior year
tax collection provision and that was a figure that was provided by the executive
branch. And then if you extract that from the $447 million you're down to $416 million,
which is a reasonable expectable level of general fund revenue for the Government
of Guam going into Fiscal Year '05.
KW: Sure, but when you gave me that quote to begin with you had that information at
that time, the $31 million.
FA: No, the $31 million was not incorporated as part of the $410 million only because,
we were looking at different factors, first and foremost when you're looking at $81
million in additional investment on the part of the military to upgrade their facilities,
in addition to that you're looking at $200,000+ additional tourists coming in to the
community at a level of 1.3 million obviously those all have economic impact, those
have impacts in terms of bringing additional revenues to the government of Guam and
when we were able to finalize all of that economic information and apply it towards
a revenue projection, we came up with a revenue projection of $460 million plus the
$31 million prior year tax receivable tax collection level and it brought us to a
level of $447 million.
KW: So this doesn't have anything to do with an election year, giving out subsidy,
giving out raising, the giving raises to government of Guam employees?
FA: You know there's been a lot of statements being made, about maybe this is election
year politics, but if you're going to accuse the committee as well as the democrat
majority of election year politics, or giving the supplemental annuity back, if you're
talking about giving the increments rightfully so after 5 fiscal years where the public
employees have made serious sacrifices over the course of the last five years, despite
the increases of other activities, when you talk about giving back a lot of these
resources back to the community, $25 million additional to DOE alone in terms of the
Fiscal Year '05 budget, those are the additional investments into the critical areas
of education, public safety and healthcare... then perhaps you can call it election
year, but at the same token and in the same breath you have to call it responsible
budget in terms of making sure that you prioritize the three areas and in this case
we made a policy decision to also give back increments to also give back supplemental
annuity.
KW: Senator Cunliffe at the beginning of your term you told me that you couldn't vote
for Senator Ben Pangelinan to be Speaker, have your feelings changed about him over
the last two years?
RC: Not really, I mean Ben and I have always been friends... the issue of my voting
for him to be Speaker, was a personal issue between Ben and I and we dealt with it
on a personal level but it has nothing to do with our relationship. It had to do with
past issues.
KW: But you feel you've worked those issues out?
RC: Oh yeah, I think that Frank will tell you, Ben and I get along real well and work
real well together.
KW: Final question for the Vice-Speaker, you have criticized the Governor for not
coming up with a reorganization plan more quickly and now you are criticizing his
plan, you are the Chair of the Legislature's Reorganization Committee, why haven't
you come up with a plan?
FA: Absolutely, you know one thing about this whole process, of reorganization is
that last year in May, I came out publicly and I said, 'OK, Governor, if you're not
going to move forward with reorganization we're going to come out with our own committee
and make sure we begin this process at least the dialoging, and looking at reorganizing
and restructuring the Government of Guam', well incidentally right after I made that
public pronouncement through the media, as matter of fact it came out on KUAM, the
next week the Chief Executive and the Lt. Governor decided to get together and form
their own organization for reorganization.. so rather than duplicating the process,
I said okay, let me step back a little, let me let the executive branch, and rightfully
so, they know the resources, they know exactly the mandates for the respective government
of Guam agencies, they also know perhaps what the real services and the real demand
for services are out there in the community, rightfully so give them that opportunity
to formulate their reorganization plan, bring it to the Legislature and we'll entertain
it from our perspective, and it took a year almost a year and a half to receive the
first two proposals fortunately we have two, but I think that's two or ten proposal
shy of really moving in the direction of reorganization and restructuring, and we
would certainly move aggressively forward once this budget issue is completed.
KW: I have five yes or no questions for you. The first question is would you support
legalizing same sex marriage on Guam?
RC: As I told you earlier Ken, I won't answer yes or no questions, It doesn't allow
me to formulate my opinion to the people.
FA: No.
Ken; Would you support legalizing the use of marijuana on Guam for medical purposes
only?
RC: I already told you, I won't answer yes or no questions.
FA: Yes.
KW: Do you support the Governor's bridge financing that's currently held up in court?
FA: Yes.
KW: Do you support the position of an elected Attorney General?
FA: Yes.
KW: Do you support the Governor's reorganization plan?
FA: Yes.
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