"Dead on arrival" - that's how Attorney General Douglas Moylan described the lease for Eagles Field, Governor Lou Leon Guerrero's preferred site for her billion-dollar medical campus. Moylan appeared today at a hearing called by Speaker Therese Terlaje to discuss the deal. But the governor was a very conspicuous no-show.
The governor was the main invitee, but to the great disappointment of senators, she let the speaker know she'd be off-island and wouldn't be attending. And in an amended letter late yesterday wrote that Lieutenant Governor Josh Tenorio wouldn't be there, either.
But Moylan was on hand, and he explained the main reason why he rejected the deal, detailing, "I think that it doesnt matter what bells and whistles you put on the lease it requires money and that was the most important and glaring problem with this lease, is that it required your participation. Because the appropriations clause of the organic act clearly requires that before taxpayers are bound by any obligation, especially any obligation as expensive and as long as this obligation, that the legislature be involved."
Meanwhile, the message from lawmakers has been they all want a hospital, but its not something the governor should be doing on her own. Speaker Terlaje said, "I'm really trying my hardest; we want a hospital, we want it to be built immediately, we closed our eyes a little bit when we approved this financing. i dont think previous legislatures would've been as generous as us."
And many in the 37th Guam Legislature remain skeptical about who's getting the better end of the deal. For example, the speaker says what if it was reversed and the military would be the one to build the hospital, noting, "We will promise to be theri patients, in fact we can lease them our land and they can pay us the lease payments and then we will lease it even cheaper than a million dollars a year. right they build a hospital for us we will promise to be their patients.thats the deal, thats the deal we are being faced with, and I feel if you flip that over, it's ridiculous."
And with just five days left until Joint Region Marianas commander Rear Admiral Benjamin Nicholson's extended deadline of April 30, Moylan shed light on what the administration's next move might be - which is to take the entire matter to court.
"I don't think any petitioner or plaintiff in the court system is going to have an easy time getting this document approved given the amount of money involved, the time the lease would be binding an entire people, which in this case would be the people of Guam," he said.
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