Wednesday, July 26, 2017

SHENANIGANS LIKE THIS

I've been a regular critic of Speaker BJ Cruz, however, on this one, I'm in his corner. From KUAM:
In a scathing four page letter sent to the AG on Monday, the Speaker accused her of breaking the law by providing incentive or bonus pay to an employee of her office that was not entitled to it. Cruz then accused the AG of unethically writing an opinion justifying the adjustment. "  
And then, I love this line:
"To circumvent this clear statutory reality, you issued a legal opinion worthy of Goldie Locks and the Three Bears".  
Nice job, BJ. Kinda sound like me going after Apuron and Adrian for the last 4 years. KUAM continues:
The issue about the bonus pay was the subject of a recent budget oversight hearing with the AG’s office.  In his letter, Speaker Cruz accused the Attorney General of having a "Record of Failure, Silence and Exploitation".
And then Cruz cites three reasons for his hot and hostile accusations of Barrett-Anderson:
(1) Allowing the statute of limitations to expire to select a Special Prosecutor to investigate the Governor for his illegal issuance of retroactive bonus pay to his employees in 2014, (2) Remaining silent when government officials took money from the Child Support Enforcement Fund, and (3) Willfully exploiting her office to benefit her employees and then deceiving the legislature to do so."
And then Cruz smashes her with this:
"Perhaps you are so busy trying to keep your job, you have forgotten to do your job." 
The reason I'm in the Speaker's corner on this is because it's about time someone notices that something is "not right" at the AG's office. Last year, Barrett-Anderson publicly tried to mock Bob Klitzkie on K57 after he cornered her for doing almost exactly what Cruz accuses her of doing here: "circumventing a clear statutory reality."

After exposing the bogus certificate of title for the Yona property published in the Umatuna by David "Lurch" Quitugua, and further exposing Apuron's "trained lawyer's" dirty fingerprints all over it, Klitzkie had sought the assistance of the Director of Land Management, Michael Borja, to right the wrong.

Seeking assistance himself, Borja asked Barrett-Anderson what to do about the really, really wrong certificate of title for the Yona property. On January 20, 2016, Borja advised Klitzkie of Barrett-Anderson's advice:


So Barrett-Anderson had rightly opined: the law required the registrar (Borja) "to petition the court to correct a certificate of title." 

This of course makes sense. The sanctity of land titles is fundamental to the functioning of civil society. We cannot be living in fear that the house we are living in or the land we are farming can suddenly be taken away because someone shows up with a piece of paper with their name and your lot number on it. Thus, our laws are set up to protect us from this sort of thing by requiring the correction of errant land titles to be handled by the court and not some back room clerk!

However, after this letter to Klitzkie from Borja on January 20, all went dark for the next several weeks. Finally, after not hearing anything from Borja, Klitzkie decided to find out for himself what was going on and arranged a meeting with Borja, at which Asst. AG, Kristen Finney, Borja's counsel, was also present. 

It was immediately clear why things suddenly went dark. The same dirty "trained lawyer" fingerprints that were on the false certificate of title were now on the walls inside the Department of Land Management. Klitzkie memorialized the revelation in a letter to Borja after the meeting:


Sure enough, the matter NEVER went to court as required by law, and on March 17, Borja did the dirty:


Per Borja's Jan 20 letter to Klitzkie, the AG advised that the law required DLM to petition the court to correct the certificate of title. But apparently, after working something out with Apuron's "trained lawyer," the AG must have, well...circumvented "a clear statutory reality."

But what are clear laws to Guam's top law enforcer? As Speaker Cruz is now showing, (and as Klitzie unveiled already last year) apparently, not much. 

You can read the whole bloody mess at the tab CERTIFICATE OF TITLE FIASCO

By the way, because the AG and the "trained lawyer" were able to "work something out," the title had to later be fixed at a cost of about FORTY-FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS, paid by you and me, via the chancery, to a lawyer who drew up the docs for Byrnes to sign, which brought the Yona property back to the Church. 

So you are having to pay more for your kids tuition this year to help pay for the new assessments on students? Well, you can thank shenanigans like this. 

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4 comments:

  1. Just sad how the AG's office is being run. According to barret-Andersen on KUAM tonight, she stated that "this is my family and I am going to fight hard for any member in my office. "

    So is it right to fight for family or is it right to fight for the LAW and the OFFICE she represents? Or is it "screw the law and the people of this island this AG's office is supposed to represent cause my family is more important."

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    Replies
    1. Maybe she'll work something out wit Jackie.

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  2. Barrett Anderson was someone of integrity.....or so I thought. What a disappointment. Thumbs down.

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  3. I sure as hell won't vote for her. Need to drain that swamp.

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